'The French Connection' Actor Tony Lo Bianco Dies at 87

Tony Lo Bianco, who played boxer Rocky Marciano, NYC Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, a maniacal "loney hearts" murderer, and a doomed mobster in the movie classic "The French Connection," died Tuesday at 87.

Lo Bianco's death was confirmed in a statement to Fox News by his family. He died of prostate cancer with "his beloved wife, Alyse... by his side."

Lo Bianco was born in NYC on October 19, 1936. He became interested in acting while in school, juggling that pursuit and an amateur boxing career. A Golden Gloves boxer, he moved definitively into stage acting, founding the Triangle Theater in 1963.

He made his Broadway debut in "Tartuffe" in 1965, the beginning of a long career on the stage that included appearing again on Broadway in the shows "The Ninety Day Mistress" (1967), "The Exercise" (1968), "The Goodbye People" (1968), "A View from the Bridge" (1983), and "Hizzoner!" (1989).

In the latter, he portrayed NYC's colorful Mayor La Guardia, a performance he repeated in "LaGuardia" in 2008 and "The Little Flower" in 2012, both off-Broadway.

Lo Bianco made his film debut in "The Sex Perils of Paulette" (1965), but made a much bigger impression as a psychotic con man who seduces a nurse (Shirley Stoler) and persuades her to go on a killing spree with him in the gritty "The Honeymoon Killers" (1970). The story was inspired by real-life killers Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, dubbed the loney hearts killers in the 1940s.

The film, directed by Leonard Kastle, is considered a classic, and was selected twice for release by the Criterion Collection.

Other films included "The French Connection," in which he played a pivotal part; "Mean Frank and Crazy Tony" (1973), "Serpico" (1973), "The Seven-Ups" (1973), "Goldenrod" (1976), "God Told Me To" (1976), "F.I.S.T." (1978), "Bloodbrothers" (1978), "City Heat" (1984), "Nixon" (1995), and "The Juror" (1995).

In 2022, Lo Bianco came out of retirement to appear in Ray Romano's directorial debut, "Somewhere in Queens," with Romano and Laurie Metcalf.

Lo Bianco was also active on TV from the '60s on. After debuting on the soap "The Doctors" (1963), he had a recurring role on "Police Story" (1974-1976), appeared in the miniseries "Jesus of Nazareth" (1977), played Rocky Marciano in the 1979 TV movie "Marciano," was Ann Jillian's husband Andy Murcia in the dramatization of her cancer battle entitled "The Ann Jillian Story" (1988), and was a regular on the short-lived series "Jessie" (1984) and "Palace Guard" (1991).

Lo Bianco is survived by his third wife, Alyse, and by his three children.