Alex Rocco obit

Alex Rocco, Who Played Moe Greene in ‘The Godfather,’ Dies at 79

He was not on the list.

Alex Rocco, the gravelly-voiced actor whose gallery of memorable characters included Moe Greene, the cocky, bespectacled Las Vegas casino owner who made the mistake of talking back to Michael Corleone in “The Godfather,” died on Saturday at his home in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 79.

The cause was cancer, his manager, Susan Zachary, said.

Mr. Rocco had fairly limited screen time in “The Godfather” (1972), but he emerged from that film with a collection of signature lines, including “You don’t buy me out. I buy you out” and “Do you know who I am?” (both spoken to the Godfather-in-waiting, played by Al Pacino), and a Hollywood reputation for stealing scenes with little more than a Boston attitude and his eyebrows.

In 1990 he won an Emmy Award for his role as a larger-than-life old-school talent agent in the well-reviewed but short-lived Jon Cryer sitcom “The Famous Teddy Z.”

Mr. Rocco’s other noteworthy films included “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” (1973), with Robert Mitchum; “Freebie and the Bean” (1974), one of several projects he did with Alan Arkin; Tom Hanks’s “That Thing You Do!” (1996), as a fast-talking music executive; “The Wedding Planner” (2001), as Jennifer Lopez’s old-fashioned father; and “A Bug’s Life” (1998), as the voice of the grumpy grain-counting ant Thorny. (He once said of his voice work, which also included the role of a cynical cartoon producer on “The Simpsons,” “It’s like stealing money.”)

“It always seems like if I’m not killing somebody, violently, I’m playing somebody’s dad,” Mr. Rocco said in an interview with The A.V. Club in 2012. In the same interview, he talked about meeting with the director Francis Ford Coppola about the role in “The Godfather.”

He recalled saying: “I’m Italian. I wouldn’t know how to play a Jew.” Mr. Coppola, he recalled, suggested hand gestures that could differentiate the two ethnic groups. “Greatest piece of direction I ever got,” Mr. Rocco said.

Alexander Federico Petricone Jr. was a Leap Year baby, born in Cambridge, Mass., on Feb. 29, 1936, to Alexander Sr. and the former Mary Di Biase. He often told journalists that he worked in his youth for gangsters in the Winter Hill neighborhood of nearby Somerville, but an early stay at the Middlesex House of Correction in Billerica, Mass., turned him against a life of crime.

He never wanted to sacrifice his privacy again, he said. So he tossed a coin to decide whether to start a new life in Miami or Los Angeles. Los Angeles won.

Mr. Rocco moved to Southern California in the early 1960s and worked as a bartender while studying acting with Leonard Nimoy. His first film role was in “Motorpsycho!” (1965), a Russ Meyer special in which he played a biker-gang rapist. Between that movie and his role in “The Godfather,” he was typecast quickly in films including “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,” “The Boston Strangler,” “Wild Riders” and “Blood Mania.”

Television viewers knew him best as the rough-edged father of Nancy McKeon’s character, the blue-collar student at a fancy girls’ school, on the long-running NBC series “The Facts of Life” in the 1980s. His last series was “Magic City” (2012-13), a Starz drama about mobsters in 1950s Miami.

He was most recently seen in “Scammerhead,” a noirish comedy, but two films he made are awaiting release now. In “Silver Skies,” a comic drama about eccentric retirees, he plays a nice guy, nostalgic for his days as a guard at Paramount. In “The Other,” a thriller, he’s the owner of an estate where dark, demonic things seem to happen.

Mr. Rocco married Sandie Elaine Garrett in 1966, and they had three children. She died in 2002. He married the actress Shannon Wilcox in 2005. She survives him, as do a son, Lucien; a daughter, Jennifer Rocco; a stepson, Sean Doyle; a stepdaughter, the actress Kelli Williams; a sister, Vivian De Simone; and four grandchildren. Another son, the director Marc Rocco, died in 2009.

Mr. Rocco told interviewers that he enjoyed playing gangsters, and that he used his “street energy” in show business.

 “I don’t mean you have to be overbearing, but you have to stay on top of things — read the trades, know what’s going on in the town,” he told the website comicbookmovie.com in 2011. “I call it ‘dare to be stupid.’ The worst thing they can say is, ‘We got nothing for you.’ So I’ve hustled a lot.”

