
Renowned television and movie actor, Robert Davi – best known for his villainous roles in James Bond’s License to Kill and as Special Agent Johnson in Die Hard – joined Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano this week, as he returned to his Long Island roots.
First, he was a guest on WHLI radio in Farmingdale, he greeted seniors at a center in Massapequa, then he spoke at Hofstra University, his alma mater and tonight he’ll be performing a free concert at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow.
While he has starred alongside some of the biggest names in Hollywood –Marlon Brando, Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis, to name a few – Davi praised his studies at Nassau County’s Hofstra campus with helping him achieve the greatness he has.Not only did he praise the university’s theatre and drama program yesterday, as he accepted a lifetime achievement award by college officials, Davi also praised the literary education he received there and said Hofstra’s Shakespeare-like Globe Stage confirmed his decision to go there.
He spoke about how important it was to have a good education, to be able to speak intelligently and articulately and how society desperately needed to get back to its cultural roots – to the way it was “back then.” He does that, himself, through music – his lifelong passion.
Like his icon and friend, Frank Sinatra, Davi is a singer who can also act well. And in his concerts, like the one he will perform tonight, Davi pays tribute to Old Blue Eyes and to the Great American Songbook.
“We have to bring it back,” Davi told the group of film industry types gathered at Hofstra’s University Club yesterday afternoon. “We all have to do it together.”