Robert Loggia, movie and TV tough guy, dies at 85

– Actor Robert Loggia, who played drug lord Frank Lopez in “Scarface”, has died, according to Variety.

The news of the legendary actor’s death was confirmed by his wife, Aubrey Loggia, who told Fox News that his body gave up after a struggle with Alzheimer for five years. Loggia was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as private detective Sam Ransom in the 1985 thriller Jagged Edge.

His success on television included an Emmy nomination for starring role in the 1989 miniseries, “Mancuso, FBI”.

The Italian-American actor was born as Salvatore Loggia on January 3, 1930, in New York City.

Loggia and Hanks shared the screen for the film’s most famous scene, when their two characters play chopsticks together on a giant piano keyboard laid out on the floor of a toy store. He was a Miami drug lord in Al Pacino-starrer “Scarface” and a Sicilian mobster in “Prizzi’s Honor”. He received a football scholarship to Wagner College and transferred to the University of Missouri.

Loggia jumped into show business at the age of 28 when he acted in Walt Disney TV series followed by his multiple appearances in “The Big Valley”, “Gunsmoke”, “The Untouchables” and “The Bionic Woman”. Michael Burns, Lionsgate Vice Chairman, said that he loved the veteran actor like his father. “He used to say that he never had to work”. He starred in the 1966-67 series “T.H.E. Cat” as a former circus aerialist and cat burglar turned professional bodyguard who would introduce himself as “T. Hewitt Edward Cat”. He played three different characters in three different Pink Panther films: Revenge of the Pink Panther, Trail of the Pink Panther, and Curse of the Pink Panther.