- Born
- Birth nameAntonio Juan Fargas
- Nickname
- Tony
- Height6′ 1″ (1.85 m)
- A tall, lanky and twinkle-eyed African-American actor with wonderful
onscreen charisma, Antonio Fargas has been appearing on stage and
screen for nearly 60 years as of 2021. His film debut was in Shirley Clarke's The Cool World (1963), a
gritty, uncompromising tale about African-American youth growing up in
Harlem, New York. He then made his acting presence felt in many
"blaxploitation" films of the early 1970s, including the classic
Shaft (1971), the Mafia flick Across 110th Street (1972), the ultra-violent Pam Grier vehicle
Foxy Brown (1974) and the classic tale of Huckleberry Finn (1975).
Around this time ABC-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 with which he is most closely
identified. His career continued to flourish after "Starsky and Hutch"
wrapped up after four years, and he has appeared in over 50 movies to
date, many TV shows and numerous stage productions. He has played a
90-year-old witch doctor in "The Great White Hope", was in Melvin Van Peebles'
"Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death", and appeared in productions of
"The Rainmaker", "The Emperor Jones" and "Dream on Monkey Mountain". A
strong advocate of the strength and diversity of African-American
culture, Fargas holds positions on the boards of Rhode Island's Langston
Hughes Center for the Arts and The Martin Luther King Center of
Newport.- IMDb Mini Biography By: firehouse44
- SpousesTaylor Hastie(July 12, 1979 - 1988) (divorced, 1 child)Sandy Fargas(? - present) (4 children)
- Flashy or sartorial dress
- Antonio restores old homes, including a 1790's colonial in Connecticut
and an 1820s farm house in upstate New York. - Son, Justin Fargas, played running back for the Oakland Raiders (2003-2009).
- Of Puerto Rican and Trinidadian heritage.
- Appeared in stage production of "Blues Brothers" in UK, doing Cab Calloway's "Minnie The Moocher".
- His performance as a pimp in The Gambler (1974) helped him land the role of informant Huggy Bear in Starsky and Hutch (1975).
- He (Huggy Bear) wasn't a pimp. This whole glorification of pimps and all that makes people think that. But they never told you what he did. One minute he had a bar, the next minute he was a guy on the street hustling, but he was always in the know. But he was never a pimp. The guy who was on 'Baretta' was a pimp. His character was called The Rooster. Plus there were other roles were I had played pimps so a lot of people may have thought that.
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