Rula of the Week

"You sonofabitch. Do you know who I am? I'm Moe Green! I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders." While many would say that this powerful assertion from The Godfather is the most memorable sound-bite from the repetoire of Alex Rocco, we would be hard-pressed to verify it; Rocco has a film and TV career that spans nearly 40 years. His debut came as a "thug" that gets "whapped" during the opening sequence of the Batman series, a time during which he worked as a bartender to supplement his income. We at counterpoise tend to be shamefully ingorant of late 60's and 70's television and b-grade crime cinema so we had no idea that Rocco had, according to a central source, a "comfortable niche playing various swarthy-looking cronies, hoods and cops", fulfilling such roles as "Legs Diamond" in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967), "Man with Ice Cream" in Slither (1972), and "Lt. Di Nisco" in Three the Hard Way (1974)(the premise of which, we are told, is a white supremist plot to taint the United States water supply with a toxin that is harmless to whites but lethal to blacks). I hope to watch these immediately. He also appeared in well-loved, syndicated, and ultimately re-created dramas Mission Impossible and Starsky and Hutch.
This contributor had seen more of Rocco's 1980's films, including Herbie goes Bananas (he plays "Quinn"), and Cannonball Run II ("Tony"). It was also during this decade that he made a transition to comedy, and won an Emmy as "Al Floss" during the 1988-89 season of The Famous Teddy Z, which concerns a young baker's reluctance to assume the responsibilities of the family business.
Some may recall that Rocco adeptly played another "Al": the father of Anthony Michael Hall's lead character in Gotcha! (1985), a story about a college kid who travels to East Germany, has an affair with the seductive Linda Fiorentino, and uses his paintball skills to thwart the KGB. Rocco delivered another snappy, perhaps commercially-contrived gem: "it's not a camera, it's a Nikon".
Counterpoise was prepared to nominate Rocco solely on the basis of Moe Green's toothy verbal delivery and streetwise Italianate accent, as well as his commanding, lanky presence. Ironically, early in his career, Rocco, who hails from Boston, had to work diligently to suppress his native New England brogue.
More recently, he had recurring roles in The Facts of Life, and The Simpsons, where he provided the voice for the amoral industrialist Roger Myers, Jr., purveyor of the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons.