Robert Loggia, who so memorably portrayed Frank Lopez in Brian De Palma's Scarface, died Friday at his Los Angeles home, according to Variety. He was 85. His widow Audrey told Variety that Loggia had been battling Alzheimer’s Disease for the past five years.
Nominated for an Academy Award (for his supporting role in Richard Marquand's Joe Eszterhas-penned Jagged Edge) and two Emmys, Loggia had a long career in TV and film. As well as acting, he also directed several episodes of television. In film, his outrageous road rage scene as Mr. Eddy in David Lynch's Lost Highway was punctuated with one of his best lines: "Sorry about that, Pete, but tailgating is one thing I cannot tolerate."
In issue #45 of Shock Cinema last year, Loggia told Tony Williams that "Scarface was one hell of a movie. We had six weeks of rehearsal-- that was unheard of then. With Al Pacino, Brian De Palma, and a good budget, we had everything in our favor."
However, back in 2011, Loggia expressed some irritation with De Palma's direction of where to hold the gun, etc., telling QMI Agency's Bruce Kirkland that he felt De Palma was too fussy with, as Kirkland writes, "picayune details that the veteran actor felt should be left to the performers." Loggia stated, "I hate to knock a director, but you don't want a director to say, 'Do this, do that, hold the gun up there, higher, higher.' It was difficult working with (De Palma) ... for me. But he's got a career going and I don't want to say anything negative." Despite this, Loggia told Kirkland, "I think we turned out a pretty damned good movie," counting it among the reasons he loves his acting career. "Acting in general is a feeling of being transported to the heavens," Loggia said. He adds that the film has two separate styles: "The first half of the movie is impressionistic," he told Kirkland. "The second half of the movie, after I die, is expressionistic. It's completely different. I don't think that was ever articulated (during the shoot) but that was the truth of the matter. We just did it. It was obvious."
Updated: Saturday, December 5, 2015 6:59 PM CST
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