Tony Rosato (born December 26, 1954) is an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
-
CanadianCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
animated voice actor who has appeared in television and movies in both Canada and the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Rosato was born in Naples,
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
, and raised in
HalifaxThe City of Halifax was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County, and was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...
,
OttawaOttawa is the capital of Canada and a municipality within the Province of Ontario. Located in the Ottawa Valley in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario, the city lies on the southern banks of the Ottawa River, a major waterway forming the local boundary between the Provinces of Ontario and...
, and
TorontoToronto is the most populous city in Canada and the provincial capital of Ontario. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. With over 2.5 million residents, it is the fifth most populous municipality in North America...
. He planned to study
chiropracticChiropractic is a health care discipline and profession that emphasizes diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine, under the hypothesis that these disorders affect general health via the nervous system...
medicine, but dropped out of the
University of TorontoThe University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated north of the city's Financial District on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. The university was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in the...
after he began doing improv comedy at
The Second CityThe Second City is a long-running improvisational comedy enterprise which originated in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood.The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959 and has since expanded its presence to several other cities, including Toronto and Los Angeles...
. Rosato first gained attention when he and
Robin DukeRobin Duke is a Canadian actress and comedian. Duke is most famous for her work on the NBC comedy series Saturday Night Live although in recent years her latest venture, Women Fully Clothed, a sketch comedy troupe she co-founded, has toured Canada with strong reviews and ticket sales...
joined the cast of the first incarnation of
SCTV Second City Television is a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984.- Premise :...
in its final season during the fall of 1980.
Tony Rosato (born December 26, 1954) is an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
-
CanadianCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
animated voice actor who has appeared in television and movies in both Canada and the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Rosato was born in Naples,
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
, and raised in
HalifaxThe City of Halifax was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County, and was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...
,
OttawaOttawa is the capital of Canada and a municipality within the Province of Ontario. Located in the Ottawa Valley in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario, the city lies on the southern banks of the Ottawa River, a major waterway forming the local boundary between the Provinces of Ontario and...
, and
TorontoToronto is the most populous city in Canada and the provincial capital of Ontario. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. With over 2.5 million residents, it is the fifth most populous municipality in North America...
. He planned to study
chiropracticChiropractic is a health care discipline and profession that emphasizes diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine, under the hypothesis that these disorders affect general health via the nervous system...
medicine, but dropped out of the
University of TorontoThe University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated north of the city's Financial District on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. The university was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in the...
after he began doing improv comedy at
The Second CityThe Second City is a long-running improvisational comedy enterprise which originated in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood.The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959 and has since expanded its presence to several other cities, including Toronto and Los Angeles...
. Rosato first gained attention when he and
Robin DukeRobin Duke is a Canadian actress and comedian. Duke is most famous for her work on the NBC comedy series Saturday Night Live although in recent years her latest venture, Women Fully Clothed, a sketch comedy troupe she co-founded, has toured Canada with strong reviews and ticket sales...
joined the cast of the first incarnation of
SCTV Second City Television is a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984.- Premise :...
in its final season during the fall of 1980. His most well-known character on the program was a notoriously drunk TV chef named Marcello Sebastiano.
After
SCTV, Rosato moved with Duke to the cast of
Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a weekly late-night sketch comedy and variety show filmed in New York City. It made its debut on October 11, 1975, under a slightly different title. The show features a regular cast of comedy actors, joined by a guest host and musical act...
for the 1981-1982 season. The show was in a state of turmoil at the time, and Rosato's contract, along with that of fellow cast member
Christine EbersoleChristine Ebersole is an American actress and singer.Ebersole was born in Winnetka, Illinois, where she attended New Trier High School...
, was not renewed.
Rosato next emerged on the Canadian police drama
Night HeatNight Heat is a Canadian police drama series, which aired on CTV from 1985 to 1991. The show also aired on CBS in the United States, and was the first Canadian-produced drama series to air on an American network...
, playing Arthur 'Whitey' Morelli. This role lasted from 1985 through 1989. In autumn of 1990, Rosato portrayed
Nintendois a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel...
's character
Luigiis a video game character created by Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the younger brother of Nintendo's official mascot, Mario. Luigi first appeared in the arcade game Mario Bros., where he was featured as a main character alongside Mario...
on
DiCDIC Entertainment was an international American film and television production company which was founded in 1971 as DIC Audiovisuel by Jean Chalopin in Luxembourg, as a subsidiary of Radio-Television Luxembourg...
's television show
The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 is a Canadian-American animated television series based on the video game Super Mario Bros. 3. It aired on NBC as a part of Captain N: The Game Master, from September 8, 1990 through December 1, 1990.- Format :...
