Abe Vigoda, sunken-eyed character actor, dead at 94

“The Godfather” and “Barney Miller” actor Abe Vigoda has passed away at age 94.

His daughter Carol Vigoda Fuchs confirmed the sad news this morning.

Fuchs said her father died of old age, and was “never sick”. He also played Tessio in the first two Godfather films. Entertainment news website TMZ even headlined their recent article “Abe Vigoda dies at 94 (Not a hoax)”.

Following a similar mistake on TV news in 1987, Vigoda would continue to joke about reports of his death and in 2001 a website was set up purely to state whether he was alive or not.

A tireless performer who worked in just about every genre over the course of his almost six decades in show business, Vigoda is now being remembered on social media for roles as diverse as the grandfather in Look Who’s Talking and the Chief of the Waponis in Joe Versus the Volcano.

The actor had come to be a symbol of celebrities people mistakenly thought had died.

His leathery, sunken-eyed face made him ideal for this role, as well as his most famous role on television as Detective Phil Fish in “Barney Miller”.

He is survived by his daughter, Carol.