WireImage/Bobby Bank(NEW YORK) — Actor Frank Vincent, best remembered for tough-guy roles as mob boss Phil Leotardo in HBO’s The Sopranos and mobster William “Billy Batts” Devino in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 film Goodfellas, has died at 80, his family said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly.
Vincent was born in North Adams, Massachusetts, and grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey. He began his career in entertainment as a drummer, but made his acting debut in the 1975 movie Death Collector. That led to roles in Martin Scorsese movies Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Casino as well as in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever.
Throughout the ’90s and early 2000s, Vincent made a number of TV appearance and even voiced characters for the Grand Theft Auto series of video games.
He joined the cast of The Sopranos in 2004 and appeared in 31 episodes.
After The Sopranos ended, Vincent continued to work in television, including voicing a character on Adult Swim’s Mr. Pickles from 2014 to 2016. But it was the profane zingers he uttered as Billy “Go get your shinebox” Batts, and the gruesome onscreen deaths that Batts and Phil Leotardo both suffered, for which Vincent was best known.
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