(loosely based around the
video gameis a platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System , and is the fifth game in the Super Mario series. It was first released in Japan in 1988 and later in the United States and Europe in 1990 and 1991 respectively...
of the same title). He continued his role as Luigi in 1991 for the
Super Mario World cartoon. He continued to appear in television and film regularly throughout the 1990s.
He did a small voicing part in
Resident Evil 3 as a man named Dario Rosso.
Arrest
On May 5, 2005, Tony Rosato was arrested and
chargedIn the common law legal system, an indictment is a formal accusation that a person has committed a criminal offence. In those jurisdictions which retain the concept of a felony, the serious criminal offence would be a felony; those jurisdictions which have abolished the concept of a felony often...
with criminal harassment of his wife Leah, who asserted that Rosato's
deteriorating mental healthA mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern that occurs in an individual and is thought to cause distress or disability that is not expected as part of normal development or culture. The recognition and understanding of mental disorders has changed over time and...
had caused her to fear for her safety and that of the couple's infant daughter. The charge was laid after Rosato complained repeatedly to Toronto and Kingston, Ontario police that his wife, who had recently left him, and daughter had been abducted and replaced by impostors, a belief characteristic of
Capgras delusionThe Capgras delusion is a disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that a friend, spouse or other close family member, has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor. The Capgras delusion is classed as a delusional misidentification syndrome, a class of delusional beliefs that...
, a
delusional misidentification syndromeDelusional misidentification syndrome is an umbrella term for a group of delusional disorders that occur in the context of mental or neurological illness. They all involve a belief that the identity of a person, object or place has somehow changed or has been altered...
with which the
CrownCrown Attorneys or Crown Counsel are the public prosecutors in the legal system of Canada.Crown Attorneys represent the Crown and act as prosecutor in proceedings under the Criminal Code of Canada...
's expert
psychiatristA psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry and is certified in treating mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
has diagnosed Rosato, according to Rosato's eighth lawyer, Daniel Brodsky. It was alleged that the harassment occurred from December 28, 2003 and escalated until April 21, 2005. In spite of the diagnosis Rosato, who denied he was mentally ill and refused to plead insanity, was held for over two years without
bailTraditionally, bail is some form of property deposited or pledged to a court to persuade it to release a suspect from jail, on the understanding that the suspect will return for trial or forfeit the bail...
at a maximum-security detention centre. Daniel Brodsky, who calls his client's two-year detention awaiting trial "shocking," asserted that Rosato "spent more time in custody on a harassment charge" than anyone ever convicted of the offence in Canada, estimating that "on average, someone convicted of criminal harassment spends one day in jail and two years on probation." The trial finally commenced on August 7, 2007, in
KingstonKingston, Ontario is a Canadian city located in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario, where Lake Ontario runs into the St. Lawrence River and the Thousand Islands begin.Kingston is the county seat of Frontenac County...
and it ended on September 5, 2007. In the end the prosecution downgraded the charge to summary (misdemeanour) from indictable (felony). Rosato was spared a criminal conviction and a hospital residence order was issued for a maximum of three years, although he can be out much sooner.
Characters
Celebrities impersonated by Rosato on SCTV include:
Lou CostelloLouis Francis "Lou" Costello was an American actor and comedian best known as half of the comedy team of Abbott and Costello, with Bud Abbott...
(whom he also impersonated when he was a castmember on
Saturday Night Live),
William ConradWilliam Conrad was an American film and television director and an actor and narrator in radio, film, and television known for his baritone voice, as well as his sizable girth.-Early life:...
,
Danny ThomasDanny Thomas was an American nightclub comedian and television and film actor, best known for starring in the television sitcom Make Room for Daddy, or The Danny Thomas Show. He is also the founder of St...
, Woodstock co-organizer Chip Monk, SNL castmember
John BelushiJohn Adam Belushi was an American comedian, actor, and musician notable for his work on Saturday Night Live, National Lampoon's Animal House, and The Blues Brothers...
,
Tony OrlandoTony Orlando is an American singer best known for his work with the group Dawn in the early 1970s.-Biography:Born Michael Anthony Orlando Cassavitis to a Greek father and a Puerto Rican mother, he was raised in Manhattan's then-notorious Hell's Kitchen.Tony Orlando's musical career started with...
and
Ella FitzgeraldElla Jane Fitzgerald , also known as "Lady Ella", and the "First Lady of Song", was an American jazz vocalist....
. His characters on
SNLSaturday Night Live is a weekly late-night sketch comedy and variety show filmed in New York City. It made its debut on October 11, 1975, under a slightly different title. The show features a regular cast of comedy actors, joined by a guest host and musical act...
, despite his short tenure, were memorable as well, and included
Ed AsnerEdward Asner is an American film and television actor and former President of the Screen Actors Guild, primarily known for his role as Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series, Lou Grant...
(in character as Lou Grant),
Captain KangarooCaptain Kangaroo is a children's television series which aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS from 1955 until 1984...
, and U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese.