Andy Garcia Biography

Actor

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Name at birth: Andrés Arturo Garcia-Menendez

Movie star Andy Garcia is a Cuban American leading man known especially for his Oscar-nominated role as Vincent Mancini, the hot-headed nephew from Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather: Part III (1990). Garcia emigrated to the U.S. as a boy; his family fled Cuba in 1961 after that country's takeover by Fidel Castro. After school in Florida, Garcia headed to Hollywood to make it as an actor in the late 1970s. He finally began getting regular work as an actor in the mid-1980s and had memorable roles in the feature films 8 Million Ways to Die (1986, starring Jeff Bridges) and The Untouchables (1987, starring Kevin Costner). He was the lead in 1990's Internal Affairs (opposite Richard Gere) and his appearance in The Godfather made him an international star, and during the 1990s he had a steady career on the big screen. His movies have included Jennifer Eight (1992, with Uma Thurman); When a Man Loves a Woman (1994, with Meg Ryan and Ellen Burstyn); Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995); The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca (1997); and Desperate Measures (1998, with Michael Keaton). While playing both nice guys and villains in the movies, Garcia has worked on personal projects about Cuba. He directed the 1993 documentary Cachao... Como Su Ritmo No Hay Dos (1993) and was nominated for an Emmy as trumpet player Arturo Sandoval in the TV movie For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story (2000; Garcia was also executive producer). In recent years audiences have come to know him as Terry Benedict -- the casino owner who put the "ick" in slick -- in Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven (2001, starring George Clooney). Since then he has appeared in Confidence (2003), The Lost City (2005; Garcia also director, executive producer and composers), Smokin' Aces (2006) and the Ocean's Eleven sequels in 2004 and 2007.