Bobby Di Cicco works best when an ensemble needs a streetwise companion rather than another dominant personality. His supporting work has value, particularly for Samuel Fuller, though a crowded cast can leave him difficult to pick out.
Fi1m perspective
In The Big Red One (1980), the squad agrees not to learn the names of new arrivals. Bobby Di Cicco's Vinci belongs to that continuing group alongside Robert Carradine's Zab, Mark Hamill's Griff and Kelly Ward's Johnson, with Lee Marvin's Sergeant leading them. We were chilled by the agreement, because Samuel Fuller treats this deliberate indifference as a routine precaution. Di Cicco's place among these men gives us the clearest reason to value him: he helps make the squad feel like a group whose habits were established before we arrived.
Fuller gives the younger soldiers recognisable types to play, and Di Cicco does not escape that limitation. Nor should the film's force be mistaken for proof of an exceptional individual performance. Marvin is its centre, and the younger actors have to work around his stillness. Di Cicco is useful within that arrangement, contributing to the squad without making Vinci seem more important than the writing allows. It is supporting work worth noticing without making extravagant claims for it.
Ensemble casting runs through the early films, from Robert Zemeckis's I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978) to Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979). The latter also exposes the drawback: bigger personalities can make him hard to notice. Ron Howard gives him a smaller comic task as Leonard in Night Shift (1982), where a throwaway line about Barney Rubble makes an impression. His timing there suggests that a brief opportunity can serve him well. A co-starring role opposite Michael Paré in The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) gave him more space as the work spread across genres.
In Howard's Splash (1984), where he plays Jerry, the principal pleasures lie with Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah and John Candy. It is a warm, funny film we recommend, but we would not recommend it specifically for Di Cicco. The later career moved towards lower-profile work, with activity slowing after the mid-1990s; that offers no reason to inflate or dismiss the earlier supporting parts. Start with The Big Red One, and watch how the younger men fit around Marvin.
Biography
Bobby Di Cicco is an American actor. He was born on 7 June 1954 in Itasca, Illinois. He began his career in Chicago theatre as a member of the Magic Circle company and received a Joseph Jefferson Award nomination for his stage work.
Di Cicco appeared in several films in the late 1970s and 1980s, including I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), 1941 (1979) as Wally Stephens, The Big Red One (1980) as Vinci, Night Shift (1982), Splash (1984) and The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) as Jim Parker. His television credits include episodes of The A-Team (1983) and Murder, She Wrote (1984). He has continued to act in later projects such as The Night Of (2016) and An Interview with God (2018).
