Richard Romanus, the tough-guy character actor greatest identified for his flip as Michael Longo, the Little Italy mortgage shark who will get into it with Robert De Niro’s Johnny Civello in Martin Scorsese’s Imply Streets, has died. He was 80.
Romanus died Dec. 23 in a personal hospital in Volos, Greece, his son, Robert Romanus, advised The Hollywood Reporter.
Romanus dealt with distinguished voice roles for Ralph Bakshi in 1977’s Wizards (because the elf warrior Weehawk) and 1982’s Hey Good Lookin’ (because the chief of a Nineteen Fifties greaser gang), and in between, he performed the cab driver Harry Canyon in one other animated movie, Heavy Steel (1981).
He additionally appeared on 4 episodes of The Sopranos as Richard LaPenna, the on-again, off-again husband of Lorraine Bracco’s Jennifer Melfi, from 1999-2002.
In Imply Streets (1973), Romanus’ character is famously disrespected by Johnny when he leans on him for his cash.
“You already know, Michael, you make me chortle,” Civello says. “You see, I borrow cash throughout this neighborhood, left and proper from all people, and I by no means pay them again. So, I can’t borrow no cash from no person no extra, proper? So who would that depart me to borrow cash from however you?
“I borrow cash from you, since you’re the one jerk-off round right here who I can borrow cash from with out payin’ again, proper? You already know, ’trigger that’s what you’re, that’s what I consider you, a jerk-off. You’re smiling ’trigger you’re a jerk-off. You’re a fucking jerk-off! I’ll let you know one thing else, I fuck you proper the place you breathe, as a result of I don’t give two shits about you or no person else.”
Michael, in fact, will get his revenge on the highway to Brooklyn.
The son of a dentist, Richard Joseph Romanus was born on Feb. 8, 1943, in Barre, Vermont, and raised in West Hartford, Connecticut. He graduated from Xavier College in Cincinnati in 1964 with a level in philosophy and spent a yr in legislation faculty earlier than finding out performing with Lee Strasberg at Carnegie Corridor.
In 1970, he appeared on episodes of Mission: Not possible and The Mod Squad and within the David Janssen-starring telefilm Night time Chase earlier than he was employed on Imply Streets.
His iconic scene with De Niro got here on the next-to-last day of taking pictures, Scorsese recalled in Andy Dougan’s 2011 ebook, Untouchable: Robert De Niro.
“One thing had occurred between Bobby and Richard as a result of the animosity between them in that scene is actual, and I performed on it,” the director mentioned. “They’d gotten on one another’s nerves to the purpose the place I believe they actually wished to kill one another. I stored taking pictures take after take of Bobby yelling all these insults whereas the crew was getting very upset.”
Romanus mentioned De Niro truly received indignant when he noticed him chortle in the course of the tirade. “By laughing I used to be saving face. He thought I must be fuming, however he had no management over my reactions,” he mentioned. “Typically the response you get out of your performing associate will not be the one you need. Then you definately merely need to react off that. However on this scene I laughed organically. I assumed Bobby was very humorous when he was doing that stuff. And he regarded ridiculous.”
Romanus spent the remainder of the last decade exhibiting up on such exhibits as Rhoda, Kojak, Starsky & Hutch, The Rockford Recordsdata and Hawaii 5-O and within the movie Russian Roulette (1975).
In 1981-82, he landed a daily position as Det. Lt. Charlie Gunzer on the ultra-violent ABC crime present Strike Drive, starring Robert Stack and produced by Aaron Spelling, however the collection was canceled after 20 episodes.
From left: Michael Goodwin, Robert Stack, Dorian Harewood, Trisha Noble and Richard Romanus from the 1981-82 collection Strike Drive.
Robert Phillips / Everett Assortment
He performed one other cop on one other short-lived ABC collection, Foul Play, in 1981.
Romanus’ résumé included the movies Sitting Geese (1980), Protocall (1984), The Sofa Journey (1988), Oscar (1991), Level of No Return (1993), Cops and Robbersons (1994), Nailed (2001) and The Younger Black Stallion (2003) and TV work on Hill Avenue Blues, The A-Crew, MacGyver, Cagney & Lacey and NYPD Blue.
Along with his son, survivors embody his second spouse, Oscar-nominated costume designer Anthea Sylbert (Rosemary’s Child, Chinatown, Julia), whom he married in August 1985, and youthful brother Robert Romanus, who performed Mike Damone in Quick Occasions at Ridgemont Excessive.
Twenty-three years in the past, Romanus and Sylbert moved to the Greek city of Skiathos, and he wrote concerning the expertise in Act III: A Small Island within the Aegean, printed in 2011. Plus, he authored two novels set within the nation, 2011’s Chrysalis and 2014’s Matoula’s Echo.
The couple, who had been declared honorary residents of Skiathos in 2021, additionally wrote and produced two Lifetime telefilms, 1998’s Giving Up the Ghost and 1999’s If You Imagine (the latter received them a WGA nomination).
Romanus’ first spouse was actress-singer Tina Bohlmann. They had been married from 1967 till their 1975 divorce.
