David Stephen Caruso (born January 7, 1956) is an American actor and producer. He is best known for his portrayals of Lieutenant Horatio Caine on the CBS series CSI: Miami and Detective John Kelly on the ABC crime drama NYPD Blue. He also appeared in the films First Blood, Twins, Kiss of Death, Jade, Proof of Life and An Officer and a Gentleman.
David Caruso was born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, the son of Joan, a librarian, and Charles Caruso, a magazine and newspaper editor. He is of Irish and Italian descent. His father left when David was two years old, forcing him to "end up fathering myself", as he put it. Raised as a Roman Catholic, Caruso attended Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Catholic School in Forest Hills. He later attended Archbishop Molloy High School in nearby Briarwood, graduating in 1974.
Caruso worked as a cinema usher, where he would see up to 80 movies a week. He said that he and his coworkers would act out scenes from some of these movies while they were at the back of the theater. In this job he found his role models in Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson. He said: