Tony Sirico

His role as a mobster in 'The Sopranos' was modeled in part on his earlier life as a shakedown artist who served time in prison.

When Mr. Sirico took the role of Paulie Walnuts on “The Sopranos,” he said he would do anything except rat out his friends as an informant — in part because he still lived in his old Brooklyn neighborhood. “When he saw me, he tore up the ticket and asked for an autographed picture, which I carry in the trunk … In one year, it’s like I got a life transplant. “I was a pistol-packing guy,” he told the Times. “The first time I went away to prison, they searched me to see if I had a gun — and I had three of ’em on me. “I ran out of my local OTB” — an off-track betting booth for horse races — “and a cop was putting a ticket under the wipers of my double-parked car,” Mr. Sirico told the New York Daily News in 2000. As a teenager, he was shot in the leg and back when he kissed another boy’s girlfriend. Mr. Sirico once said, “If Paulie can’t curse, he can’t talk,” and he delivered some of the show’s funniest lines, always in a serious, deadpan style, usually punctuated by profanity. He was an extra in the 1974 organized crime film “Crazy Joe,” then began to get parts in commercials and TV shows, usually cast as a crook or a cop. His character killed more people than any other during the course of the show — nine — but there was much more to “The Sopranos” than mob violence. And then there was his hair: a pompadour first sculpted into place in the ’50s, now highlighted by two wings of silver slicked back on the sides. Mr. Sirico wore a pinkie ring in real life, the same as Paulie. When the show’s wardrobe staff picked out a shirt for him, he said he had one just like it at home. Gennaro Anthony Sirico Jr. was born July 29, 1942, in Brooklyn and grew up in the heavily Italian Bensonhurst section. Mr. Sirico was 79 when he died July 8 at an assisted-living facility in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

A familiar face in Woody Allen movies, the actor became widely know for his portrayal of Paulie Walnuts on the hit HBO series.

“I was this 30-year-old ex-con villain sitting in a class filled with fresh-faced, serious drama students,” Mr. Sirico recalled in the Daily News interview. Mr. Sirico followed that with more than a decade of small television and movie roles, capped by his part as the flashy mobster Tony Stacks in “Goodfellas” (1990). He brought at least one admirable lesson from the mob world to “The Sopranos.” He insisted that his character never be portrayed as a rat, someone who would snitch on his crime family. He was a boxing trainer in “Mighty Aphrodite” (1995), an escaped convict in “Everyone Says I Love You” (1996), a matter-of-fact jailhouse cop in “Deconstructing Harry” (1997) and a gun-toting gangster on Coney Island in “Wonder Wheel” (2017). Once “The Sopranos” hit the air in 1999, it became enormously and widely popular. “When I watched them, I said to myself, ‘I can do that,’” he told The Daily News in 1999. When the “Sopranos” cast appeared in a group shot on the cover of Rolling Stone in 2001, Paulie stood with a baseball bat casually slung over his right shoulder. He worked in construction for a while but soon yielded to temptation. Paulie was the kind of guy who would participate in an intervention for a drug addict, and when it was his turn to speak, punch the guy in the face. There was an air about them that was very intriguing, especially to a kid.” He hated being stuck with an almost $900 restaurant check but could appreciate a tasty ketchup packet on a cold night in the Pine Barrens when there was nothing else to eat. He appeared in several of them, beginning with “Bullets Over Broadway” (1994), in which he played the right-hand man of a powerful gangster turned theater producer.

Sirico played a major role in the HBO drama that started in 1999 and became an influential hit early in the era of prestige television.

... I knew right away this was a role to kill for." Sirico often played Italian-American mobsters, including a small part in "Goodfellas," Martin Scorsese's popular and critical hit from 1990. Sirico also took a comic turn voicing the talking dog Vinny on the animated show "Family Guy."

Tony Sirico, who played the impeccably groomed mobster Paulie Walnuts in The Sopranos and brought his tough-guy swagger to films including Goodfellas, ...

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Sirico died at an assisted living facility in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, said his manager, Bob McGowen. There was no immediate information on the cause of ...

And I knew I had the (guts) to stand up and (bull) people,” he told the Times. “You get a lot of practice in prison. I used to stand up in front of these cold-blooded murderers and kidnapers — and make ’em laugh.” “I had both,” he told the Los Angeles Times in a 1990 interview, calling himself ”unstable” during that period of his life. Sirico, born July 29, 1942, in New York City, grew up in the Flatbush and Bensonhurst neighborhoods where he said “every guy was trying to prove himself. Michael Imperioli, who portrayed Christopher Moltisanti on “The Sopranos,” called Sirico his “dear friend, colleague and partner in crime.” LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tony Sirico, who played the impeccably groomed mobster Paulie Walnuts in “The Sopranos” and brought his tough-guy swagger to films including “Goodfellas,” died Friday. He was 79.

The news was made public on Saturday by Michael Imperioli, the Emmy Award-winning actor and screenwriter who co-starred with Sirico during the revolutionary ...

Imperioli uploaded a photo from their time working together, and wrote in a caption that “Tony was like no one else: he was as tough, as loyal and as big hearted as anyone I’ve ever known.” He added “we found a groove as Christopher and Paulie and I am proud to say I did a lot of my best and most fun work with my dear pal Tony,” and “He was beloved and will never be forgotten. The news was made public on Saturday by Michael Imperioli, the Emmy Award-winning actor and screenwriter who co-starred with Sirico during the revolutionary show’s six seasons. As Christopher Moltisanti, the youngest high-ranking member of the Sopranos crew, Imperioli and Sirico were frequent scene partners, sent on assignments as classic sitcom “frenemies” whose amusing tasks would quickly turn gruesome and violent.

Lorraine Bracco, Jamie Lynn Sigler, Stevie Van Zandt, Steven Schirrippa, and Michael Imperioli pay tribute to their late co-star. Paulie - The Sopranos ...

I met him when I was 16, and he made it clear from day one that he was my forever protector, and he was. I have a lifetime of memories with Tony – starting with Goodfellas to The Sopranos and way beyond but my God, did we have fun doing the Bensonhurst Spelling Bee. I hope he’s in heaven cracking everybody up now. If you were lucky enough to be his friend you were guaranteed a good time whenever you were around him. We found a groove as Christopher and Paulie and I am proud to say I did a lot of my best and most fun work with my dear pal Tony. I will miss him forever. I send love to his family, friends and his many many fans. The Sopranos star Tony Sirico passed away at the age of 79, a few weeks away from his 80th birthday.

US actor Tony Sirico, best known for portraying Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri in "The Sopranos," has died aged 79, his family and a former castmate said on ...

Heartbroken today," Imperioli -- who played Christopher Moltisanti -- wrote on Instagram. Sirico was in his fifties when he was cast for his best-known part in "Sopranos," the ground-breaking HBO series which explored the private lives of a New Jersey crime group. "It is with great sadness, but with incredible pride, love and a whole lot of fond memories, that the family of Gennaro Anthony ’Tony’ Sirico wishes to inform you of his death on the morning of July 8, 2022," his family said in a statement on Facebook.