According to Gennaro's granddaughter Emily (Gennaro>Giovanni>Emily), Gennaro founded the Garibaldi Opera in New York City. The photo of Gennaro is from his performance of Otello. No information has been found about the Garibaldi Opera Company. See the audio page for Emily's recollections of Gennaro.

It has been reported that Gennaro had a role in the 1916 Mary Pickford film Poor Little Peppina. Fortunately this film has survived. I found a vhs copy from a private seller but have not been able to identify Gennaro.

Frank Puglia (1892-1975)

According to Gennaro's grandson Gerald (Gennaro>Constantino>Gerald), Gennaro made frequent trips to Italy to recruit acting talent for his theater company. During one of these trips, he met Frank Puglia, who became a character actor and had roles in 170 movies, including an uncredited role in Casablanca (1942) as the Morroccan rug merchant who marks down prices to friends of Rick. His first role was in D.W.Griffith's Orphans of the Storm (1921) with Lillian and Dorothy Gish. Gennaro assisted in his immigration to America.

"Sicilian actor Frank Puglia started his career with a travelling operetta company at age 13. He and his family moved to the US in 1907, where he worked in a laundry until he hooked up with an Italian-language theatrical troupe based in New York. In 1921, Puglia was appearing as Pierre Frochard in a revival of the old theatrical warhorse The Two Orphans when he was spotted by film director D.W. Griffith. Puglia was hired to repeat his role for Griffith's film version of the play, retitled Orphans of the Storm; while Pierre Frochard was slated to die at the end of the film, preview-audience reaction to the death was so negative that Griffith called Puglia back to reshoot his final scenes, allowing him to survive for the fade-out. For the rest of his long film career, Puglia essayed a wide variety of ethnic supporting parts, portraying priests, musicians, diplomats and street peddlers. In 1942's Casablanca, Puglia has a memorable bit as a Morroccan rug merchant who automatically marks down his prices to any friends of Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart). Frank Puglia played a larger and less likable role as a treacherous minion to sultan Kurt Katch in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944); when the film was remade as Sword of Ali Baba in 1965, so much stock footage from the 1944 film was utilized that Puglia was hired to replay his original part."

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide