Coupeville Sports

Dennis Farina (Photo copyright Touchstone Pictures)

Dennis Farina was The Man.

A real-life Chicago cop who became a movie and TV star by bringing a no-nonsense style from the streets to the silver screen, his death Monday, at age 69, flat out stinks.

Coming on the heels of James Gandolfini’s passing, it leaves a huge hole in the world of character actors, of lugs who were so much more than they looked at first glance.

Farina headlined two of the best TV shows to ever grace the boob tube.

The first was the somewhat-lauded “Crime Story,” which tracked a neon-lit battle between cops and hoods that stretched from Chicago to Vegas, set to Del Shannon’s driving theme song. Watched over by “Miami Vice” creator Michael Mann, it was prime ’80s TV.

The other, far more overlooked series, was 1998’s short-lived (and utterly delightful) “Buddy Faro,” which had Farina as a permanently-soused detective who vanished in ’78 and surfaces (sort of) face-down in a bowling alley twenty years later. Found by an obsessive fan who gets him to re-start his P.I. service, Buddy brought a dash of the swingin’ ’70s into the modern era.

Eight episodes was all we got, but it was prime Farina.

Countless TV episodes, from “Hardcastle & McCormick” to “Miami Vice” to “China Beach” and “Remington Steele.” Then there were the movies — “Thief,” “Manhunter,” “Out of Sight,” “Get Shorty,” “Midnight Run,” “Saving Private Ryan” and the criminally-overlooked “Big Trouble,” where Farina was an increasingly more and more pissed-off hit man who couldn’t catch a break.

The man was gold, from the mustache to the deadpan dialogue to the eyes that had seen things in his 18 years in the Chicago Police Department’s burglary division. He was an original, a one of a kind character actor and he made everything he was in better.

Good-night and God speed, Mr. Farina.