Philip Michael Bosco (born September 26, 1930) is an American Tony Award- and Daytime Emmy award-winning actor.
Bosco was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of Margaret Raymond (née Thek), a policewoman, and Philip Lupo Bosco, a carnival worker. Bosco went to high school at St. Peter's Preparatory School in Jersey City. He attended the Catholic University of Washington, D.C. Bosco married Nancy Ann Dunkle on January 2, 1957. They have seven children, Jenny, Diane, Philip, Chris, John, Lisa, Celia and 15 grandchildren. A long-time resident of Teaneck, New Jersey, Bosco now lives in Haworth, New Jersey.
Bosco began his career in Broadway theatre. He received a Tony Award nomination for his debut in The Rape of the Belt in 1960 and spent the next three decades supporting major stars in classic revivals like Cyrano de Bergerac, King Lear, and Twelfth Night. His speciality was George Bernard Shaw, winning raves for Broadway revivals of Man and Superman, Saint Joan, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Major Barbara, Heartbreak House (opposite Rex Harrison), and You Never Can Tell, winning Tony nominations for the last three. He also appeared with Shirley Knight in the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of Come Back, Little Sheba.
Following his Tony-winning performance in the farce Lend Me a Tenor in 1990, Bosco appeared on Broadway in An Inspector Calls (1994), The Heiress (1995), Twelfth Night (1998), Copenhagen (2000), and Twelve Angry Men (2004). He played "Grandpa Potts" in the 2005 Broadway production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and capped his Shawian work as the aged Captain Shotover in a Broadway revival of Heartbreak House in 2006.
Bosco is a familiar face to viewers of the Law & Order franchise of television series, appearing in various roles ranging from judges to lawyers to villains. His film credits include Hogan's Goat, Working Girl, Children of a Lesser God, Nobody's Fool, Wonder Boys, Quick Change, and The Savages, with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney. Bosco also portrayed Walter Wallace, father of the bride-to-be in the 1997 romantic comedy My Best Friend's Wedding, co-starring Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz and Dermot Mulroney.
In 1988, Bosco won a Daytime Emmy award for his appearance in the ABC Weekend Special 'Read Between The Lines'. Bosco is a series regular on the FX original series Damages. He read Desert Giant: The World of the Saguaro Cactus by Barbara Bash as its narrator on the PBS series Reading Rainbow in its sixty-second episode on March 27,1990. It was shot in Arizona's Sonoran Desert.
