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Scarface star Ángel Salazar, who played Al Pacino’s trusted sidekick “Chi-Chi” in the cult classic, has died aged 68.
He is said to have died over the weekend at a friend’s home in Brooklyn, New York. His representative and close friend Ann Wingsong confirmed the news to TMZ. The star had suffered from heart issues over the years, but a cause of death has not been disclosed.
Wingsong said Salazar died in his sleep and his body was found when the friend went to check on Salazar in his room on Sunday morning (11 August).
The Cuban-American actor was born in 1956, and first landed his role as “Chi-Chi” in Brian DePalma’s Scarface in 1983. He then went on to play Rico, alongside Tom Hanks in Punchline in 1988 and then as Walberto in Carlito’s Way in 1993.
Salazar never stopped acting, playing roles in movies almost every year since his breakthrough in Scarface. His notable credits include Boulevard Nights, Sylvester, and Maniac Cop 2. He was due to appear in The Brooklyn Premiere this year. He also made a number of television appearances as himself including on Showtime at the Apollo in 1992.
As well as acting, Salazar was a successful comedian who had a number of HBO comedy specials including an appearance on Last Comic Standing.
However, he will most likely be remembered by fans as Tony Montana’s ride-or-die accomplice, saving Montana in a legendary “chainsaw scene” that saw the mobster almost lose his life in the most gruesome of ways, after seeing his friend Angel killed using the same tool.
Chi-Chi meets a bloody end when he is killed by a hit squad hired by drug kingpin Alejandro Sosa, his back riddled with bullets. G-Unit member Tony Yayo named his rap persona after a line from the movie in which Montana asks his friend to “get the yayo”, a slang term for cocaine.
Although the movie found no success upon its release, it has since gone on to become a cult favourite.
The Independent’s Geoffrey McNab wrote upon the movie celebrating four decades of success, “Forty years on, Scarface stands as one of the most influential films of its era. TV dramas from Miami Vice to Narcos owe it an obvious debt – as do countless other drug-fuelled gangster movies. And early critics be damned, Tony Montana is almost certainly Pacino’s most celebrated performance.”
