'The Godfather' actor Alex Rocco dead at 79

Alex Rocco, best known for playing a mobster and Las Vegas casino owner Moe Greene in "The Godfather", is dead. He was 79.

Rocco died on Saturday afternoon of cancer at his home in Studio City, his son, Sean, said, reports hollywoodreporter.com.

Rocco, who studied acting with the late Leonard Nimoy, a fellow Boston-area transplant, also was the voice of Roger Meyers Jr., the cigar-smoking chairman of the studio behind "Itchy and Scratchy" on "The Simpsons"; and he played Arthur Evans, the father of Jeffrey Dean Morgan's character, on the stylish Starz series "Magic City".

Rocco starred as a white Detroit detective who is reluctantly paired with a black detective (Hari Rhodes) in Arthur Marks' "Detroit 9000" (1973) and voiced an ant in "A Bug's Life" (1998).

"That was my greatest prize ever in life, because I did about eight lines as an ant, and I think I made over a million dollars," he said in a 2012 interview.

Rocco won an Emmy Award in 1990 for best supporting actor in a comedy for playing sneaky Hollywood talent agent Al Floss on the short-lived CBS series "The Famous Teddy Z", starring Jon Cryer.