Lawrence Tierney

Lawrence Tierney (1919–2002) was an American film actor known for portraying tough, often criminal characters. He gained major attention playing the title role in the film noir *Dillinger* (1945), a performance that helped define his screen persona. Over subsequent decades he appeared in a range of film and television projects, frequently cast as gangsters or hard-edged authority figures. Tierney returned to wide public notice late in his career as Joe Cabot in Quentin Tarantino’s *Reservoir Dogs* (1992). His work is often associated with classic crime cinema and the enduring image of the Hollywood heavy.