Abe Vigoda dies at 94

Five years later, Secaucus, New Jersey made the same mistake.

Carol Vigoda Fuchs said her father died of natural causes. She said, “This man was never sick”. In 1977, Vigoda starred in the two-season sitcom Fish, which concentrated more on the private life of the cop and his wife, Bernice, played by Florence Stanley. Vigoda responded to the first mistake by taking a picture of himself in a coffin. “They kept looking at me, as if to say, “What family is he from?’ ” Vigoda said”.

The popularity of both the “Godfather” films and the “Barney Miller” series, insure Vigoda won’t be forgotten anytime soon.

The role was a stretch for Vigoda, a stage actor and a descendant of Russian Jews. He started acting as a teenager, attending the Theater School of Dramatic Arts at Carnegie Hall.

In 2009, after a TODAY graphic suggested that Matt Lauer would look like Vigoda after a few more years on the job, the actor – whose seemingly endless credits include “The Godfather” and “Barney Miller” – emerged with feigned anger to protest the comparison. Before being led to his death, Tessio makes a plea to Robert Duvall’s character, asking, “Can you get me off the hook, for old times’ sake?”

“It’s a sad day”, Ross told us after learning that the 94-year-old “Fish” actor has passed away. He played Sgt. Philip K. Fish on the classic sitcom Barney Miller. The actor then took out an ad in a trade publication that showed him holding a lily – a flower commonly displayed at funeral services – and a copy of People. Vigoda was also featured in skits on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” on NBC.

His “death” became a running joke. He looked at me and he said, ‘You look exhausted.’ So I said, ‘I am exhausted.

Unlike the creaky, lethargic Fish, Vigoda was a vigorous man who played handball regularly and was still jogging into his 80s.

His other work included the films Good Burger, Joe Versus the Volcano, Look Who’s Talking and Cannonball Run.

Life’s tragic irony is that Vigoda outlived the People magazine writer who mistakenly reported his death in 1982. He also appeared in a handful of episodes of Dark Shadows before landing the iconic role of the mobster Tessio in the 1972 Best Picture victor The Godfather, which he reprised in the 1974 sequel The Godfather: Part II.

Abe Vigoda was married to Beatrice Schy from 1968 to 1992.