Filmography

Film

Year     Title     Role     Notes

1965    Motorpsycho Cory Maddox

1967    The St. Valentine's Day Massacre       Diamond        

1968    The Boston Strangler Detective at Apartment of Victim #10            Uncredited

1970    Blood Mania    Lawyer            

1971    Wild Riders      Stick    

1971    Brute Corps     Wicks  

1972    The Godfather             Moe Greene   

1972    Stanley            Richard Thomkins      

1973    Bonnie's Kids   Eddy   

1973    The Outside Man        Miller

1973    Slither Man with Ice Cream  

1973    The Friends of Eddie Coyle     Jimmy Scalise

1973    Detroit 9000    Lieutenant Danny Bassett      

1974    Three the Hard Way   Lt. Di Nisco     

1974    Freebie and the Bean D.A.    

1975    Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins       Vinnie

1975    A Woman for All Men             Lt. Robert Di Biase     

1975    Hearts of the West      Earl     

1977    Fire Sale           Al        

1978    Rabbit Test      Sergeant Danny Bonhoff        

1979    Voices Frank Rothman          

1980    Herbie Goes Bananas Quinn

1980    The Stunt Man            Police Chief Jake        

1981    Nobody's Perfekt        The Boss         

1982    The Entity        Jerry Anderson           

1984    Cannonball Run II        Tony   

1985    Stick     Firestone        

1985    Gotcha!           Al        

1985    Badge of the Assassin Detective Bill Butler NYPD     

1985    Stiffs    Pasquale         

1987    P.K. and the Kid           Les      

1987    Return to Horror High             Harry Sleerik  

1987    Scenes from the Goldmine     Nathan DiAngelo        

1988    Lady in White Angelo "Al" Scarlatti  

1989    Dream a Little Dream Gus Keller       

1989    Wired Arnie Fromson           

1991    The Pope Must Die     Cardinal Rocco           

1992    Boris and Natasha: The Movie            Sheldon Kaufman       

1995    The Flight of the Dove            Bartender       

1995    Get Shorty       Jimmy Cap       Uncredited

1996    That Thing You Do!     Sol Siler          

1996    Dead of Night Bukowski        

1997    Just Write        Mr. McMurphy          

1998    Goodbye Lover            Detective Crowley      

1998    A Bug's Life      Thorny             Voice

1999    Dudley Do-Right          Kumquat Chief           

2000    The Last Producer       Poker Player #6          

2001    The Wedding Planner Salvatore Fiore           

2001    Face to Face    Phil     

2002    The Country Bears      Rip Holland     

2003    The Job            Vernon Cray   

2005    Crazylove         Uncle Cort      

2006    Find Me Guilty            Nick Calabrese           

2006    Jam      Mick   

2006    Smokin' Aces   Serna  

2009    Ready or Not   Don Julio        

2010    Now Here        Mr. Martin     

2011    Batman: Year One       Carmine Falcone         Voice

2011    And They're Off           Saul Youngerman       

2012    The House Across the Street Mr. Barnes     

2014    Scammerhead             Ben Sarnus     

2016    Silver Skies      Frank  

2017    Don't Sleep      Mr. Marino      (final film role)

Television

Year     Title     Role     Notes

1967    Batman            Block   Episodes: "A Piece of Action" and "Batman's Satisfaction"

1970    That Girl          Biff       1 episode

1971    Mission:Impossible     Tanner             Season 6 Episode 10 - "Blues"

1972    The F.B.I.         Matt Wilnor    1 episode

1972    Cannon            Hit Man           Season 2, Episode 11 - Hear No Evil

1973    Cannon            Walter Koether           Season 3, Episode 5 - Target in the Mirror

1973    Circle of Fear   Joseph Moretti            1 episode

1974    The Rookies     Earl Fisher       1 episode

1975    Hustling           Swifty TV movie

1975    Cannon            Paul     Season 4, Episode 24 - Search and Destroy

1975    Three for the Road      Pete Karras      14 episodes

1977    Barnaby Jones             Harry Stroop   1 episode

1977    The Rockford Files       Sherman Royle            2 episodes

1977    Starsky & Hutch          Thomas Callendar       2 episodes

1977    The Mary Tyler Moore Show Ben Sylver       1 episode: Lou's Army Reunion

1978    The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank    Ralph Corliss    telefilm with Carol Burnett

1981–1988      The Facts of Life          Charlie Polniaczek       11 episodes

1980    CHiPs   Ansgar             Episodes: "The Great 5K Star Race and Boulder Wrap Party": Part 1 and Part 2

1982    The First Time Jay       Television film

1984    St. Elsewhere Roger   Episode: "Breathless"

1985    The Golden Girls         Glen O'Brien   Episode: "That Was No Lady"

1985    The A-Team     Sonny Monroe            Episode: "Champ!"

1986    Murder, She Wrote     Bert Yardley    Episode: "Christopher Bundy - Died on Sunday"

1987    Rags to Riches             Michael Rapp 1 episode

1987    Hotel   Phil Johnson    Episode: "Desperate Moves"

1987    Hunter             Floyd Benson Episode: "Hot Prowl"

1989    Murphy Brown            Al Floss            1 episode

1989–1990      The Famous Teddy Z   Al Floss            Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor - Comedy Series

1990    The Simpsons Roger Meyers, Jr.        Episode: 3 episodes

1991–1992      Sibs      Howie Ruscio 23 episodes

1994    The George Carlin Show         Harry Rossetti 11 episodes

1995    Can't Hurry Love         Michael O'Donnell      Episode: "Daddy's Girl"

1996    Pinky and the Brain     Floyd Nesbit    Episode: "Fly"

1996    Mad About You           Mark Slotkin    Episode: "Outbreak"

1996    The Simpsons Roger Meyers, Jr.        Episode: "The Day the Violence Died"

1997    Early Edition    Barney Kadison           Episode: "Home"

1997    Home Improvement   Irv Schmayman           Season 7, Episode 9 - Thanksgiving

1997    The Simpsons    Roger Meyers, Jr.        Episode: "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show"

1998    Michael Hayes             Bernero           1 episode

1999    Family Law      Goodman        1 episode

1999    Family Guy      Soccer Mom    Episode: "Mind Over Murder"

1999    Sabrina The Teenage Witch    TV Executive    Episode: "Sabrina's Real World"

2000    Walker, Texas Ranger Johnny "Giovanni Rossini" Rose         Episodes: "Wedding Bells"

2001    Family Guy      Bea Arthur       Voice

Episode: "Ready, Willing and Disabled"

2001–2004      The Division    John Exstead Sr.          14 episodes

2005    ER        Martin Trudeau           Episode: "Two Ships"

2007    The Wedding Bells      Larry Herschfield         Episode: "The Fantasy"

2010    Party Down     Howard Greengold     Episode: "Constance Carmel Wedding"

2012    Magic City       Arthur Evans   4 episodes

2012    Private Practice           Ed        Episode: "Aftershock"

2014–2015      Episodes          Dick LeBlanc    2 episodes

2015    Maron David Rosen    Episode: "Stroke of Luck"