Alex Rocco, an actor best known for playing the bespectacled Las Vegas mobster Moe Greene in The Godfather, has died at age 79.

 

Rocco's death was announced by his daughter Jennifer.

 

Rocco, whose career spanned five decades, often played the tough guy in either drams or comedies.

 

He won an Emmy for supporting actor in a comedy series for his role in The Famous Teddy Z, a short-lived sitcom in 1990.

 

But his most famous role came in the first instalment of The Godfather in 1972, where he played the humbled casino owner who meets his fate on a massage table, with a bullet through his thick eyeglass lenses.

 

The character of Moe Greene - who has a confrontation with Al Pacino's Michael Corleone in one of the movie's many memorable scenes - was believed to be based on real-life gangster Bugsy Siegel.

 

The Boston-born Rocco also voiced several animated works, including A Bug's Life and The Simpsons, and appeared as a guest in TV shows including Starsky and Hutch and The A-Team.

(Sky News)