Actor Abe Vigoda, who became a household name as a mobster in “The Godfather” and a detective in “Barney Miller”, has died on Tuesday morning at the age of 94. He was 60 at the time and very much not dead. “Many are producers. I’m sure there are many who may have thought about me for a role but said, ‘No, he’s dead'”.
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Vigoda earned a bit of unwanted fame in the early 1980’s when People Magazine erroneously reported his death. “Somehow it mentioned in the article that ‘the late Abe Vigoda” was not (there)”, Vigoda told CNN in 2008.
Best known to movie audiences as Mafia capo Sal Tessio in “The Godfather” (1972) and as the long-suffering (and perpetually exhausted) Det.
“I met Abe Vigoda at a urinal”. At Rob Reiner’s roast, Ross said he wrote more jokes about Vigoda than the guest of honor.
The Phish song “Wombat” with its lines, “It’s kinda like the theme from the Fish TV show/ You know, with Abe Vigoda” was not the only contemporary reference to this actor.
“Part of me thinks that I’m going to wake up tomorrow and this was all a big joke”, he said. It helped that Vigoda took such exaggerated reports of his own demise with typical good humour. In one such skit, Letterman tried to summon Vigoda’s ghost, only to have the actor walk in and announce that he’s still alive. (“Conan”, O’Brien’s current show, airs on Turner-owned TBS, which also owns CNN). For his contribution to an anthology edited by Alan King, “Matzo Balls for Breakfast and Other Memories of Growing Up Jewish,”, Vigoda offered a perhaps surprisingly straight-faced recollection: “When I go to the synagogue today, there is a deep feeling that this is my heritage, this is my people”. Olmeda launched an “Abe Vigoda Facts” Facebook page and Twitter account to marvel at the longevity of Vigoda’s life.
“I’m the same Abe Vigoda”, he told an interviewer. In honor of Ruth Robinson Duccini, the last female Munchkin.
Vigoda gained acting notability in the 1960s with his work in Broadway productions, including MARAT/SADE (1967) playing “Mad Animal”, THE MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH (1968) playing “Landau”, INQUEST (1970), and TOUGH TO GET HELP(1972).
Abraham Charles Vigoda was born on Feb 24, 1921, in NY and was the son of a tailor on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
He was seen in dozens of movies as well, including “Cannonball Run II” (1984), “Look Who’s Talking” (1989), “Joe Versus the Volcano” (1990), “Sugar Hill” (1993) and “Underworld” (1996).
As just one example of this phenomenon, I choose Good Burger, from 1997. But even as a youngster, he always played older than his actual age.
Unlike the creaky, lethargic Fish, Vigoda was a vigorous man who played handball regularly and was still jogging and working as an actor into his 80s.
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“Sad news. Abe Vigoda, who played Det”. They had one daughter, Carol.
