Tony Sirico
Encyclopedia
Genaro Anthony "Tony" Sirico, Jr. (born July 24, 1942) is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...

 who is most famous for his role as Paulie Gualtieri
Paulie Gualtieri
Peter Paul "Paulie Walnuts" Gualtieri played by Tony Sirico, is a fictional character on the HBO TV series The Sopranos. He is a caporegime and later underboss in the Soprano crime family.-Plot details:...

 in the television series The Sopranos
The Sopranos
The Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the often conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads...

.

Background and career

Sirico was born in Midwood, Brooklyn
Midwood, Brooklyn
Midwood is a neighborhood in the south central part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, New York, USA, roughly halfway between Prospect Park and Coney Island. The neighborhood is within Community District 14...

. Sirico has also played gangster
Gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....

s in a number of films, including Mob Queen
Mob Queen
Mob Queen is an American romantic comedy released in 1998, directed by Jon Carnoy and written by Mike Horelick.-Synopsis:Brooklyn Docks, 1957....

, Gangsters, Love and Money
Love and Money (film)
Love and Money is a 1982 drama film directed by James Toback and starring Ray Sharkey.-Cast:* Ray Sharkey - Byron Levin* Ornella Muti - Catherine Stockheinz* Klaus Kinski - Frederic Stockheinz* Armand Assante - Lorenzo Prado* King Vidor - Walter Klein...

, Fingers
Fingers (1978 film)
Fingers is a 1978 drama film directed by James Toback.-Synopsis:The film features Harvey Keitel as a pianist who also works for his loan shark father as a "collector"...

, The One Man Jury
The One Man Jury
-Cast:* Jack Palance ... Lieutenant Wade* Christopher Mitchum ... Sergeant Blake* Pamela Susan Shoop ... Wendy Sommerset* Jeff McCracken ... Billy Joe Kerman-External links:*...

, Defiance
Defiance (1980 film)
Defiance is a 1980 American film starring Jan-Michael Vincent, Art Carney, and Theresa Saldana.Early Jerry Bruckheimer production. Jan-Michael Vincent portrays a suspended young seaman who takes up temporary housing in a neighborhood overrun by a gang, while waiting for his next orders to ship out....

, The Last Fight, Goodfellas
Goodfellas
Goodfellas is a 1990 American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a film adaptation of the 1986 non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scorsese...

, Innocent Blood
Innocent Blood (film)
Innocent Blood is a 1992 American horror-crime film directed by John Landis. The film stars Anne Parillaud as a vampire who finds herself against a blood-sucking legion of mobsters after biting a notorious crime boss played by Robert Loggia....

, Bullets Over Broadway
Bullets Over Broadway
Bullets Over Broadway is a 1994 crime-comedy film written by Woody Allen and Douglas McGrath and directed by Woody Allen. It stars an ensemble cast including John Cusack, Dianne Wiest, Chazz Palminteri, and Jennifer Tilly....

, The Pick-up Artist
The Pick-up Artist (film)
The Pick-up Artist is a 1987 American film written and directed by James Toback. This romantic comedy starred Molly Ringwald and Robert Downey Jr. It was rated PG-13 by the MPAA.-Plot:...

, Mighty Aphrodite
Mighty Aphrodite
Mighty Aphrodite is a 1995 romantic comedy film written and directed by Woody Allen. The screenplay was inspired by the mythological tale of Pygmalion....

, Gotti, Cop Land
Cop Land
Cop Land is a 1997 American drama film written and directed by James Mangold. It features an ensemble cast including Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel and Ray Liotta.-Plot:...

, Turn of Faith, and Mickey Blue Eyes
Mickey Blue Eyes
Mickey Blue Eyes is a 1999 film directed by Kelly Makin. Hugh Grant stars as Michael Felgate, an English auctioneer living in New York City who becomes entangled in his soon-to-be father in-law's mafia connections...

