Joe Mantegna is an actor from the United States who is best known for his appearances in the television series “Criminal Minds” and the film “The Godfather Part III.” Since the late 1960s, he has maintained a career in the acting industry. Joe is not only an accomplished musician, but he is also quite talented as a producer and director. In addition to all of this, Joe is a dedicated husband and father to his two children.
Joe’s birthday is November 13th, 1947, and he was born in Chicago, Illinois. He is proud of his Italian-American background, which was passed down to him by his parents and grandparents. After that, he continued his education at what is now known as DePaul University’s Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago. He received his diploma from that institution in 1969. The ambitious celebrity had his first taste of fame in the music business, where he had some measure of modest achievement. He even had friendships with the founding members of the band Chicago.
Later on, Joe found employment in the film business as a photographer, and it wasn’t until much later that he began to showcase his acting abilities. It was a great beginning for his career when he was awarded the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role in the play “Hair.” A Joseph Jefferson Award was bestowed to him for the part he played in the film “Glengarry Glen Ross.” After achieving a great deal of success in the world of theater for a prolonged period of time, Joe finally refocused his professional efforts on cinema and television.
It is possible that Joe’s younger audiences would know the actor for his work in front of the camera rather than in the theater, given how fruitful and satisfying his work in the theater was. When Joe eventually took on the role of leading man, he had some of his greatest box office blockbusters, including “Three Amigos” and “Up Close and Personal.”
Over the course of his career, Joe has acted in a variety of theatrical performances, films, and television series, with one of his most well-known roles being that of FBI Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi in the show “Criminal Minds.” The untypical part that Joe played helped catapult him to prominence and established him as a name that was recognized by everyone.
For a number of years, the program had a strong following among viewers who watched television during the week and who like watching police procedural and crime dramas. From 2005 through 2020, “Criminal Minds” was shown on television, with the 15th and supposedly last season airing in 2020. In spite of this, the 16th season of Criminal Minds, titled “Criminal Minds: Evolution,” premiered on Paramount+ in November of 2022 and consisted of ten episodes.
Despite the fact that Joe was not a member of the show’s initial cast, he rapidly became a fan favorite because to his cheerful and honest demeanor both behind the scenes and in front of the camera, and he remained a key character from 2007 to 2020. His character, a former special agent turned writer, has a succession of ex-wives who all bring him some level of emotional distress. As a result, his personal life is frequently fraught with conflict and drama.
Behind the scenes, Joe is a doting father and husband. In contrast to Agent Rossi, Joe has proved himself to be an honorable man and a devoted parent. Since October 1975, he has been wed to the woman who would become his wife, Arlene Vrhel. The couple has been blessed with two beautiful children whom they have named Mia and Gia Mantegna. Gia is an actor, and she is perhaps most recognized for her role as Devin Levin on the television comedy “The Middle.” She has also performed opposite her father in the film “Uncle Nino.” Mia, Joe’s eldest daughter, was born in 1987, and she was diagnosed with autism in the same year. Throughout his career, Joe has made it a point to raise awareness about autism.
Vrhel has been at her husband’s side throughout his journey toward achieving his goals during their 47 years of marriage. Joe and Vrhel have two children together. They began dating in 1969 and were married in 1975; both of them were born and raised in the Chicago metropolitan region. Two years later, in order to further Joe’s profession, the couple moved to Los Angeles.
Since Vrhel’s husband was more successful on stage than behind the camera, she often found herself preparing cast meals for his fellow actors. Vrhel admitted to the Chicago Tribune in 1986 that she had no idea how to prepare meals for two people. “Always for eight or ten,” was the response.
The realization of Vrhel’s ambitions to operate a restaurant was forced to be put on hold. After they had begun their family, Joe began to have some success in the business world. After that, the pair made the decision to go ahead and launch their restaurant named Taste Chicago.
The pair had developed a taste for a variety of comfort foods while living in their hometown, including “Italian beef sandwiches, deep dish pizza, and Vienna Beef hotdogs in a poppy seed bun,” all of which could be found at the eatery in Burbank. Mantegna stated the following in a post he made on Facebook:
“I would like to pay tribute to my wife, Arlene, because more than 15 years ago, she had a dream to open a place that would provide wonderful food with a Chicago theme, a welcoming environment, and a lifetime of memories for both customers and employees,” I said.
He went on, lavishing praise on the feat, and said, “I couldn’t be prouder of that achievement.” She has always been the light in a world when many people choose to live their lives in the darkness.
Taste Chicago ceased operations in 2019, after operating for more than a decade. The couple’s days of running a restaurant are behind them, and they now devote their time and energy to volunteering together for charitable organizations.
To Joe, providing assistance for his autistic daughter Mia has always been one of his highest concerns. One of the ways he and his wife accomplished this goal was by making it a priority to instill a sense of independence in their daughter, Mia. He said the following to Ability magazine:
It has always been our goal as parents to expose her to the outside world so that she may acquire the skills necessary to survive in it. We are aware that there will be challenges to face, but at the end of the day, she will be better equipped to carry on in her life possibly for many years, which is a significant amount of time after either her mother or I will be there to aid her. Therefore, it is essential that we provide her with as much resources and assistance as we are able to at this time.
In keeping with this, they presented Mia with the option to work as an accountant at Taste Chicago when it first opened its doors. In addition, Mia is a member of Inclusion Films, a company that provides training in the art of filmmaking to people with developmental challenges. In that location, she is employed as a makeup artist. Even though Mia is doing quite well now, her path wasn’t always that smooth in the beginning.
When Mia was a young child, her parents noticed a change in her speech pattern and saw that she had a shorter attention span than other children her age. This led them to assume that their daughter may have autism. Joe described the experience of receiving the diagnosis as being “like somebody shot a cannonball into your chest.”
On the other hand, Mia’s caring parents did all in their power to educate themselves on her illness and stand by her side. For Joe, this meant that he would never have to be away from her for an extended period of time, and because of this, if he had to briefly move for an acting job, the entire group went with him. “We all came to the conclusion that if we were going to deal with this, we may as well do it together. “Let’s do this as a unit,” he said to the whole family.
Because “the older you get, the more you realize we are a community,” Joe also volunteers his time to raise money and awareness for autism-related causes via charity organizations.