Gregory Sierra

Who is Gregory Sierra?

Gregory Sierra is an American actor known for his roles as Detective Sergeant Chano Amenguale on Barney Miller and as Julio Fuentes, the Puerto Rican neighbor of Fred G. Sanford on Sanford and Son.

He also guest-starred as a Jewish radical in an unusually dramatic episode of All in the Family, working with the Hebrew Defense Association, an organization whose goal it was to stop antisemitism in the neighborhood. In the plot, he volunteers in helping to chase away neo-Nazi thugs presiding in the neighborhood who spray-painted a swastika on the Bunkers' front 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.

He also guest starred on many television series during his career, including appearances on Mod Squad, Alias Smith and Jones, Mission: Impossible, Hawaii Five-O, Gunsmoke, The Greatest American Hero, Soap, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The X-Files, Murder, She Wrote and Hill Street Blues.

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.