Beloved character actor Charley Scalies died Thursday at age 84 following a battle with Alzheimer’s.
Anne Marie Scalies, the daughter of Charley Scalies, informed The Hollywood Reporter that her father passed away on Thursday at a nursing home in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.
In the second season of The Wire, Scalies played the character of stevedore Thomas ‘Horseface’ Pakusa in 12 episodes, where the series delved into the economic challenges faced by Baltimore’s dockworkers during times of transition.
Scalies also appeared in an episode of another iconic HBO series, The Sopranos.
Scalies also portrayed Coach Molinaro, Tony Soprano’s high school football coach, in a dream sequence that highlighted the vulnerabilities and insecurities of the troubled mob boss, who was attempting to address these issues through therapy.
A Legacy obituary – which noted Scalies died ‘peacefully’ – emphasized the role family played in his life.
A character actor who had a key role on The Sopranos has died. The cast pictured in 2024 in NYC at an anniversary event for the iconic HBO show
Charley Scalies played Coach Molinaro, Tony Soprano’s high school football coach, in a dream scene that showed the insecurities the troubled mob boss faced (and sought to deal with through therapy).
‘Best known first and foremost as a husband, father, grandfather, uncle, and friend,’ it said.
The page said, in reference to Scalies’ family, that the actor’s ‘favorite audience was always seated around the dinner table.’
Season two of The Wire showed how the slow times at the docks led a few workers – including Pakusa – to earn extra cash smuggling in contraband.
Amid the items unwittingly smuggled in by the Baltimore crew drugs and women tragically trafficked into the U.S. to be sex workers.
‘The only time I have even been on the docks is when I worked on The Wire,’ Scalies told Chesapeake Bay Magazine in 2019.
Scalies said that ‘the only time I even met a stevedore was shortly after I was cast as Horseface.’
The role was a perfect fit.
Shortly after landing the part, Scalies happened to chat with several real-life stevedores and union reps for the International Longeshoremen’s Association – who all approved of the casting.
Scalies died at age 84 following a battle with Alzheimer’s, according to his family
He played Coach Molinaro, Tony Soprano’s high school football coach, in The Sopranos
He had a memorable exchange with a grown Tony Soprano (played by the late James Gandolfini) that revealed the insecurities the mob boss harbored
Scalies portrayed Thomas ‘Horseface’ Pakusa for 12 episodes of The Wire
‘I told them I had just been cast as a union “checker” on a TV show,’ he recalled. ‘Their response was immediate and unanimous: “He looks like a checker.”‘
Scalies explained: ‘As with all the other characters I’ve been blessed to portray, Horseface lives inside of me – I invite him out to play as needed.’
On Twitter, a number of fans of the show paid homage to the late actor in the role he played on The Wire, making inside references to scenes that involved his character.
A post from The Wire fan account Ziggy_Sobotka read: ‘Heartbroken to report that Charlie Scalies, Horseface on The Wire and Coach Molinaro from The Sopranos has passed away’
Fans made reference to a key scene that showed Horseface caring for an injured colleague
‘R. I. P. He’s still on the clock,’ said one fan. Another added, ‘Great characters RIP to the legend.’
Referring to a scene illustrating Horseface’s loyalty to the union, one fan wrote, ‘Good luck to St Peter getting anything out of him at the pearly gates without an IBS lawyer present.’
A post from the Wire fan account Ziggy_Sobotka, named after another dockworker on the series, read: ‘Heartbroken to report that Charlie Scalies, Horseface on The Wire and Coach Molinaro from The Sopranos has passed away.’
It concluded: ‘Charles J. Scalies, Jr. 7/19/1940 – 5/1/2025.’
