Rigoletto is a nasty, Don Rickles-style comedian, the Duke's lapdog, alternately encouraged and kicked, whose mockery of Monterone (here, a sheik), whose daughter has been raped by the Duke, comes back to haunt him when his own daughter, Gilda, is taken and destroyed.
His profile rose with it, and he came to be seen, in some eyes, as more Woody Allen than Gordon Gekko--a genial, funny, regular guy whose self-deprecating style masked a sharp intensity and a knack for nasty infighting when necessary.