‘Sopranos’ And ‘Wire’ Star Passes Away At 84

Charley Scalies, known for his endearing roles on hit HBO series “The Sopranos” and “The Wire,” passed away last week. He was 84.

The tough-talking Italian actor passed away at a Pennsylvania nursing home, according to his family. Scalies had been living at the Phoenixville facility while undergoing extended care for Alzheimer’s, his daughter Anne Marie told the Hollywood Reporter.

For all 12 seasons of “The Wire,” Scalies portrayed union muscleman Thomas “Horseface” Pakusa and briefly appeared in “The Sopranos” as Tony’s football coach during a dream sequence. But it was his “Wire” role that gave Scalies a taste of modest fame and left its greatest impression on his career, he said in 2019.

“As with all the other characters I’ve been blessed to portray, Horseface lives inside of me,” he said. “I invite him out to play as needed.”

In the show, Horseface, a longshoreman with IBS Local 1514 at the Port of Baltimore, is discharged from prison and serves as the righthand man to union boss Frank Sobotka, played by Chris Bauer.

He performed so well in the role that HBO invited Scalies to cross over for a memorable “Sopranos” scene in the show’s fifth season where he appeared as Coach Molinaro, a throwback to Tony’s days of high school football. He berates James Gandolfini’s character for taking “the easy way out” by succumbing to the life of a criminal and squandering his potential.

Born July 19, 1940, Scalies was the youngest of three children. He was raised in a South Philadelphia condo that sat above a pool hall owned by his father. He frequently accompanied his dad to work on the weekends, honing his ability to entertain while generating his best Al Jolson impressions for patrons.

In college, the future actor and his best friend performed stand-up comedy, he recalled in 2015, “and played every Beef and Beer [joint] we could find.”

“Like every other comedy duo of the time, we patterned our act after [Dean] Martin & [Jerry] Lewis,” he added.

Scalies wasn’t intending to take the acting route at first. Upon graduating, he landed his first job with Clifton Precision, a manufacturing company, before establishing his own consulting firm, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

During the 1990s, however, he found enjoyment in his free time playing roles in dinner theater productions, including as Nicely-Nicely Johnson in Guys & Dolls, Billy Flynn in Chicago, and the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz for the St. Francis Players in Springfield, Pennsylvania.

Later that decade, Scalies took respectable side roles alongside some of Hollywood’s biggest names of the era. He supported Al Pacino in “Two Bits” and Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt in “12 Monkeys.”

Other credits to his career include “Liberty Heights” (1999), directed by Homicide producer Barry Levinson, and Kevin Smith’s “Jersey Girl” (2004), as well as guest spots on “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: SVU” and “Cold Case.”