Bio
Carmine Giovinazzo is an American actor best known for his role as Detective Danny Messer on the television crime procedural CSI: NY, from 2004-2013.
Giovinazzo was born in Port Richmond, Staten Island. He comes from a family of NYPD police officers and has Italian, Norwegian, British and Native American ancestry.
Growing up in the streets of Staten Island, Giovinazzo was an avid athlete; though he played many different sports, baseball and roller hockey were his preferences. He graduated from Port Richmond High School in 1991 and attended Wagner College.
He had hoped to become a professional baseball player, but a serious back injury dashed his career plans, so, with the support of his family, he turned to acting.
As a child, Giovinazzo participated in making short films, but remembers no particular time when he had the idea to start acting. He did several short films at NYU and SUNY, plus a few independent films before he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career further.
In 1997, Giovinazzo moved to Los Angeles. Not long after, he successfully landed his very first Hollywood role in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer pilot, in which his character was the show's first on-screen victim.
Afterwards, he appeared in numerous guest-starring roles on television and in film, including Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, For Love of the Game, The Big Brass Ring and Black Hawk Down. He was also cast as one of the stars of the short-lived UPN sitcom Shasta McNasty.
Other films in which he had starring roles include Lions Gate Films' In Enemy Hands with William H. Macy, and Players, with Freddy Rodriguez and Peter Dobson.
Giovinazzo is currently cast as forensic scientist Danny Messer on the hit TV series CSI: NY. He often calls on his family for advice as his father and sister were both NYPD officers.
Giovinazzo is the first actor to appear in all three CSI series; his CSI: NY character was introduced in the CSI: Miami episode "MIA/NYC Nonstop" (along with the other cast members of CSI: NY) and he guest-starred in the third season of the original Las Vegas-based CSI as a street racer named Thumpy G in the episode "Revenge is Best Served Cold".
Giovinazzo has a tattoo on his right shoulder. He plays the guitar and writes songs and poems in his spare time.
He is also a painter, mostly in oils, and one of his paintings appeared in the Tri-Borough episode of CSI: NY.
He dated Las Vegas star Vanessa Marcil from 1998-1999.