Mineo, born in The Bronx, New York City as the boy of the Sicilian coffwithin maker, was enrolled by his mother in dancing & acting school at an early age.

Acting career
Mineo experienced his foremost stage appearance in The Rose Tattoo (1950), a play by Tennessee Williams. He as well played a immature prince paired Yul Brynner in the stage musical The King And I.

Fallowing two or three extra film & television appearances his breakthrough was Rebel Forgoing The Stimulator (1955) in which he gave an telling performance when John "Plato" Crawford, a sensitive adolescent smitten by owning James Dean's Jim Stark. His biographer Paul Jeffers recounted that Mineo received hundreds to thousands of fan letters from either immature female admirers, was mobbed by the children at public appearances & farther wrote, "He dated the most beautiful women in Hollywood and New York." Mineo was later on reunited by using Dean around Giant, though only around two or three scenes.

Numerous of his subsequent roles were variations of his role inside Rebel While forgoing the Drive & he typically played juvenile delinquents. Per late 1950s he was a major celebrity, another time known as the "Switchblade Kid".

Within 1957, Mineo made the brief foray into music by recording the handful of songs & an album. 2 of his singles reached a Top 40 popular stock and index charts.

Meanwhile Mineo processed an effort to break his typecasting. His acting ability & somewhat exotic serious looks earned him roles as a Native American boy in Tonka and as a Jewish emigrant inside Otto Preminger's Exodus for which he received another Academy Award nomination when Best Supporting Actor (and reportedly was bitterly disappointed while he didn't win).

Per early Sixties he was developing as well old to play the types that experienced manufactured him far-famed & for a kind of reasons wasn't considered appropriate for leading roles. He auditioned for David Lean's film Lawrence of Arabia but wasn't hired. Mineo was baffled by his sudden loss of popularity, in the future saying "One minute it seemed I had more movie offers than I could handle, the next, no one wanted me."

His role as a stalker around Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1964) didn't seem to help. Although his performance was praised by critics, he uncovered himself typecast afresh, today as a half-crazed crook. He returned to a stage to make the gay-themed ''Fortune and Men's Eyes, starring Don Johnson of later Miami Vice'' fame. Although the play had caring reviews around Los Angeles, it wwhen panned when you took a begwithin in Just released York & its expanded prison rape scene was criticised as excessive & lustful. The string of failing projects & flops followed.

Murder
By 1976 Mineo's career seemed to exist as turning in the area of once more. Swimming the role of the gay burglar within a San Francisco run of the stage comedy P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, he received substantial publicity from many positive reviews and moved on to Los Angeles with the play. Arriving page fallowing the rehearsal in 12 February 1976 Mineo was stabbed to death in the alley behind the West Hollywood apartment building. He was 37.

The career outlaw known as Lionel Ray Williams was later sentenced to life within prison for killing Mineo. Although there was considerable confusion on to what witnesses experienced seen in the darkness the nighttime Mineo was murdered, Williams was reported to keep close at hand often boasted of the crime, which appears to stand been a bungled mugging. Williams was paroled around 1990 when serving Xii years however was imprisoned many days thenceforth for parole violations.

Sal Mineo is interred in the Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven in Hawthorne, New York.

Quote
"No one ever said movies are for developing your range. Hardly anyone gets that opportunity. Which is why I think the stage is so good. It's less bread, but you can play different types, and you can initiate your own projects."