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 Saturday at his home in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 79.
The cause was cancer, said his manager, Susan Zachary.
Rocco had limited screen time in The Godfather (1972), but he had a collection of signature lines, including, "You don't buy me out. I buy you out," and "Do you know who I am?"
In 1990, he won an Emmy Award for his role as an old-school talent agent in the short-lived sitcom The Famous Teddy Z.
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; 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."
He was born in Cambridge, Mass., on Feb. 29, 1936. 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 turned him against a life of crime.
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 rapist in a biker gang.
Metro on 07/21/2015