Alex Rocco

Alessandro Federico Petricone, Jr. (February 29, 1936 – July 18, 2015), known professionally as Alex Rocco, was an American actor. Often cast as a villain, he is best known for his portrayal of Moe Greene in The Godfather. He did a significant amount of voiceover work later in his career, and was known for his gravelly voice. He was also a member of the Baha'i Faith.

Early life

Rocco was born as Alessandro Federico Petricone, Jr. in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1936, but raised in nearby Somerville, the son of Italian immigrants, Mary (née DiBiase; 1909–1978) and Alessandro Sam Petricone (1896-19??).

According to organized crime turncoat Vincent Teresa, Alex was a hanger-on with the Winter Hill Gang of the Boston area. An unwanted advance toward Petricone's then girlfriend on Labor Day, 1961, touched off the Boston Irish Gang War of the 1960s. Georgie McLaughlin, who made the advance, was beaten by Winter Hill Gang members.Howie Carr, a Boston-area journalist and radio personality who has written extensively about the Boston underworld, has written that the young Petricone (whose nickname was "Bobo") was arrested in Charlestown in November 1961 along with Winter Hill boss Buddy McLean for questioning following the death of Bernie McLaughlin of the McLaughlin gang, the first murder of the war. Petricone was released without charge, and shortly thereafter left the Boston area. (When he returned to the Boston area in 1972 to play a bank robber in the film The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Petricone — now styled "Alex Rocco" — set up a meeting between Robert Mitchum and local Irish-American gangsters to help Mitchum research his part as Eddie Coyle, a low-level Irish-American criminal. Rocco introduced Mitchum to Howie Winter, leader of the Winter Hill Gang. Another Winter Hill Gang member who met with Mitchum was Johnny Martorano, who had murdered Billy O'Brien, a low-level gangster.)