Famous Actor Unlikely Origins Are Putting His Hollywood Career In A New Light
Joe Pesci's image is synonymous with hot-tempered, darkly comedic, often criminal characters. Even he knows that he makes the perfect bad guy, which is part of a larger problem. For Joe, diving into the brains of morally ambiguous men hasn’t come without a critical price. From a young age, Joe could attract important and influential people, then quickly win them over. The way he wielded his charisma opened doors to many different life paths, and in the end, he chose to be an actor. Throughout his life, he revisited that fateful decision and wondered what else could have been.
Craving The Simple Life
Ten-year-old Joe Pesci appeared in New York City plays and secured a recurring role on the variety show Startime Kids. He was on his way to fulfilling his father’s greatest ambition of becoming a showbiz man, but he craved a simpler life.
Keeping It All Inside
If it wasn’t for the pressure on Joe’s shoulders, he might've had a career that didn’t involve channeling the minds of killers, villains, and schemers. He would have picked something, “More calming, in a different area where I did not have to use my emotions.”
The Neighborhood Barber
For a while, he’d found that normal career in cutting hair. Joe, a mama’s boy at heart, followed in her footsteps as a licensed barber. He enjoyed the camaraderie of the shop, the hum of the clippers, and hanging out with all his New Jersey friends.
Making Connections
One of the neighborhood Italian boys that sat in Joe’s barber chair was singer Frankie Valli. Friendship with Joe had more merits than discounted haircuts. It was Pesci who introduced Frankie to his future Four Seasons bandmate Bob Gaudio.
Major Inspiration
That crucial favor didn’t go unnoticed. A Joe Pesci inspired character was included in both the Broadway musical and feature film versions of Jersey Boys, which tells the story of the rise and fall of The Four Seasons.
Getting In With The Mob
It was during those years that they both observed and rubbed shoulders with made men in their tight-knit Italian communities. In fact, Frankie reckons that Joe, “Would’ve probably been mobbed up,” if he didn’t end up portraying gangsters on the silver screen.
Comedic Duo
In spite of his humble dreams, Joe’s talent was too electric to ignore. He opted for comedy, joining forces with his pal Frank Vincent as a comedy duo. They played the New York club circuit, staying friends all the way through their later box office smashes.
Back To His Roots
Success came gradually for Joe. At one point, he was forced to move back to New York from Los Angeles out of financial necessity; there he managed a restaurant for a living. After nabbing the role in Raging Bull, he paid the bills as a full-time actor.
Funny How?
No one can play the hot-tempered mobster quite like Joe Pesci, and that’s because he brings personal experience to the table. The famous ‘“Funny how?” line in Goodfellas was borrowed from a conversation Joe had as a waiter for a table of connected guys.
Oscar Gold
It was his second collaboration with Scorsese and De Niro that earned Joe the coveted gold statue. He was totally unprepared when they announced he’d won the best supporting actor Oscar, giving the shortest speech in history, “It’s my privilege. Thank you.”
Getting In Character
Winning an Oscar opened the door to a slew of devilish character-driven roles. In the Lethal Weapon franchise, Joe adopted a speech pattern heavy on the word “okay,” which he took from a memorable interaction he once had with a Disneyland employee.
My Cousin Vinny
While filming My Cousin Vinny, Joe surprised the cast and crew with his natural singing talents. Pesci’s pipes were put to the test when he released an album as the film character called Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just For You.
Little Joe Sure Can Sing
In fact, music was always a passion project for him. At age 25, he made a solo album under the pseudonym Joe Ritchie called Little Joe Sure Can Sing, where he covered a select set of pop hits, with a heavy serving of the Bee Gees.
A Member Of The Band
At the same time that Joe was connecting members of the Four Seasons, he was jamming on guitar as a part of the band Joey Dee and the Starliters. Until he was ousted and replaced by a small-time talent you’ve never heard of — Jimi Hendrix.
Dangerous Stunts
No pain, no game, that’s the Pesci way. He suffered through the onslaught of stunts and traps filming Home Alone, though the biggest physical sacrifice he made for the sake of film was with his old pal Marty.
Cracking Up
The first came when Robert De Niro delivered the heat in a punch to Pesci’s ribs in a scene filming 1980’s Raging Bull. Exactly ten years later, the very same rib cracked for the second time in a rough and tumble take on the set of Casino.
