Godfather Part II, Full House Actor Dies

Character actor John Aprea, best known for his roles in The Godfather Part II and Full House, has died at age 83. His manager, Will Levine, says Aprea died at his home in Los Angeles of natural causes earlier this month, per the Hollywood Reporter. Aprea, born in New Jersey in 1941 to Italian parents, moved to Los Angeles in the late 1960s to pursue an acting career. He played a killer in 1968's Bullitt with Steve McQueen, but he credited the role in The Godfather Part II six years later with launching his career, the New York Times reports.

According to Forbes, Aprea was working as a bartender when he met Francis Ford Coppola and landed an audition for The Godfather. The role of Michael Corleone went to Al Pacino, but Aprea was cast as the young version of Sal Tessio in the sequel.

• Aprea's other film and TV roles included a starring role in The Montefuscos, a short-lived 1975 sitcom about an Italian American family. He appeared in hundreds of episodes of NBC's Another World soap opera between 1989 and 1998.
• Aprea also played grandfather Nick Katsopolis in Full House between 1988 and 1991 and returned for an episode of Fuller House in 2017.
• Most recently, Aprea appeared in the Peacock crime-drama series The Bay between 2020 and 2023, USA Today reports.

(More obituary stories.)