Newsman and film actor Mario Machado has died at the age of 78, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Machado, a longtime Los Angeles TV news anchor and reporter, had been sick with Parkinson's disease and died of complications of pneumonia at a West Hills convalescent home, his daughter Michelle tells the LA Times.

Machado, who was born in 1935 to a Portuguese father and Chinese-Portuguese mother, was the first on-air Chinese-American news reporter when his television career in 1967, according to LA Radio. He also became the first Consumer Affairs reporter in the country in 1969, and won several Emmy Awards as host of the medical investigation show Medix.

Machado was also famous for his appearances playing TV anchors in several films, including Rocky III and Scarface, and as reporter Casey Wong in three Robocop movies, the LA Times adds.