A prolific character actor in over 140 productions, he was known for his "dark, sepulchral"[1] looks and brooding screen presence that saw him often play criminals, gangsters, or other "tough guys" in crime and action films.

[2] During the 1980s, Silva made notable appearances as villains in action films like Sharky's Machine (1981) with Burt Reynolds, the cult classic Megaforce (1982), Cannonball Run II (1984), Code of Silence (1985) with Chuck Norris, Above the Law (1988) with Steven Seagal, and Dick Tracy (1990).

[7] When the Studio staged Michael V. Gazzo's play A Hatful of Rain as a classroom project (which itself grew out of an earlier improvisation by Silva, Paul Richards, and Tony Franciosa, based on a scene written by Gazzo, titled "Pot"), it proved so successful that it was presented on Broadway, with students Ben Gazzara, Shelley Winters, Harry Guardino, along with Franciosa, Richards, and Silva, in key roles.

[10] Silva then went on to play a succession of villains in films including The Tall T (1957) with Randolph Scott,[10] The Bravados (1958) with Gregory Peck,[10] and The Law and Jake Wade (1958).

[11][12][13] Silva's early career breakthrough was through his association with the Rat Pack, when he was cast as one of eleven casino robbers in the 1960 heist film Ocean's 11, starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Peter Lawford.

Silva landed the role after Sinatra spotted him in a convertible at a stop light on Doheny Drive and asked him to come to the studio the next day.

The supporting cast features Elizabeth Montgomery, Mort Sahl, Telly Savalas, Jim Backus, Joey Bishop, and Rat Pack member Sammy Davis Jr., most of whose characters were murdered by Johnny Cool during the course of the film.

Silva's turning-point picture was a Spaghetti Western, The Hills Run Red (1966), which made him a hot box-office commodity in Spain, Italy, Germany, and France.

[18][28] In the 1980s and 1990s, he appeared as the arrogant hunter Colonel Brock in Alligator (1980), a drug-addicted hitman in Burt Reynolds' Sharky's Machine (1981), a former prison warden-turned-enforcer in Escape from the Bronx (1983), which was lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000, a comedy gangster in Cannonball Run II (1984) opposite many of his former Rat Pack buddies, the villainous CIA agent Kurt Zagon in Steven Seagal's debut Above the Law (1988), the sinister mob hitman Influence in Dick Tracy (1990), and the voice of the ruthless supervillain Bane in Batman: The Animated Series (1994) and The New Batman Adventures (1998).

Silva also plays the crime boss Ray Vargo in Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) who puts out a hit on the titular character.

[33][4] Silva died on September 14, 2022, at the Motion Picture & Television Fund home in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles aged 95.