Enrico Armetta (1888-1945) left Sicily aged 14, as a stowaway on a boat bound for New York. He managed to avoid being sent back, and was working as a valet at the Lambs Club when actor Raymond Hitchcock got him a job in the chorus of a musical.
Armetta worked for stock companies and on Broadway for a few years, and also appeared in a handful of films for New York-based companies. In 1920, he made his way to Hollywood, and established a career playing stereotypical Italians in pictures such as Fantômas (1920) and A Girl in Every Port (1928).
Armetta’s career as a supporting player really took off with the coming of sound, when there was a demand for actors who could do ethnic accents, and he became a familiar face in about 150 films as various Luigis, Giuseppes and Tonys. He had featured roles in two of John M Stahl’s greatest melodramas, Imitation of Life (1934) and Magnificent Obsession (1935), while also playing uncredited barbers, waiters and street vendors.
Henry Armetta had a featured role in The Devil’s Brother, and appeared in a further MGM musicals: The Cat and the Fiddle (as the taxi driver), The Merry Widow (uncredited as the lascivious Turk at Maxim’s), Everybody Sing, The Big Store and Anchors Aweigh.
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