Tony Sirico, the actor who performed the eccentric gangster Paulie Walnuts on “The Sopranos,” died Friday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 79.
His dying was confirmed by Bob McGowan, his supervisor. No trigger was given.
Paulie Walnuts — which was Paul Gualtieri’s nickname as a result of he as soon as hijacked a truck stuffed with nuts (he was anticipating tv units) — was one of many mob boss Tony Soprano’s most loyal, oversensitive and reckless males. Paulie was the sort of man who would take part in an intervention for a drug addict, and when it was his flip to talk, punch the man within the face. He liked his mom (though he came upon she was actually his aunt), and she or he liked him as a result of he wrote the checks to maintain her in an costly nursing dwelling.
Paulie wore monitor fits, slept with hookers, was phobic about germs, hated cats and watched tv in a chair coated with plastic. He hated being caught with an virtually $900 restaurant examine however may admire a tasty ketchup packet on a chilly night time within the Pine Barrens when there was nothing else to eat.
When the “Sopranos” forged appeared in a gaggle shot on the duvet of Rolling Stone in 2001, Paulie stood with a baseball bat casually slung over his proper shoulder. No hairdresser on the “Sopranos” set was allowed to the touch Mr. Sirico’s hair — darkish and luxuriant with two silver “wings” on both facet. He blow-dried and sprayed it himself.
Mr. Sirico’s face was additionally acquainted, in fast glimpses, to followers of Woody Allen movies. He appeared in a number of of them, starting with “Bullets Over Broadway” (1994), by which he performed the right-hand man of a robust gangster turned theater producer. He was a boxing coach in “Mighty Aphrodite” (1995), an escaped convict in “Everybody Says I Love You” (1996), a matter-of-fact jailhouse cop in “Deconstructing Harry” (1997) and a gun-toting gangster on Coney Island in “Marvel Wheel” (2017).
Gennaro Anthony Sirico Jr. was born in Brooklyn on July 29, 1942, the son of Jerry Sirico, a stevedore, and Marie (Cappelluzzo) Sirico. Junior, as he was referred to as, remembered that he first acquired into hassle when he stole nickels from a newsstand. He attended Midwood Excessive Faculty, however didn’t graduate, his brother Robert Sirico mentioned.
“I grew up in Bensonhurst, the place there have been a variety of mob-type individuals,” he advised the publication Cigar Aficionado in 2001. “I watched them on a regular basis, watched the best way they walked, the automobiles they drove, the best way they approached one another. There was an air about them that was very intriguing, particularly to a child.”
He labored in development for some time however quickly yielded to temptation. “I began working with the flawed kind of men, and I discovered myself doing a variety of unhealthy issues,” he mentioned in James Toback’s documentary “The Huge Bang” (1989). Unhealthy issues like armed theft, extortion, coercion and felony weapons possession.
Whereas serving 20 months of a four-year sentence at Sing Sing, the maximum-security jail in Ossining, N.Y., he noticed a troupe of actors, all ex-convicts, who had made a cease there to carry out for the inmates. “After I watched them, I mentioned to myself, ‘I can try this,’” he advised The Every day Information in 1999.
He was an uncredited further in “The Godfather: Half II” (1974) and made his official movie debut in “Hughes and Harlow: Angels in Hell” (1977), from Larry Buchanan, the self-proclaimed director of schlock. Mr. Sirico adopted that with greater than a decade of small tv and film roles, capped by his half because the flashy mobster Tony Stacks in “Goodfellas” (1990).
His first advocate amongst administrators was Mr. Toback, who put him in a criminal offense drama, “Fingers” (1978), with Harvey Keitel; a romantic drama, “Love & Cash” (1981), starring Ray Sharkey and Klaus Kinski; and a comic book drama, “The Choose-Up Artist” (1987), with Molly Ringwald and Robert Downey Jr., in addition to the documentary.
Earlier than “The Sopranos,” he was a cop in “Lifeless Presidents” (1995), a suburban mobster in “Cop Land” (1997) and a Gambino crime household capo within the TV film “Gotti” (1996).
As soon as “The Sopranos” hit the air in 1999, it turned enormously and broadly in style. Mr. Sirico quickly knew he was very well-known. “If I’m with 5 different Paulies,” he advised The New York Instances in 2007, imagining a reasonably unlikely scenario, “and any individual yells, ‘Hey, Paulie,’ I do know it’s for me.”
After the HBO collection led to 2007, he usually labored along with his “Sopranos” co-stars.
After taking part in Bert, to Steve Schirripa’s Ernie, in a “Sesame Road” Christmas particular (2008), he appeared with Steven Van Zandt within the collection “Lilyhammer” (2013-14), with Michael Rispoli in “Buddies and Romans” (2014) and with Vincent Pastore and others within the movie “Sarah Q” (2018).
He additionally voiced a street-smart canine named Vinny within the animated collection “Household Man” (2013-16).
He appeared in a criminal offense drama, “Respect the Jux,” this 12 months.
Mr. Sirico married and divorced early. He’s survived by two youngsters, Joanne Sirico Bello and Richard Sirico; a sister, Carol Pannunzio; two brothers, Robert Sirico and Carmine Sirico; and a number of other grandchildren. He lived in Fort Lauderdale.
He introduced no less than one admirable lesson from the mob world to “The Sopranos.” He insisted that his character by no means be portrayed as a rat, somebody who would snitch on his crime household. He was additionally reluctant to have his character kill a lady — Paulie smothered an older nursing dwelling resident with a pillow when she interrupted his theft of her life financial savings — however was pleasantly stunned that individuals within the previous neighborhood didn’t appear to assume much less of him after the episode was proven.
Early on, nevertheless, it generally slipped his thoughts that he had rejected the darkish facet.
“I used to be this 30-year-old ex-con villain sitting in a category full of fresh-faced, severe drama college students,” Mr. Sirico recalled within the Every day Information interview. The trainer “leaned over to me after I did a scene and whispered, ‘Tony, go away the gun dwelling.’ After so a few years of packing a gun, I didn’t even understand I had it with me.”
Vimal Patel contributed reporting.
