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‘Sopranos’ and ‘The Wire’ Actor Dies At 84

The character actor passed away Thursday, following a long battle with Alzheimer’s.

Chaley Scalies, best known for playing Tony Soprano’s high school football coach on The Sopranos and Thomas “Horseface” Pakusa on season two of The Wire, has died. He was 84. The veteran character actor passed away Thursday at a nursing facility in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, following a long battle with Alzheimer’s, his daughter Anne Marie Scalies told The Hollywood Reporter. Scalies portrayed Horseface, an incarcerated longshoreman and loyal union man, in all 12 episodes of The Wire‘s critically acclaimed second season. He played Coach Molinaro in Season 5 of The Sopranos, appearing in Tony’s dream to scold him for wasting his potential on crime. He made his film debut in the 1995 film Two Bits, starring Al Pacino, and also appeared on Law & Order. Outside of acting, he worked as a sales director at the manufacturing company Clifton Precision and later founded his own consulting firm, according to his public obituary. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Angeline M. Scalies, and his five children. “His favorite audience was always seated around the dinner table,” his family said.