“The Guardian” runs an obituary for Danny Aiello

Bouncer, baggage handler, trade unionist, and American film actor Danny Aiello died Thursday at eighty-six years old, after playing thuggish supporting roles for a decade and a half before becoming a star in his mid-fifties, according to The Guardian. Born to a large family in New York on May 20, 1933, with a seamstress mother from Italy as well as a laborer father, Aiello identified most with Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney’s bad guys at the movies, supplementing his income with a life of petty crime. His first screen credit was John D. Hancock’s Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), but it was Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II (1974) that typecast him; however, the 1986 music video for “Papa Don’t Preach” by Madonna gained him exposure on MTV, and Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) earned him an Academy Award nomination.

Author: Hunter Goddard, MA, BA

I am an award-winning journalist, memoirist, and personal essayist in Denver, Colorado. I hold a Master of Arts in Professional Creative Writing with a concentration in Nonfiction from the University of Denver, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Media Communication from Colorado State University Fort Collins, with a concentration in Publications Writing, Editing, and Production, and an interdisciplinary minor in Film Studies. I am passionate about inspiring positive change and meaningful action through the power of the literary arts. View all posts by Hunter Goddard, MA, BA