Alex Rocco

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Alex Rocco (Emmy Awards 1990)

Alexander Federico Petricone, Jr. (born February 29, 1936 in Cambridge , Massachusetts - † July 18, 2015 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American actor .

life and career

Rocco, then still Petricone, grew up in Somerville , Massachusetts, the son of Maria, b. di Biase, and Alessandro Sam Petricone. He was of Italian descent. In his early teens he was linked to the Irish Winter Hill Gang and the McLaughlin Gang and was arrested in Charlestown in 1961 with Buddy McLean, the boss of the Winter Hill Gang at the time . However, he was never charged. After his release, he left the Boston area and moved to California in 1962. Here he also took the name Alex Rocco. After initially working as a bartender in Santa Monica , he subsequently took acting lessons from Leonard Nimoy , who recommended that he also take language lessons because his Boston accent was very strong.

Rocco started his acting career in 1965 in Motorpsycho… like wild stallions , a film by cult director Russ Meyer . Rocco played the veterinarian Cory Maddox, whose young wife is raped by three teenagers. In 1967 he took on the role of Michael Mosconi in the television series Batman . In the 1973 Blaxploitation production Detroit 9000 he was Lt. Danny Bassett a minority with "all the black cops" in the movie, as he put it. In 1972 Rocco played Moe Greene, one of his best-known roles, in the mafia film The Godfather . Surprised, he admitted in an interview that he is still asked about this role by young people today. But also for his role in Wedding Planner - In love, engaged, planned , he got a lot of feedback from younger viewers.

He played Police Chief Jake in the 1980 action comedy The Long Death of Stuntman Cameron . He considers this film together with The Friends of Eddie Coyle , where he was seen as Jimmy Scalise at the side of the great Robert Mitchum , for one of the greatest cult films. From 1981 to 1988 he was seen as Charlie Polniaczek in the television series The Facts of Life . For his work in the television series Teddy Z (The Famous Teddy Z) in 1989/1990 Rocco was honored with an Emmy .

Rocco also worked with the Simpsons from 1990 to 1997 and voiced Roger Myers Jr. in the Tom Hanks film That Thing You Do! (1996) got a role because Hanks knew and liked him from The Famous Teddy Z , as he said in an interview. In 1991, Rocco played the character of a cardinal named Rocco in the British film A Pope to Kiss . The animated film Das große Krabbeln (1998) offered him completely new experiences as an actor, he said after the film. In 2006 he worked again in a mafia film. In Find Me Guilty - The Mafia Trial , he took on the role of Nick Calabrese, directed by Sidney Lumet . In the drama series Magic City , he played the Jewish bookmaker Arthur Evans, who has never seen the inside of a temple. Rocco starred as Mr. Barnes in the 2013 horror thriller The House Across the Street .

Private

After moving to Los Angeles, Rocco became a member of the Baha'i religion. In 1964 he married his first wife Sandra Elaine Garrett, who brought her son Marc into the marriage, who was adopted by him. The couple had a daughter (* 1969) and a son (* 1972) together. Sandra Rocco died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 59. Marc Rocco , who worked as a film producer, director and screenwriter, died in his sleep in 2009. In October 2005, Alex Rocco married Shannon Wilcox. He died on July 18, 2015 at the age of 79 in Studio City , a borough of Los Angeles, of complications from cancer.

Filmography (selection)

Movies

Series

Web links

Commons : Alex Rocco  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alex Rocco . In: hark.com . Retrieved May 25, 2013.
  2. ↑ Goodfella Alex Rocco In: wordpress.com . Retrieved May 25, 2013.
  3. ↑ Murder in the operating room . In: film-lexikon.de . Retrieved May 25, 2013.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Alex Rocco talks about "Magic City", "The Godfather" and more . In: avclub.com . Retrieved May 25, 2013.
  5. ↑ The Famous Teddy Z . In: emmys.com . Retrieved May 25, 2013.
  6. ↑ Alex Rocco in the Notable Names Database (English)
  7. ↑ Anita Gates: Alex Rocco, Actor Known for Role in 'The Godfather,' Dies at 79. In: The New York Times , July 19, 2015 (English). Retrieved July 20, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Rocco, Alex
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Petricone, Alexander Federico Junior (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH February 29, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Cambridge , Massachusetts , United States
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 2015
Place of death Studio City , Los Angeles , California , United States