ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 18, 1996 TAG: 9608190095
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: Associated Press
Joe Seneca, who turned his work as a song-and-dance performer into an illustrious acting career in serious, acclaimed movies about slavery, black leaders and human dignity, has died.
He died Thursday morning from an asthma attack at his home on Roosevelt Island, said Dulcina Eisen, his agent. She said he had never revealed his age, but she estimated he was in his late 70s.
Seneca most recently was seen as Reverend Street in the movie ``A Time to Kill,'' the courtroom thriller from the John Grisham novel. Two weeks ago, he finished filming a movie about slavery for British television called ``The Longest Memory.''
His first big film was ``The Verdict,'' in which he appeared opposite Paul Newman as an inept medical expert in a malpractice trial.
Eisen said Seneca was the only client she had in 24 years who not do a TV series. ``He did not want to be the same character every week, and he didn't want to be cute, and he wanted to do important things.
``If the story was about slavery or dignity or politics or beauty and truth, he did it,'' she said, adding, ``I loved him for it, but it was an agent's nightmare.''
Seneca was born in Cleveland. He and his sister were raised by an aunt there, said Jackie Parton, wife of Eddie Parton, who formed a song-and-dance group with Seneca and another friend after they graduated from high school.
They called their group the Three Riffs, and Jackie Parton said they were polished performers, always wearing tuxedos and appearing in the best supper clubs around the country. They sang together for 20 years, into the mid-1970s, with Bunny Walker replacing Howard Green when he died.
In the early 1960s, Seneca wrote the song ``Break It to Me Gently'' with Diane Lampert. He also wrote ``Talk to Me.''
LENGTH: Short : 44 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Senecaby CNB