Yesterday it was reported that actor Frank Vincent died following complications in surgery. According to TMZ, Vincent had suffered a heart attack last week. He was 78.
Born in North Adams, Mass., and raised in Jersey City, N.J., Vincent first gained fame in Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980). He played a gangster. And he played it well. Most memorably he gets bashed against a car door multiple times by Joe Pesci. In 1990 Scorsese cast Vincent as Gambino tough guy Billy Batts in Goodfellas. In the most infamous scene, Batts tells the hot-tempered Tommy (again Joe Pesci) to "go home and get your f—g shine box." Again, Pesci gets the better of him—Vincent's character (a real member of the Gotti crime family) gets pistol-whipped, punched, kicked, and later stabbed and shot.
In 1995, Vincent played Frankie Marino, the henchman to Nicky Santoro (Pesci) in Scorsese's Casino. This time, it's Vincent's turn to inflict a brutal beating on Pesci in the cornfield. In reality, the two had been good friends going back to the 1970s. They even performed in a band together.
On Facebook, director John Gallagher posted his thoughts on working with Vincent over the years. But Gallagher remembers a time when "we were driving on the N.J. Turnpike together.... As usual the toll taker recognized him and asked for his autograph. That made Frank happy. 'How come you ain't on The Sopranos'? asked the toll taker. That made Frank unhappy."
But Vincent finally made it onto The Sopranos set in the fifth season, playing Phil Leotardo, a member of the notorious "Class of '04" that had just been released from prison. Vincent deserves much credit for making his role—as eventual head of a New York crime family—so memorable and not just a rehash of past characters. Among Tony Soprano's various archnemeses, Phil Leotardo was maybe not the most psychotic (that would be Richie Aprile) and not the most witty (that would be Ralph Cifaretto). But he was the most formidable.
Vincent also hammed it up in commercials, such as for Miller Lite and Aflac. He also wrote a book, A Guy's Guide to Being a Man's Man, that was chock-full of advice. For instance,
A man's man never meets women in chat rooms. It can be a bigger catastrophe than personal ads. Yeah, it's a lot of fun when you're IM'ing with a chick on-line for over a year and she describes herself as a voluptuous version of Sarah Jessica Parker. Then, when you finally meet her in person, she looks more like an obese version of Bernie Mac. That online crap is just that—crap!
(To read more about this seminal guide to being a man, I recommend this review by a certain executive editor.)
In any event, here's to you, Frank Vincent. Buonanima.