Robert Loggia gives men in charge a gravelly impatience that can be funny or frightening. We value him most when a film lets him soften, or makes his familiar toughness feel dangerous again.
Fi1m perspective
Robert Loggia's gravelly voice is particularly well suited to giving orders. It helps explain all those mobsters, policemen and other hard-edged figures he was asked to play. We rate him as a supporting actor who can make familiar parts worth watching. The risk is that a film takes the toughness for granted and gives him too little else to do.
His early television work often cast him as gangsters and heavies, before Scarface (1983) brought wider film recognition. Frank Lopez, the drug lord in Brian De Palma's film, gave him another opportunity to use that toughness. The blunt private detective Sam Ransom in Jagged Edge (1985) kept him among hard men. Penny Marshall's Big (1988), with Loggia as toy-company executive MacMillan, gave his softer side room.
In Independence Day (1996), Roland Emmerich makes straightforward use of that recognisability. General William Grey is a role that suits Loggia's ready authority, with little need to persuade us that he belongs in charge. The film's patient menace and large-scale destruction work, even when its foolish script and overdone patriotism do not. We recommend it partly because the cast makes the business of saving the world so cheerful. Loggia's casting is conventional, but it is a sensible choice for a film with so much else to organise.
Lost Highway (1997) gives that familiarity a more troubling use. David Lynch casts Loggia as Mr. Eddy, drawing on the menace that made him such an obvious choice for hard men. The threatening performance works partly because he already seems such a plausible man to obey. We prefer this use of him: recognising the kind of man he plays does not make the performance comfortable. Lynch's slow passages still test our patience, but Loggia supplies a threat we can feel without first untangling the storytelling.
Marshall's comedy is a welcome change from all that menace. We warmed to Loggia in the piano scene in Big, because he lets the toy-company executive enjoy himself so freely. Start there before trying Lynch; an evening of nothing but his hard men would leave out too much.
Biography
Robert Loggia (1930–2015) was an American actor. Born Salvatore Loggia in Staten Island, New York, he studied journalism at the University of Missouri before training at the Actors Studio and beginning stage work in New York.
Over a career spanning more than sixty years he appeared in films including Scarface (1983), An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Jagged Edge (1985), Big (1988) and Independence Day (1996), in which he played General William Grey. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Jagged Edge and won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for Big.
Loggia also worked extensively in television, with guest and recurring roles in series such as The Sopranos (1999), Malcolm in the Middle (2000) and Hawaii Five-0 (2010). He reprised the role of General Grey in Independence Day: Resurgence (2016).
