Dennis Farina was born in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood, the fourth son and youngest of the seven children of Joseph and Yolanda Farina. Farina’s father, who was from Villalba, Sicily, was a Chicago-area doctor, and his mother a homemaker. The Farinas raised their children in a North Avenue home in Old Town, a working-class neighborhood with a broad ethnic mixture, with Italians and Germans being the two predominant ethnicities.

Before becoming an actor, Farina served three years in the United States Army during the Vietnam Era, followed by 18 years in the Chicago Police Department, advancing in rank from 1967 to 1985. Farina began working for director Michael Mann as a police consultant, which led Mann to cast him in a small role in the 1981 film Thief.