Steven Bauer

Steven Bauer (born Esteban Ernesto Echevarría Samson; December 2, 1956) is a Cuban-born American actor. Bauer began his career on PBS, portraying Joe Peña, the son of Cuban immigrants on ¿Qué Pasa, USA? (1977–1980) and is perhaps most famous for his role as the Cuban drug lord Manny Ribera in the 1983 crime drama Scarface, in which he starred alongside Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer. He also played the drug cartel leader Eladio Vuente in Breaking Bad and in Better Call Saul and as the retired Mossad agent Avi Rudin in Ray Donovan (2013–2020)

Bauer was born Esteban Ernesto Echevarría Samson, on December 2, 1956, in Havana, Cuba, the son of Lillian Samson Agostini, a schoolteacher, and Esteban Echevarría, a commercial pilot who worked for Cubana Airlines.[1][2][3][4] Bauer’s maternal grandfather, whose family names were Samson and Bauer, was Jewish, and immigrated to Cuba from Germany, a refugee looking to escape the devastating effects World War II and Adolf Hitler had on his safety and home country.[5][6][7]

Bauer’s family emigrated from Cuba to the United States on Independence Day, 1960, when he was three years old, shortly after the end of the Cuban Revolution, settling in Miami, Florida.[1] Once in the United States, he began using the name Steven, an English form of his given name, Esteban. He graduated from Miami Coral Park High School in 1974 and went onto study acting at Miami Dade Community College and the University of Miami, the latter where he befriended Ray Liotta.