Antonio Fargas : Biography, Pictures, Photos, Trivia, Address, Filmography (Starsky and Hutch)

Tall, lanky & twinkle eyed African American actor with wonderful onscreen charisma has been appearing on stage and screen for nearly forty years. Fargas first appeared onscreen in Shirley Clarke's The Cool World (1964) in a gritty, uncompromising tale about African American youth growing up in Harlem, New York City, and then made his acting presence felt in many "blaxploitation" films of the early 1970s including private eye thriller, Shaft (1971), the mafia flick, Across 110th Street (1972), the ultra violent Foxy Brown (1974) & the classic tale of _Huckleberry Finn (1975)_ .

Around this time TV executives were looking for a capable actor to play the role of golden hearted, street informant "Huggy Bear" on "Starsky and Hutch" (1975), and Fargas scored the role for which he is most closely identified. His career continued to flourish after Starsky & Hutch wrapped up after four years, and he has appeared in over 50 movies to date, many TV shows and numerous stage productions including playing a 90 year old witch doctor in "The Great White Hope", Melvin van Peeble's "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death", and productions of "The Rainmaker", "The Emperor Jones" & "Dream on Monkey Mountain". A strong advocate of the cultural strength & diversity of African American culture, Fargas holds positions on the boards of the Rhode Island's Langton Hughes Center for the Arts, and The Martin Luther King Center of Newport.

Antonio restores old homes, including a 1790's colonial in Connecticut and an 1820s farm house in upstate New York.

After moving back to L.A. after his divorce, he appeared in music videos and started a music production company, Bump It.

Appeared in stage production of "Blues Brothers" in UK, doing Cab Calloway's "Minnie The Moocher".

Fargas' son, Justin, was recently drafted as a running back by the Oakland Raiders.

His performance as a pimp in the 1974 James Caan film The Gambler helped him land the role of informant Huggy Bear in Starsky and Hutch.

Spouse : Taylor Hastie (1979 - ?) 1 stepson, Sandra Reed (? - ?) 4 children.

His son, Justin Fargas, will be a senior running back at the University of Southern California in the fall of 2002. He previously played for the University of Michigan.

• Creation date: 01/07/2003 by stals
• Last update: 01/05/2007 by piaf28