. He also played policemen in the films Dead Presidents
Dead Presidents
Dead Presidents is a 1995 American crime film written by Michael Henry Brown and also written, produced and directed by the Hughes brothers , starring Larenz Tate, Keith David, Chris Tucker, Freddy Rodriguez, N'Bushe Wright and Bokeem Woodbine...

 and Deconstructing Harry
Deconstructing Harry
Deconstructing Harry is a black comedy film by Woody Allen released in 1997. This film tells the story of a successful writer called Harry Block, played by Allen himself, who draws inspiration from people he knows in real-life, and from events that happened to him, sometimes causing these people to...

. Recently he told the host of a Las Vegas radio show he would be playing the role of an ill-tempered high school football coach in an upcoming comedy for kids called Sports Heaven.

Before turning to acting, Sirico was reportedly a fast-rising mob associate of the Colombo crime family
Colombo crime family
The Colombo crime family is the youngest of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia ....

 serving under Carmine "Junior" Persico
Carmine Persico
Carmine John Persico, Jr. also known as "Junior", "The Snake" and "Immortal", has been the de-facto boss of the Colombo crime family since the early 1970s. Persico has overseen gang wars, murders, and major rackets, most of the time from prison. He has been serving life imprisonment without...

 and had been arrested twenty-eight times. There is a Sopranos reference to this fact when Paulie says "I lived through the seventies by the skin of my nuts when the Colombos were goin' at it." In 1967, he was sent to prison for robbing a Brooklyn after-hours club, but was released after serving thirteen months. In 1971, he pled guilty to felony
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...

 weapon
Weapon
A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...

s possession and was sentenced to an "indeterminate" prison term of up to four years, of which Sirico ended up serving twenty months. In an interview in Cigar Aficionado
Cigar Aficionado
Cigar Aficionado is an American magazine that is dedicated to the world of cigars. Published since September 1992, the magazine is known for its articles about different brands of cigars worldwide, and for the celebrities that have appeared on its cover. It is also noted for its opposition to the...

 magazine, Sirico said that during his imprisonment, he was visited by an acting troupe composed of ex-cons, which inspired him to give acting a try. According to a court transcript, at the time of his sentencing, he also had pending charges for drug possession
Drug possession
Drug possession is the crime of having one or more illegal drugs in one's possession, either for personal use, distribution, sale or otherwise. Illegal drugs fall into different categories and sentences vary depending on the amount, type of drug, circumstances, and jurisdiction.A person has...

. Sirico appeared in a 1989 documentary about life, The Big Bang by James Toback
James Toback
James Lee Toback is an American screenwriter and film director.-Early life:Toback was born in New York City. His mother, Selma Judith , was a President of The League of Women Voters and a moderator of political debates on NBC. His father, Irwin Lionel Toback, was a stockbroker and former...

, in which he discussed his earlier life.

He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. His mother, who lived with Sirico, died in 2003. Sirico's brother, Robert Sirico
Robert Sirico
Robert A. Sirico is an American Roman Catholic priest and the founder of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. He is a well-known political and cultural commentator.-Biography:...

, is a Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 priest and co-founder of the free-market Acton Institute.

Politics

Sirico has stated that politically he is a "far-to-the-right Republican." He donated $1,200 to Rudolph Giuliani's presidential campaign.

Other acting work by Sirico

Advertisements
  • Starred in a commercial for one of Sweden
    Sweden
    Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

    's biggest papers "Aftonbladet", which was promoting The Sopranos
    The Sopranos
    The Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the often conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads...

    .
  • Several commercials for Denny's
    Denny's
    Denny's is a full-service coffee shop/family restaurant chain. It operates over 1,500 restaurants in the United States , Canada, Curaçao, Costa Rica, Honduras, Jamaica, Japan , Mexico, New Zealand, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.Denny's is known for always being...

    , playing both a mobster and a police detective.
  • Played a mafia boss in an early '90s Dunkin Donuts commercial.
  • Appeared in a commercial for Netflix
    Netflix
    Netflix, Inc., is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming media in the United States, Canada, and Latin America and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States. The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California...

     in 2006 playing a mobster.
  • Appeared in "Stacker-2 Muscle Builder" commercials featuring the superstars of World Wrestling Entertainment
    World Wrestling Entertainment
    World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company dealing primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales...

