One of my previous blogs was titled “The Unholy Three,” which mentioned the near-simultaneous passing of three Hollywood actors known for popularizing crude Italian gangster stereotypes: Paul Sirico, James Caan, and Ray Liotta.
But the old saw about celebs passing in threes has been challenged with the death of yet another “mob-star” actor: Paul Sorvino, forever to be known as mobster Paulie Cicero in Goodfellas, the man who shaved garlic with a razor.
There was a 1978 British mystery film called Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? This latest series of developments seems to be writing its own script: “Who is Whacking the Hollywood Whack Actors”?
Sorvino’s passing did make feel a bit sadder than the aforementioned three thespians. (I use the term loosely; they basically played the same roles over and over again). Unlike them, he did have a sense of italianità, however muffled.
He was a sculptor, businessman (his brand of pasta sauce ̶ what else?), and accomplished opera singer. He did try and branch out and play positive Italian American characters ̶ for example, the real-life, 1920s labor leader Louis Fraina in 1981’s Reds, as well as Det. Phil Ceretta on the Law and Order TV show (alas, for only a short while).
And when his daughter, Mira, won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1995 for Mighty Aphrodite, the director of the broadcast cut to Papa Sorvino sitting in the audience, happily crying away.
When asked why the tears (as if showing emotion is a bad thing ̶ Ah’ Merica!), Sorvino replied, “Words don’t exist in any language to show how I felt ̶ well, maybe Italian.” Bravo!
The following quote was also featured in his obits, though: “I want to disabuse people of the notion that I’m a slow-moving, heavy-lidded thug.” A noble goal. So why, then, not pursue this more forcefully via his choice of film roles?
You can’t have it both ways ̶ that is, choose Italian mobster roles and then complain that people stereotype you.
He should have done what Jewish actors like Caan, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni, and Nehemiah Persoff did ̶ they played gangsters of another heritage (Italians!). This cleverly muddled the Jewish American role in organized crime.
Perhaps Sorvino should have played Greek or Serbian heavies. Spread the ethnic love!
Now that Sorvino has gone, I can share another time when he made me cry. It was at the climax of the 1993 film, The Firm, a Tom Cruise thriller about a lawyer (Cruise) who works for a large law practice. As the movie progresses, the firm becomes ever-more threatening and violent, like the setting in a Franz Kafka novel or Jorge Luis Borges short story.
It is finally revealed that the firm is controlled by “the mafia” (!). Out walked Paul Sorvino ̶ dressed in a nice suit, but not because he was there to offer Cruise’s character any help or advice. He was there to murder him. Really?
One of the greatest lawyers in world history was Marcus Tullius Cicero of classical Rome, who was also a scholar and a statesmen. Old statues of Cicero even bear a slight resemblance to Sorvino. Couldn’t the late actor have put on a toga and used his operatically trained voice to remind people of Cicero’s verbal eloquence and historical legacy?
Wait, Sorvino did play a Cicero: Paulie Cicero in Goodfellas, the thug with a chef’s hands, cutting that garlic clove.
Too bad that Italian American actors, writers, directors, etc. (and their fans, mind you) never notice the hacking-away at Italian culture, reducing it to mobbed-up shreds. You don’t need an onion to make you cry over that. -BDC
I was sorry also he acquiesced to some mafioso roles. Apart from that, I thought he was an astounding actor and allegedly he would have given it all up to be Rudolfo in La Boheme at the Met. His over-the-top combination of slick Gene Profeta with a Billy Graham accent in Oh, God was a highlight of my boomer movie years. I became acquainted with him in 1974 with an impressive TV movie role beside Maureen Stapleton called Tell Me Where It Hurts. He played a working-class guy trying to keep up with his expenses, women’s lib, and an 80-year-old mother living upstairs with whom he conversed in Neapolitan through a dumb waiter exchanging Italian food. Afterwards when he appeared Off-Broadway I always made the effort to see him live. He never disappointed me.
Like I said, I felt sadder at his passing than that of the previous one-trick ponies.
And I agree: he wanted to sing rather than act. Anyone who knows and loves opera knows how “that fine Italic hand (and voice!)” is crucial to the form’s beauty and passion.
Liotta, Caan and Sirica couldn’t probably even spell o-p-e-r-a if they did it together.
Indeed, there are not too many movies about Jewish gangsters. My understanding is that Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a time in America is not popular here in the U.S. and I do not think it is broadcasted that often on cable TV.
Sorvino acted also in Mambo Italiano where Southern-Italian immigrant parents are shown as narrow-minded and anti-gay. Another false stereotype like many others.
Are there narrow-minded Italian parents? Sure, just like any other ethnicity.
Once Upon a Time in America was sliced to ribbons when it was released in 1984. Too long, the producers said. It was dumped and promptly failed in the U.S.
In 1960, there was a film made about Detroit’s infamous Purple Gang, whom Elvis mentions in his famous “Jailhouse Rock” song. This gang was so notorious that even Al Capone cut a deal with them rather than fight them over beer distribution rights.
In the finished version, their ethnicity was erased. The main actor, though, was Robert Blake (born Michael Gubitosi), so audiences still got that “Italian” whiff.
Hollyweird, indeed!
As for Italians and gays, look up the history of Greenwich Village. The neighborhood was still very Italian when gays made it their home-away-from-home in the 1950s.
Numerous accounts by writers and poets, among them the gay African American author James Baldwin, report how kindly the Italians treated them. Yes, like family.