Ralph Manza

Ralph Manza (December 1, 1921 – January 31, 2000) was an American character actor who made over 160 appearances in American film and television shows.

Manza was born in San Francisco on December 1, 1921. His Italian parents wanted him to be a surgeon. A pre-med student at UC-Berkeley in the early 1940s, Manza was drafted into the United States Army during World War II. He was serving as a medic in the Army when he was assigned to an acting troupe. In that capacity he toured Iceland playing in musicals. When he returned after the war, he took classes at Elizabeth Halloway's School of Acting in San Francisco.

The diminutive Manza appeared on daytime television briefly in 1963 as an original cast member of the ABC-TV soap opera series General Hospital, where he played the role of Mike Costello. Manza went on to become a character actor appearing on many primetime TV series in guest role spots, beginning in the 1950s with the TV crime/drama series Highway Patrol, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

In 1959 Manza was cast as assistant district attorney Al Bonacorsi in the NBC-TV series The D.A.'s Man. At that time he had been driving a taxi at night in Hollywood for three years.

This part of his acting career continued to flourish through the 1960s, with appearances on such shows as 77 Sunset Strip, McHale's Navy, Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone, Gomer Pyle - U.S.M.C. and Gunsmoke, continuing in the 1970s and 1980s on such series such as Get Smart, My Three Sons, Night Gallery, Police Woman, Hart to Hart, Chico and the Man, Barney Miller (in 7 episodes), Benson, Simon & Simon, Night Court, The Golden Girls, Newhart, Mama's Family, Growing Pains, and on Banacek, co-starring as perpetually puzzled chauffeur Jay Drury.

He went into the 1990s with appearances on NBC-TV's Seinfeld and Friends, CBS-TV's The Nanny, and ABC-TV's Home Improvement. Manza also made appearances in several feature films, perhaps most memorably as the actor playing Hitler in Mel Brooks' 1974 comedy Blazing Saddles ("They lose me after the bunker scene"), and as the fisherman whose scene in the 1998 Godzilla was used as the film's first teaser.

Manza died on January 31, 2000 at Scripps Health-Encintas Hospital in Encinitas, California of a heart attack. He had suffered a heart attack three weeks earlier as well, while filming a commercial for Budweiser.