If there was an Oscar category for “Best Mean Bastard”, Ben Gazzara would have won it a half dozen times. There are few characters in film who burn as intensely as Cosmo Vitelli, the sleazy, desperate nightclub owner he played in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.
Farewell to one tough SOB and the greatest actor to walk the earth. A tribute in The New Yorker says it best:
He’ll be remembered for just a handful of roles, out of the one hundred thirty-three listed in IMDb, but those are among the very summits of movie history.
