Background and career
Salvatore Loggia ( LOH-zhə, Italian: [salvaˈtoːre ˈlɔddʒa]; January 3, 1930 – December 4, 2015), known professionally as Robert Loggia, was an American actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Jagged Edge (1985) and won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for Big (1988). In a career spanning over 60 years, Loggia performed in many films, including The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), three Pink Panther films, An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Scarface (1983), Prizzi's Honor (1985), Oliver & Company (1988), Innocent Blood (1992), Independence Day (1996), Lost Highway (1997), Return to Me (2000), and Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie (2012). He also appeared on numerous television series, including Malcolm in the Middle (2001), The Sopranos (2004), and Men of a Certain Age (2011), and played lead roles, such as Thomas Hewitt Edward Cat in T.H.E. Cat (1966–1967), Nick Mancuso in Mancuso, F.B.I. (1989–1990), and Elfego Baca in the Walt Disney limited series The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca (1958–1960).
Loggia was born in Staten Island, New York on January 3, 1930, to Biagio Loggia, a shoemaker born in Palma di Montechiaro, Sicily and Elena Blandino, a homemaker born in Vittoria, Sicily. He grew up in the Little Italy neighborhood, where the family spoke Italian at home. He graduated from New Dorp High School in Staten Island before taking courses at Wagner College in the city, where he joined the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. In 1951, Robert Loggia earned a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in Columbia. He later studied acting with Alvina Krause at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. After serving as a reporter in the United States Army for the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service in the Caribbean, Loggia started his acting career at the Actors Studio, studying under Stella Adler.
Loggia's stage roles include Solyony in The Three Sisters (1964) and as Al in Boom Boom Room (1973). He had an uncredited appearance in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956); when he was cast as a New Mexico lawman Elfego Baca in 1958 his career began. He was a radio and TV anchor on the Southern Command Network in the Panama Canal Zone, and Loggia garnered attention by playing a real life sheriff in The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca, a series of Walt Disney TV shows. Loggia later starred as the proverbial cat-burglar-turned-good circus artist Thomas Hewitt Edward Cat in a short-lived detective series called T.H.E. Cat, first broadcast in 1966. T.H.E. Cat initially appeared to be a success, and Loggia said: "We're drawing about a 30 percent share of the audience, which NBC considers fine for a new show with a new star." After NBC canceled the series when viewing figures failed to deliver, he went into a mid-life crisis—a "Dante-esque descent into the inferno", as he called it later. For six years, Loggia's career foundered, and his marriage fell apart. Restless and unnerved, constantly riddled with self-doubt, a chance meeting with Audrey O'Brien was his saving grace. She helped Loggia out of the crisis, and they later married. Despite playing Frank Carver on the CBS soap opera The Secret Storm in 1972, he took a new course when he decided to begin a career in directing. Director Blake Edwards often cast Loggia in his films in minor or supporting roles including Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), other Pink Panther sequels, and S.O.B. (1981), a satire about Hollywood. In 1983, Loggia played Frank Lopez, a drug dealer who was one of the main supporting characters and antagonists in the film Scarface, which is often considered a classic Hollywood film. Loggia also acted in several widely acclaimed films such as An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Prizzi's Honor (1985), and Independence Day (1996). He also appeared in the movie "Big" in 1988 , which was an American fantasy comedy film directed by Penny Marshall and starring Tom Hanks as Josh Baskin, an adolescent boy whose wish to be "big" transforms him physically into an adult. Robert Loggia and Tom Hanks famously played an oversized floor piano keyboard with their feet in the FAO Schwartz toy store. Other films starring Loggia include Over The Top (1987), Necessary Roughness (1991), and Return to Me (2000). Loggia was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of crusty private detective Sam Ransom in the crime thriller Jagged Edge (1985). He was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, his first such honor, for portraying FBI agent Nick Mancuso in the TV series Mancuso, FBI (1989–1990), a follow-up to the previous year's miniseries Favorite Son (1988). Loggia appeared as a mobster in multiple films, including Bill Sykes, the immoral loanshark and shipyard agent in Disney's animated film Oliver & Company (1988), Salvatore "The Shark" Macelli in John Landis' Innocent Blood (1992), Mr. Eddy in David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997), and Don Vito Leoni in David Jablin's The Don's Analyst (1997). He also played violent mobster Feech La Manna in several episodes of The Sopranos. In 1998, Loggia appeared in a television commercial lampooning obscure celebrity endorsements. In it, a young boy names Loggia as someone he would trust to recommend Minute Maid orange-tangerine blend. Loggia instantly appears and endorses the drink, to which the boy exclaims, "Whoa, Robert Loggia!" The commercial was later referenced in a Malcolm in the Middle episode in which Loggia made a guest appearance as "Grandpa Victor" (for which he received a second Emmy nomination); in it, Loggia drinks orange juice, spits it out, and complains about the presence of pulp. In addition to voicing Sykes in Disney's Oliver & Company, Loggia had several more voice acting roles in multiple media, including: Admiral Petrarch in the computer game FreeSpace 2 (1999) and the anime movie The Dog of Flanders (1997), crooked cop Ray Machowski in Grand Theft Auto III, a 2001 video game, and a recurring role on the Adult Swim animated TV comedy series Tom Goes to the Mayor (2004–2006). In August 2009, Loggia appeared in one of Apple's Get a Mac advertisements. The advertisement features him as a personal trainer hired by PC to get him back on top of his game. On October 26, 2009, TVGuide.com announced Loggia had joined the cast of the TNT series Men of a Certain Age. Loggia appeared in two episodes of the animated series Family Guy as himself; in the episode "Brothers and Sisters", after Mayor West tells his fiancé Carol he has "aides" (which Carol mistakes for AIDS), before he clarifies that he is referring to his assistants; West then remarks that they both have AIDS, and the scene cuts to Loggia, angrily responding "Not Okay!". In the episode "Call Girl", he is seen twice denoting the passage of time in boring events. The script cuts away to Loggia saying "Eight __ hours later", then back to the story, further along in the plot. An earlier episode showed Peter stuck behind Loggia at the airport, where he was not voiced by Loggia himself. In 2012, Loggia portrayed Saint Peter during his final imprisonment in The Apostle Peter and the Last Supper. He partnered with Frank D'Angelo, an entrepreneur from Toronto in 2013, appearing in three films (Real Gangsters, The Big Fat Stone, and No Depo$it), with a fourth film in production (Sicilian Vampire) at the time of Loggia's death. Loggia served as a director for episodes of Quincy, M.E., Magnum, P.I., and Hart to Hart. Loggia reprised his role from Independence Day, General William Grey, in a cameo appearance alongside his wife, Audrey, in the 2016 sequel Independence Day: Resurgence, filmed shortly before he died. The film was released posthumously and dedicated to him.
Loggia was married to Della Marjorie Sloan, from 1954 until they divorced in 1981. They had three children. In 1982, he and Audrey O'Brien married; they were a couple until his death in 2015. In 2010, Loggia was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He died on December 4, 2015, due to complications from the disease, at his Brentwood, Los Angeles home at age 85. He was interred at Westwood Memorial Park.
In 2010, Loggia was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in recognition of his humanitarian efforts. On December 17, 2011, he was honored by his alma mater, the University of Missouri, with an honorary degree for his career and his humanitarian efforts.
