Dino Ortolani
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Dino Ortolani, played by Jon Seda, is a fictional character who only appeared in the first episode of the HBO series Oz. An Italian gangster, he is racist, homophobic, intimidating, bossy, and hotheaded. He is in prison for murdering a man and nearly killing Ryan O'Reily, and is serving a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
[edit] Season 1
Ortolani runs the kitchen and is very short tempered. He dislikes the black inmates and is very bossy with them, never minding the fact that they constitute the majority of the kitchen staff. He is somewhat liked by Vernon Schillinger, but the feeling is not mutual. When he learns that Ryan O'Reily is alive and coming to Oz, he schemes to have him killed.
Ortolani nearly cripples a gay inmate, Billie Keane, who flirted with him in the shower. This enrages Billie's brother, Jefferson, the leader of the homeboys gang, who waits for the right time to kill him.
Tim McManus lets Ortolani know that every prisoner and guard in Oz either hates him or is scared of him, something he does not seem to mind. So, as punishment for beating up Billie he sends him to work in the AIDS ward, hoping to teach him a lesson in tolerance. While he serves time in the AIDS ward, Ortolani develops an interest in Dr. Gloria Nathan.
Although he is initially appalled by the AIDS patients, he begins to like one of them, Emilio Sanchez. Sanchez eventually asks Ortolani to help him die and end his suffering. Ortolani doesn't agree immediately, but returns later to do as Sanchez asked him. He disconnects Sanchez from his life support and strangles him.
McManus and Nathan throw him into isolation ward and have him sedated. Keane then gives the order to Johnny Post and O'Reily to kill him. O'Reily uses his connections to allow Post entry to the hole, and Post then pours flammable liquid on Ortolani and sets him on fire, burning him to death.
Throughout the episode, he shows some admiration for new inmate Kareem Said, who he watches during his lectures to the Muslim inmates. And just before he is about to strangle Sanchez, Ortolani tells him, "It's too bad you're of the wrong color," before taking off.
In the sixth and final season, his spirit co-narrated with Augustus Hill in Episode #54: A Day in the Death.
