Character actor, Oscar nominee Danny Aiello dies at 86
NEW YORK — Danny Aiello, the bluecollar character actor whose long career playing tough guys included roles in “Fort Apache, the Bronx,” “Moonstruck” and “Once Upon a Time in America” and his Oscar-nominated performance as a pizza man in Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing,” has died. He was 86.
Mr. Aiello (pronounced eye-YEL-o) died Thursday night after a brief illness, said his publicist, Tracey Miller, who runs Tracey Miller & Associates. “The family asks for privacy at this time,” she said in a statement.
In a tweet, Cher mourned the man she called “a genius comedic actor.” The two had starred in “Moonstruck” and she called it “one of the happiest times in my life.” Actor Michael Rapaport tweeted that Mr. Aiello was a “huge inspiration” and actor Kirk Acevedo mourned: “We lost a great actor today.”
Recognizable, if not famous, for his burly build and husky voice, he was an ex-union president who broke into acting in his 30s and remained a dependable player for decades, whether vicious or cuddly or some of each.
His breakthrough was as the hapless lover dumped by Cher in Norman Jewison’s hit comedy “Moonstruck.” His disillusion contributed to the laughter, and although he wasn’t nominated for a supporting-role Oscar, Mr. Aiello was inundated with movie offers.
“Living in New York City gave me training for any role,” he said in a 1997 interview. “I’ve seen people killed, knifed. I’ve got scars on my face. I have emotional recall when I work; the idea is simply to re-create it. I’ve seen it and experienced it. I’ve played gangsters, teachers, but most of my work has been in the police area. And for that I’m adored by the police in New York City.”
The ebullient Mr. Aiello became a favorite of several directors, among them Woody Allen, who used him in the Broadway play “The Floating Light Globe” and the movies “Broadway Danny Rose,” “The Purple Rose of Cairo” and “Radio Days.”
Lee was another admirer and for “Do the Right Thing” cast Mr. Aiello as a pizzeria operator in a black neighborhood of Brooklyn, the movie climaxing with a riot that destroys his eatery. “This is my pizzeria!” he cried. Lee had first offered the role to
Robert De Niro, but Mr. Aiello’s performance brought him an Oscar nomination for supporting actor.
Lee on Instagram on Friday lauded Mr. Aiello for “making cinema history together” on “Do the Right Thing” and the director wished his friend a final goodbye: “May you rest in paradise.”
Among Mr. Aiello’s other movies: “Fort Apache, the Bronx” (as a cop who threw a boy from a building), “Once Upon a Time in America,” “Harlem Nights,” “Jack Ruby” (as Ruby) and “City Hall.” He also appeared in TV miniseries, including “The Last Don,” “A Woman Named Jackie” and in the 1985-86 police series “Lady Blue.” It was Aiello who played Madonna’s father in the pop icon’s “Papa Don’t Preach” video.
He also had a small role in “The Godfather Part II.”
A child of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, Mr. Aiello retained the pugnacity he learned on city streets.
Daniel Louis Aiello Jr. was born June 20, 1933, to Italian parents. His father, a laborer, left the family of seven children, and Daniel started working at age 9 selling newspapers, working in a grocery store and bowling alley, shining shoes and loading trucks. In his teenage years, he joined a street gang and, he claimed, engaged in burglary and safe-cracking. He dropped out of high school before graduating, got married in 1955 and joined the Army.