Alex Rocco

Alex Rocco was born on Feb 29, 1936 in USA. Alex Rocco's big-screen debut came with Motorpsycho! directed by Russ Meyer in 1965, strarring Cory Maddox. Alex Rocco is known for Magic City directed by Ed Bianchi, Jeffrey Dean Morgan stars as Ike Evans and Olga Kurylenko as Vera Evans. Alex Rocco has got 3 awards and 1 nominations so far. The most recent award Alex Rocco achieved is Hudson Valley International Film Festival. The upcoming new movie Alex Rocco plays is Don't Sleep which will be released on Sep 29, 2017.

Tough, gruff, thick-browed, volatile-looking character actor Alex Rocco was born Alessandro Federico Petricone, Jr. on February 29, 1936, to Italian immigrants in Cambridge, Mass. He grew up a member of Boston's Winter Hill gang (his nickname was "Bobo") and was briefly detained regarding a murder at one point after an alleged personal incident triggered the Boston Irish Gang War (1961-1967). Rocco decided to straighten his life and relocated to Hollywood in 1962 following his detainment and release.Developing an interest in acting, Alex initially trained with such notable teachers as Leonard Nimoy and Jeff Corey in order to curb his thick Boston accent. Working as a bartender during the lean years, his film and TV career finally kick-started in 1965, immediately relying on his sly, lethal menace, toothy toughness, and prior gangland past to realistically portray gritty anti-heroes and villains. He made an effective movie debut, co-starring as a vengeful veterinarian and Vietnam vet who goes after motorcycle "bad boys" following his wife's beating and rape in the exploitation flick Le gang sauvage (1965) directed by Russ Meyer. Despite this bold beginning, it was followed by a disappointing gangster bit in L'Affaire Al Capone (1967) and a nothing role as a police Lieutenant in L'Étrangleur de Boston (1968). On TV, he found sporadic work playing thugs and other unsavory types on such TV shows as "Run for Your Life," "Batman" and "Get Smart."Rocco came into his own in the early 1970s. After featured roles in such violent exploitation like Blood Mania (1970) and Le sexe sauvage (1971), he received a huge boost in an Oscar-winning "A" film. He made a brief but potent impact essaying the role of Las Vegas syndicate boss Moe Green who gets a bullet in the eye during the violently explosive "christening sequence" of Mario Puzo's Le Parrain (1972). From there he found a comfortable supporting niche playing various swarthy-looking cronies, hoods and cops in such crime films as Un homme est mort (1972), La Chasse aux Dollars (1973), Les copains d'Eddie Coyle (1973) (in which he made good use of his Boston criminal past), Les anges gardiens (1974), Les démolisseurs (1974) and A Woman for All Men (1975). Similar urban roles followed him on TV with yeoman work on such 1970s cop shows as "The Rookies", "Get Christie Love", "Kojak", "Cannon", "The Blue Knight", "Police Story", "The Rockford Files", "Barnaby Jones", "Dog and Cat", "Baretta", "Starsky and Hutch", "Delvecchio", "CHiPs", "Matt Houston", "Hardcastle and McCormick", and "Simon & Simon", along with the TV movies or miniseries Une question de culpabilité (1978), Chronique des années 30 (1981) and La griffe de l'assassin (1985).In the midst of all this, Alex was handed the starring role of his own series Three for the Road (1975) in which he played a new widower photographer with two teenage sons (played by Vincent Van Patten and Leif Garrett) who assuage their grief by leaving town and "discovering America" together. Although well-received, it was short-lived (13 episodes) as a result of poor scheduling. The actor returned to series TV in the late 1980s and was much more successful as a slick Hollywood agent in The Famous Teddy Z (1989) for which he won a "Supporting Actor" Emmy Award. Other regular comedy series work, such as Sibs (1991), The George Carlin Show (1994), Division d'élite (2001) and Magic City (2012), added to his healthy resume over the years, with over 400 TV appearances racked up in all. Recurring roles on such programs as Les Simpson (1989) and Drôle de vie (1979) (as Nancy McKeon's father) also kept his career going at a steady pace. Other memorably flashy film roles include Les anges gardiens (1974), Le diable en boîte (1980), Les fantômes d'Halloween (1988), Get Shorty (Stars et truands) (1995) and Coup de foudre à Hollywood (1997).Twice married, Rocco's first wife, Sandra Garrett, a nightclub performer and screenwriter, died of cancer in 2002. He married actress Shannon Wilcox in 2005 and together they appeared in the film Scammerhead (2014). Rocco appeared in two films helmed by his adopted son, screenwriter and director Marc Rocco: Scenes from the Goldmine (1987) and De l'autre côté du rêve (1989), who died in 2009. Two other children by his first wife were Lucian, a poet, and Jennifer, an attorney. Alex Rocco died of pancreatic cancer on July 18, 2015 at age 79.