After making his debut as a snarling railroad detective in the Roger Corman-produced, Martin Scorsese-directed "Boxcar Bertha" (1972), Argo often played rough and tumble urban types like one of the young hoods that ran with Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro down New York's "Mean Streets" (1973) and the baseball bat-wielding deli owner in "Taxi Driver" (1976), both for Scorsese. An atypical appearance under that director's gaze was the actor's fine turn as the Apostle Peter in the controversial "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988).
Although usually relegated to brief appearances (in films ranging from director-writer Martin Brest's impressive debut "Hot Tomorrows" (1977) to 1985's "Desperately Seeking Susan"), Argo has on occasion landed meatier roles, perhaps most notably as Tracey Ullman's widowed father in Nancy Savoca's richly rendered portrait of an Italian-American family "Household Saints" (1993), one of a group of aging gangsters in "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" (1999), the skeptical buddy of a sixtysomething who answers a personal ad in "Fast Food, Fast Women" (2000) and the abusive father of Jennifer Lopez's police detective in the thriller "Angel Eyes" (2001).