Birthplace: New York City, New York, United States
Death Date: 05/28/2001
biography
This tough, eccentric and battered-looking nightclub habitue became a comic and eventually a successful character actor in more than 20 films. He was born Michael Gennaro Morra to a tough Brooklyn family; his father was deported, and his uncle reportedly gunned down a man in front of the boy. Morra became a ruffian himself, losing his teeth in a pistol-whipping and admitting to at least one stick-up. Morra changed his name to 'Rockets Redglare' when he became a nightclub comic in the 1970s.Popular in the downtown punk scene, he was spotted by director Jim Jarmusch, who cast him as a poker
