Actor Abe Vigoda, who played the decrepit Detective Phil Fish in the television sitcom “Barney Miller” and Mafia lieutenant Sal Tessio in the original “Godfather” movie, died Tuesday, according to his manager, Sid Craig.
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Vigoda’s daughter, Carol Vigoda Fuchs, tells ABC News that her father died Tuesday in her home, where he’d been staying ahead of Winter Storm Jonas. Most of the time, he played characters much older than he actually was-a circumstance that led to some macabre real-life comedy later on, when reports of his death were greatly-and frequently-exaggerated.
Corkery, Richard Jeffrey Ross says his jokes on Abe Vigoda allowed the two men to become friends.
Abe’s first credited movie role was for playing mobster traitor Salvatore Tessio in the Francis Ford Coppola film, alongside the likes of Al Pacino, Marlon Brando and James Caan.
Mr. Vigoda was cast as the worn-out Detective Fish on the station-house sitcom Barney Miller, opposite Hal Linden in the title role. The character was ultimately so successful that Vigdoa was nominated for three Emmys for the part, and starred in his own spinoff series, Fish, from 1977 to 1978.
His other work included the films Good Burger, Joe Versus the Volcano, Look Who’s Talking and Cannonball Run. “The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows”, a reference book, commented that Vigoda was the hit of “Barney Miller”.
The show lasted a season and a half.
Born in New York City in 1921, Vigoda attended the Theater School of Dramatic Arts at Carnegie Hall.
Vigoda was once greeted by David Letterman on his show with the words, “so Abe, you’re anything but dead”.
He later told the New York Times he “learned to live” with questions of his mortality after his name often appeared on lists of living celebrities thought to be dead. Old, tired, constantly complaining about his feet, his hemorrhoids, and his wife Bernice, Fish was Barney Miller’s everyman elder statesman, a representative of a NY that seemed to be vanishing in the ’70s but may have been more tenacious than we imagined. And he’d occasionally stop by “The Today Show” to celebrate the birthdays of co-host Matt Lauer and former co-host Meredith Vieira, and Vieira once referred to him as “the very much alive Abe Vigoda”.
In an interview with Vanity Fair in 2009, Vigoda spoke about his role as Tessio.
Vigoda was married twice, most recently to Beatrice Schy, who died in 1992.
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His first marriage, to Sonja Gohlke, ended in divorce. Survivors include a daughter from his second marriage; three grandchildren; and a great-grandson. But I’ll miss you most of all, Abe.
