THE Charley Scalies, 84, of the Sopranos, has died of Alzheimer’s disease.
Charley, who also appeared in The Wire, died on Thursday at a nursing home in Pennsylvania, his family confirmed.
His daughter, Anne Marie Scalies, confirmed the information to The Hollywood Reporter.
According to an obituary on Legacy.com, the actor “passed away peacefully after a long battle with Alzheimer’s”.
It also stated that he was “best known first and foremost as a husband, father, grandfather, uncle, and friend”.
“His wife, children, and grandchildren,” said the note, “will miss his stories but will keep him in their hearts forever.”
The Philadelphia native played Tony Soprano’s high school football coach, Coach Molinaro, in the fifth season of the hit HBO series in 2004.
In a critically acclaimed episode titled The Test Dream, the character appears in a dream to Tony, played by James Gandolfini, and criticizes the Mafia boss for wasting his potential on a life of crime.
A year before landing the big role, Charley appeared in 12 episodes of HBO’s The Wire as stevedore Thomas “Horseface” Pakusa.
In a 2019 interview, Charley said of the role: “As with all the other characters I’ve been blessed to play, Horseface lives inside of me.
“I invite him out to play as needed.”
Charley was born in Philadelphia in 1940 as the youngest of three children and grew up above his father’s pool hall.
It was there that he planted the seeds of his acting career, entertaining visitors with impressions of singer Al Johnson.
During high school, Charley continued to hone his craft as part of a comedy duo, performing wherever they could.
However, after graduating, he took a break from acting to pursue an alternative career in business, working as a director of sales and contracts at a manufacturing company before establishing his own consulting firm.
He would rediscover his love of theatrics in the early 1990s, when he took on a number of roles onstage in Springfield, Pennsylvania.
These included roles in Guys and Dolls, Chicago, and The Wizard of Oz.
His TV debut came a few years later, with a minor role in Mika Kaurismäki’s Condition Red in 1995.
That same year, he appeared in Two Bits, starring Al Pacino, and Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys.
His film career continued with roles in Liberty Heights (1999) and Jersey Girl (2004), while his television credits include Life on the Street, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, and Cold Case.
Charley leaves behind his wife of 62 years, Angeline, five children, and four grandchildren.