THE LATE TONY SIRICO WAS AN UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER OFFSCREEN TOO
The first time I encountered Tony Sirico he was working at a hot New York club as a fierce doorman/bouncer/security guard. His name in those days was Junior Sirico. He wore his hair slicked back, a pinky ring, and talked tough, but was very nice to me and my friends at the club. A few years later he appeared as a houseguest, visiting my friend Lenny Barin in LA, and I was told he recently got out of prison and wanted to become an actor. My friend laughingly pointed out that Junior always had a stack of Playboy magazines and a gun under his bed, but he was very close to his mother in Brooklyn. Junior started dating a roomate of mine and I had a party where he met Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had started filming Pumping Iron, but was still just a bodybuilder. Tony was immediately drawn to Arnold and seemed thrilled to meet him. The unlikely pair talked about acting. The next thing I knew he had landed a small role in The Godfather Part II. Junior announced that he was no longer Junior- we had to call him Tony from then on. The rest is history- he started enjoying his new life as an actor.
Photo Credit: BACKGRID-USA