Gregory Sierra, a character actor who navigated easily between comedy and drama but was best known for his supporting roles on the sitcoms “Sanford and Son” and “Barney Miller,” died on Jan. 4 at his home in Laguna Woods, Calif. He was 83.
His wife, Helene Sierra, said the cause was stomach and liver cancer.
Lanky and balding, Mr. Sierra started out in Hollywood in the late 1960s and early ’70s taking modest parts — including on the sitcom “The Flying Nun” and the secret agent series “Mission Impossible,” as well in as the 1970 film sequel “Beneath the Planet of the Apes.”
With his Puerto Rican background, Mr. Sierra was often cast in ethnic roles, including Latinos, Italians and Native Americans.
In 1972, during its second season, he joined the cast of “Sanford and Son,” one of Norman Lear’s many groundbreaking sitcoms, in the recurring role of Julio Fuentes, a junk dealer who lived next door to Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx), who also had a junkyard with his son, Lamont (Demond Wilson), in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. He stayed until 1975.
Julio tried hard to befriend Fred but was the frequent target of his insults.
“Why don’t you go do some work in your yard,” Fred tells Julio in one episode. “Go take a bath. Go milk your goat.”
“I did that all this morning,” Julio says.
“Why don’t you go back to Puerto Rico?” Fred says.
“I come from New York City and I can live in any of the 50 states I want,” Julio answers.
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“Why don’t you try Alaska?” Fred responds. “That’s a state.”
Mr. Sierra left “Sanford and Son” to become a member of the original cast of “Barney Miller,” the Emmy Award-winning sitcom starring Hal Linden set in a police precinct in Greenwich Village. As Detective Sgt. Chano Amenguale, Mr. Sierra earned particular praise for a 1975 episode which he was emotionally devastated and nearly broke down after killing two gunmen.
After two seasons, he left “Barney Miller” when he was cast as the star of an ensemble comedy, “A.E.S. Hudson Street,” about an emergency service hospital in Manhattan. He played a doctor in the series, which made its debut in 1978.
In his review, The New York Times’s television critic John J. O’Connor described “A.E.S. Hudson Street” as “silly, often downright stupid and occasionally insultingly tasteless.” But, he added, “With Mr. Sierra around to hold the absurdities together, it should not be written off to quickly.”