    .


Films
  • Bit players in Woody Allen
    Woody Allen
    Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...

     movies.


Games
  • Voice used for his TV character in the video game The Sopranos: Road to Respect
    The Sopranos: Road to Respect
    The Sopranos: Road to Respect is a 2006 video game based on the HBO series The Sopranos, which aired from January 10, 1999 to June 10, 2007...

    .


Music
  • Played the lead role of a mob boss in the video "Slang Editorial" by Cappadonna
    Cappadonna
    Darryl Hill best known by his stage name Cappadonna, is an American rapper and oftentimes member of the Wu-Tang Clan. He is also a member of rap duo Wu South, along with Ratchet Rush.-Biography:...

     of the Wu-Tang Clan
    Wu-Tang Clan
    The Wu-Tang Clan is a hip-hop group from Staten Island that consists of RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa, and the late Ol' Dirty Bastard. They are frequently joined by fellow childhood friend Cappadonna, a quasi member of the group...

    . At the end of the video, Sirico's character is killed by Cappadonna.


Television
  • Appeared in the Chuck
    Chuck (TV series)
    Chuck is an action-comedy/spy-drama television program from the United States created by Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak. The series is about an "average computer-whiz-next-door" named Chuck, played by Zachary Levi, who receives an encoded e-mail from an old college friend now working for the Central...

     episode "Chuck Versus the Fake Name
    Chuck Versus the Fake Name
    "Chuck Versus the Fake Name" is a third-season episode of the television series Chuck. It was the eighth episode of the season, and the first to air after a two-week hiatus for the 2010 Winter Olympics...

    ," playing half of the mobster duo Matty and Scotty with fellow Sopranos actor Louis Lombardi
    Louis Lombardi
    Louis Lombardi is an American actor.Lombardi was born in The Bronx, New York City, the son of Louis Lombardi, Sr. On television, Lombardi had a recurring role on The Sopranos as Agent Skip Lipari, and guest starred on such shows as Entourage, Heroes and CSI. He was a cast member of a 1990s...

    .
  • The voice for Wanda's father, Big Daddy (a mafia
    Mafia
    The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

     fairy
    Fairy
    A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...

    ), in the series The Fairly OddParents
    The Fairly OddParents
    The Fairly OddParents is an American-Canadian animated television series created by Butch Hartman about the adventures of Timmy Turner, who is granted fairy godparents named Cosmo and Wanda. The series started out as cartoon segments that ran from September 4, 1998 to March 23, 2001 on Oh Yeah!...

    .
  • Played in an episode of Miami Vice
    Miami Vice
    Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...

    .
  • Voice-over for a SpongeBob SquarePants
    SpongeBob SquarePants
    SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series, created by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg. Much of the series centers on the exploits and adventures of the title character and his various friends in the underwater city of "Bikini Bottom"...

     episode.


Other
  • Guest appearance as himself on the ESPN
    ESPN
    Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....

     internet show "Mayne Street", starring Kenny Mayne
    Kenny Mayne
    Kenneth "Kenny" Wheelock Mayne is a sports journalist and comedian for ESPN.-Sports career:A native of Kent, Washington, Mayne is a former honorable mention junior college All-American quarterback in 1978 at Wenatchee Valley Community College in Wenatchee, WA...

    .

Parodies

  • Parodied in the recent television series, State of the Union
    Tracey Ullman's State of the Union
    Tracey Ullman's State of the Union is an American sketch-comedy series starring comedian Tracey Ullman. The series is written by Ullman along with Hollywood satirist Bruce Wagner. Gail Parent and Craig DiGregorio acted as contributing writers to the series' first season. On May 17, 2010, it was...

    , as a foul-mouthed actor, who is "expanding his range" after the success of The Sopranos
    The Sopranos
    The Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the often conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads...

     character.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK