The Day Abe Vigoda Really Died

In 1982, People magazine mentioned the death of  Abe Vigoda, the character actor best known for his screen portrayal of Salvatore Tessio, the doomed Corleone capo in “The Godfather,” and his television role as Sgt. Philip K. Fish, the crotchety senior detective of a fictional Greenwich Village precinct in “Barney Miller.” At the time, the 60-year-old Vigoda was performing in a play in Calgary, Canada. He good-naturedly published a photo of himself sitting in a coffin, holding the erroneous People magazine, in Variety. On “Late Night with David Letterman,” the host attempted to summon the ghost of Vigoda, only to be interrupted by the actor, who declared, “I’m not dead, you pinhead!” Not unlike Tony Randall’s appearances in comedy bits on “Late Night with David Letterman," Abe Vigoda was invited to frequently participate in sketches on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.”

 

Conan O'Brien's introduction of failed "Star Wars" characters
on his NBC talk show "Late Night" included Abe Vi-Yoda.

A veteran of New York City theater, Abe Vigoda was 49 when he was cast in his first U.S. film, “The Godfather.”  In 1965, Vigoda had a bit part as a waiter in “Trois chambers a Manhattan” (“Three Rooms in Manhattan”), a French drama filmed in New York City by Marcel Carné, director of the acclaimed “Children of Paradise.” “Three Rooms in Manhattan” was also the first screen appearance by Robert De Niro, who plays a customer at a diner.

 

Isn't that Robert De Niro at a table in "Three Rooms in Manhattan" (1965)?

Francis Ford Coppola, the director of “The Godfather,” selected Vigoda out of 500 other actors in an open casting call. To prepare himself for the role of Sal Tessio, a once-trusted associate of Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) who hopes to take over the family business after Vito’s death by killing his son, Michael (Al Pacino), Vigoda frequented the Lower East Side and other New York City neighborhoods that served as backdrops for the film’s story. He told Vanity Fair in 2009 that he “practically lived in Little Italy during the shoot.” The son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, he said in Vanity Fair, "I’m not really a Mafia Person. I’m an actor who spent his life in the theater. But Francis said, ‘I want to look at the Mafia not as thugs and gangsters but like royalty in Rome.’ And he saw something in me that fit Tessio as one who would look at the classics in Rome.” In 2001, he told The New York Times, “’The Godfather’ changed my life.”

 

"Tell Mike it was only business. I always liked him.
Tom, can you get me off the hook? For old time's sake?"

Richard S. Castellano portrayed Tessio’s rival capo, Peter Clemenza, but frankly, we in the Moviehouse would’ve preferred the two actors swap roles, especially since Clemenza proved to be the surviving lieutenant in the family. Inexplicably, the portly Castellano was the highest salaried actor in “The Godfather,” earning even more than star Marlon Brando. Allegedly, Castellano adlibbed much of his dialogue, including the trademark line, “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.”

Castellano was written out of the sequel, “The Godfather Part II,” after the actor’s agent insisted that Castellano (along with his wife) have control over his character’s dialogue. Instead, a substitute character named Frank Pentangeli (portrayed by playwright-actor Michael V. Gazzo) was added. Supposedly, Frankie “Five Angels” had been a longtime associate of the Corleone family since the early days of the olive oil business, but good luck on hearing any reference to him in the original movie.

Which points out a substantial beef we have with Coppola’s “Godfather” saga. Depending on salary demands or the filmmakers’ whims, major characters would disappear and others would be plucked from out of the blue and unaccountably plopped into the storyline. Robert Duvall, who played Tom Hagen, Vito Coreone’s informally adopted son and the family lawyer, wanted a salary equivalent to Al Pacino’s in “The Godfather Part III,” and faster than you can say “Richard S. Castellano,” Tom Hagen was nowhere to be seen in the third picture, while John Savage (best known as the wheelchair-bound Vietnam veteran in “The Deer Hunter”) was thrown in as Hagen’s heretofore unmentioned son, Father Andrew Hagen. Likewise, a character named Don Osvaldo Altobello (portrayed by Eli Wallach) is depicted as a longstanding ally of the Corleone, but again, good luck on finding any mention of him in the first two films. But we digress.

 

Needless to say, Abe Vigoda's roles in "The Godfather" and "Barney Miller" led to his
typecasting as, variously, cops and mobsters, including a cameo, alongside Rat Pack
veteran Henry Silva and "Godfather" alumni Michael V. Gazzo and Alex Rocco,
in "Cannonball Run II" (1984), with Charles Nelson Reilly as Don Don Canneloni.

Abe Vigoda landed the role of Detective Fish in “Barney Miller” with a memorable audition. In the 2009 book What Have You Done? The Inside Story of Auditioning – from the Ridiculous to the Sublime, Vigoda recalled, “While living in Los Angeles, I’d jog three to five miles a day. One morning jogging, my agent calls about a new series called ‘Barney Miller,’ saying, ‘Go there at once.’ Well, I was tired and exhausted…I said, ‘I have to go home and take a shower.’ ‘No, no, no. Go right now to Studio City, you’re very, very right for it, they know you from ‘The Godfather,’ they want to see you.’ ‘With my shorts?’ ‘Go.’ Danny Arnold and Ted Flicker, the producers, look at me. I look at them, they look at me again. ‘You look tired.’ ‘Of course I’m tired, I jogged five miles this morning, I’m exhausted.’ ‘Yeah, yeah, tell me, you look like you have hemorrhoids.’ ‘What are you, a doctor or a producer?’” (Besides being an avid jogger, Vigoda also played handball into his 80s.)

 

The original ensemble cast of "Barney Miller" included (left to right) Jack Soo,
Gregory Sierra, Abe Vigoda, Max Gail, Ron Glass, and Hal Linden.

From 1975, Vigoda remained on “Barney Miller” through the first four seasons of eight, garnering three Emmy Award nominations during his tenure. In 1977, he starred in the spinoff sitcom “Fish” as the patriarch of diverse foster children (pictured below). For several months, Vigoda appeared on both series. “Fish” was canceled after two season, when the actor demanded a higher salary than the producers were willing to pay.

A punk rock band adopted the name Abe Vigoda in 2000. On their 1986 album “Licensed to Ill,” the Beastie Boys sang, “I got a girl in the castle and one in the pagoda / You know I got rhymes like Abe Vigoda.” Incidentally, Abe’s brother, Bill Vigoda, was a comic book artist, long associated with the “Archie” franchise.

Before "Barney Miller," before "The Godfather," Abe Vigoda portrayed
Ezra Braithwaite on the cult gothic daytime drama "Dark Shadows."

The name “Vigoda,” in Russian, means benefit, advantage, profit, or gain. Reflecting on his fame relatively late in life, Abe Vigoda said, “When I was a young man I was told success had to come in my youth. I found this to be a myth. My experiences have taught me that if you deeply believe in what you are doing, success can come at any age.”

 

Both knocking on the door to their 90s, Betty White and Abe Vigoda were featured
in a Snickers ad that was the most popular commercial in the 2010 Super Bowl.

A few days before he passed away, age 94, January 26, Abe Vigoda’s great nephew reported that the actor was receiving hospice care after having stopped taking his medication. He died in his sleep at his daughter’s Woodland Park, New Jersey home.