Richard Romanus, The Sopranos and Heavy Metal Actor, Dead at 80

The Sopranos and Heavy Metal star Richard Romanus is dead at the age of 80. Over the course of his long career he played a bunch of tough guy characters, especially his turn opposite Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. However, for a lot of younger viewers, he'll always be Harry Canyon, the cab driver from Heavy Metal or Richard LaPenna in the HBO drama. The actor died on December 23 at a private hospital in Volos Greece according to his son Robert Romanus's statement to The Hollywood Reporter. You can expect a lot of video tribute on social media to Michael Longo, the Little Italy loan shark later today.

Despite all that time in Hollywood he didn't always play tough guys. Romanas also had voice roles in Wizards as the elf warrior Weehawk back in 1977 and Hey Good Lookin' from 1982. With the age of peak TV in the rearview mirror, a lot of fans remember his character Richard LaPenna as the husband of Lorraine Bracco's Jennifer Melfi back in the early 2000s. Other TV highlights for a menace include couple episodes of Mission: Impossible and The Mod Squad. There was also a quick appearance on Night Chase before Mean Streets came along. What is older character actors there was always a line through all of gold knees TV so appearances on Starsky and Hutch, Hawaii Five-0, The Rockford Files, Kojak, and more across the 70s.

Mean Streets' Most Iconic Moment

Mean Streets director Martin Scorsese mind it over the interactions between Robert De Niro and Richard Romanus in the landmark 1973 film. The filmmaker recounted the iconic scene featuring the two actors in the pages of Andy Dougan's 2011 book Untouchable: Robert de Niro. (Credit to THR for transcribing the story.)

"Something had happened between Bobby and Richard because the animosity between them in that scene is real, and I played on it," Scorsese told the writer. "They had gotten on each other's nerves to the point where I think they really wanted to kill each other. I kept shooting take after take of Bobby yelling all these insults while the crew was getting very upset."

"By laughing I was saving face. He thought I should be fuming, but he had no control over my reactions," Romanus said of his part in the scene. "Sometimes the reaction you get from your acting partner is not the one you want. Then you simply have to react off that. But in this scene I laughed organically. I thought Bobby was very funny when he was doing that stuff. And he looked ridiculous."

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Romanus family and their friends at this time.