Gastone Moschin

First victim of Vito Corleone in The Godfather series

Gastone Moschin, an Italian character actor remembered by audiences as Don Fanucci, a dapper crime boss gunned down by Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II, died on 4 September in Terni, central Italy. He was 88.

His daughter, Emanuela Moschin, said the cause was kidney failure.

Moschin’s long career in Italian cinema began in the mid1950s. He appeared in dozens of films by Italian directors, among them Bernardo Bertolucci (The Conformist, 1970) and Mario Monicelli (My Friends, 1975, and its sequels).

His turn as Don Fanucci, a gangster in 1920s New York, was an indelible part of the beloved 1974 film that won six Academy Awards (his first name was spelled “Gaston” in the credits, as it often was in English publications).

In the film, Fanucci extracts tribute from seemingly everyone in Little Italy in Manhattan, including a young Vito Corleone, played by Robert De Niro. Corleone grudgingly pays Fanucci, then stalks him as Fanucci makes his way through the annual San Gennaro street festival. Corleone ambushes Fanucci outside his apartment, shooting him through a towel as fireworks mask the sound of gunshots. He then coldly snatches his money back. The murder is the first major power play in Corleone’s rise to the top of a Mafia syndicate.

Gastone Moschin was born on 8 June 1929, in San Giovanni Lupatoto, near Verona, Italy. He studied theatre at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano and Accademia Nazionale d’arte Drammatica Silvio D’amico, two of Italy’s top drama schools. He did compulsory military service in Pesaro before starting in acting.

In addition to his daughter, Moschin, who lived in Narni, in Umbria, is survived by his wife, Italian actress Marzia Ubaldi, and two granddaughters.