Robert Loggia Dead at 85; Soap Opera Credits Included 'The Secret Storm' and 'Search for Tomorrow'

Robert Loggia in 1977.

Oscar-nominated actor Robert Loggia has died at age 85. Loggia's wife Aubrey Loggia said he died Friday at his home in Los Angeles after a five year battle with Alzheimer's. "His poor body gave up," she said. "He loved being an actor and he loved his life."

Loggia was well known for his roles in gangster movies, playing a Miami drug lord in Scarface, which starred Al Pacino; and a Sicilian mobster in Prizzi's Honor, with Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner. He played wise guys in David Lynch's Lost Highway, the spoofs Innocent Blood and Armed and Dangerous, and again on David Chase's The Sopranos, as the previously jailed veteran mobster Michele "Feech" La Manna.

It was not as a gangster but as a seedy detective that Loggia received his only Academy Award nomination, as supporting actor in 1985's Jagged Edge. He played gumshoe Sam Ransom, who investigated a murder involving Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges.