LAST OF THE ORIGINAL OCEAN’S 11
Henry Silva, last of the roguish thieves in the original 1960 Rat Pack Las Vegas caper Ocean’s 11, died at the age of 95.
The tough guy was born in Brooklyn of Sicilian and Spanish descent and raised in Harlem. He quit school when he was 13 years old to attend drama classes, supporting himself as a dishwasher and waiter at a Manhattan hotel.
“Harlem,” he one said, “is the kind of place where if you lived on one block and you wanted to go a few blocks away, you had to take a couple of guys with you, or else you would get your ass kicked.”
Silva played the title character Johnny Cool, an assassin for the mob, in the 1963 film with Sammy Davis Jr. and Elizabeth Montgomery.
The other Ocean’s 11 stars now gone:
Frank Sinatra, died in 1998 at 82; Dean Martin, 1995 (78); Sammy Davis Jr. 1990 (64); Peter Lawford, 1984 (61); Richard Conte, 1975 (65); Joey Bishop, 2007 (89); Norman Fell, 1998 (64); Buddy Lester, 2003 (87); Richard Benedict, 1984 (64); Clem Harvey, 1988 (69).
