Career Highlights: Deep Cover, The Prisoner of Zenda, Unspeakable Acts
First Major Screen Credit: Sanford and Son: The Puerto Ricans are Coming! (1972)
Biography
Angular Anglo-Latino actor Gregory Sierra began showing up on screen in 1971 in such films as The Wrath of God. Sierra quickly familiarized himself with TV viewers via his continuing role as Julio Fuentes in the weekly sitcom Sanford and Son. He left Sanford in January of 1975 to accept the part of detective sergeant Chano Amenguale on Barney Miller, a role he held down until the fall of 1976. Next up, Sierra starred as Dr. Tony Menzies on A.E.S. Hudson Street, a 1978 TV comedy that folded after six weeks despite positive critical comment. Two years later, he was cast as South American revolutionary "El Puerco" on the nighttime serial spoof Soap, figuring prominently in the series' up-in-the-air final episode in 1981. Gregory Sierra's more recent television roles have included Lt. Victor Maldonado on the NBC sci-fier Something is Out There (1988), and the ill-fated Lt. Lou Rodriguez on the trendy 1980's cop show Miami Vice. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
He also guest-starred as a Jewishradical on the controversial series All in the Family, working with the Hebrew Defense Association, an organization whose goal it was to stop anti-Semitism in the neighborhood. In the plot, he volunteers in helping to chase away neo-Nazi thugs presiding in the neighborhood during which they spray-painted a swastika on the Bunkers' door. He is later killed by a car bomb planted by the neo-Nazis. The actor later went on to star as Dr. Tony Menzies on the unsuccessful sitcom A.E.S. Hudson Street.
Sierra was cast as South American anti-Communist revolutionary "El Puerco" — whose friends simply call him "El" — on the serial spoof Soap, figuring prominently in the series' unresolved final episode in 1981. In 1984, he briefly became a main cast member of the then-new TV drama Miami Vice where he played Lieutenant Lou Rodriguez; he asked to be written out of the series after just four episodes. More recently he had regular roles on the TV shows Zorro and Son, Something is Out There, and Common Law.