A Major Identity Crisis
Immersing himself in vivid characters eventually wore Joe down. During a golf game, he had an identity crisis. He thought, “I didn’t know who the hell was about to hit that golf ball. Was it Leo Getz or David Ferry or Tommy or Harry or Joe?”
Bowing Out
So, he decided it was time to take a metaphorical bow and settle into retirement. Joe stepped back from acting in 1999 and, in turn, he vanished from public life almost entirely. Many tried to coax him back with tempting fill roles, very few succeeded.
The Man In Black
One rare sighting was during his ex-wife Claudia Haro’s attempted murder for hire trial. In a plot straight out of a Pesci movie, Joe, clad in all black, entered the courtroom flanked by a nun dressed in white. Ultimately, Claudia was convicted.
Getting Back To Work
Pesci fans rejoiced in 2019 when he threw Martin Scorsese a bone and starred in The Irishman. This time around, Joe played an uncharacteristically soft-spoken mobster, which made what might be his final project with Robert De Niro distinctly special.
Mixing Business With Pleasure
The success of the movie with his dearest friends and collaborators came on the heels of one of the most drastically emotional years of Robert De Niro’s personal life. Though this wasn’t the first time career success overlapped with his complicated personal life.
New York Artist
Born in 1943 in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, De Niro had creative roots from the start. His parents had met one another in a painting class, and his father was well-known as an abstract expressionist whose friends included Tennessee Williams, Henry Miller, and Anaïs Nin.
Italian-ish
He's a complicated mix. Although he's stated he identifies most with his Italian ancestry, De Niro is actually only 1/4 Italian. His dad was half Irish, and his mom had English, Dutch, French, Irish, and German ancestors.
Religion? Meh...
And while nobody knows what his spiritual beliefs are nowadays, De Niro was raised by an atheist mother and a formerly Catholic father. Neither parent wanted their son to be baptized, but young De Niro's grandparents had the ceremony performed secretly while he was staying with them.
Baby Steps
De Niro got into acting at age 10, when he played the Cowardly Lion in a local performance of The Wizard of Oz — but he didn't strictly follow the artist path. He also joined a gang a few years later, which would inspire his highly-praised gangster performances as an adult.
Wrong Kind of Competition
Though the acting world is competitive, De Niro initially shied away from it. He was accepted to New York's High School of Music and Art, but dropped out due to the cutthroat atmosphere. He tried public school and a few other private schools, but quit permanently at 16 to pursue acting his own way.
Growing Into the Role
Before he was a legend, De Niro actually auditioned for The Godfather, and read for four roles: Sonny Corleone, Michael Corleone, Paulie Gatto, and Carlo Rizzi. He didn't land them, but Francis Ford Coppola was so impressed that he remembered the young actor and called him up for The Godfather: Part II.
The Don
Among his many other awards, De Niro is one of the only two actors in history to have won an Oscar for portraying the same character. He shares this honor with fellow luminary Marlon Brando, who played the older, original version of Vito Corleone in The Godfather.
Getting Into It
Look up "method actor" in the dictionary, and this guy should appear there. He researches his characters extensively, doesn't break character when the cameras stop rolling, and once paid a dentist $5,000 to mess up his teeth for Cape Fear — and then dropped another $20,000 to fix them afterward.
He Doesn't Stop There
He also isn't afraid to change shape. For Raging Bull, De Niro packed on so much muscle — 60 pounds — that he held a Guinness World Record for most weight gained for a movie. Not realizing his increased strength, he broke Joe Pesci's ribs during one of their fight scenes.
Edgy Techniques
De Niro pushes buttons to get good reactions out of fellow actors. Once, for a scene with Jerry Lewis where Lewis needed to be livid, he made several anti-Semitic comments to the other actor. "I forgot the cameras were there," Lewis later said. "I was going for Bobby’s throat.”
Deep Emotions
All his performances are inspired, but for Silver Linings Playbook, De Niro didn't have to dig too deep. Though he didn't explain exactly why, he once famously wept in an interview when discussing director David O. Russell's personal connection with the film's bipolar main character. "I know exactly what [Russell] goes through," he said.
Cleaning House
Over his many years and his many roles, De Niro collected tons of mementos: costumes, props, and scripts. In 2006, he gave back by donating all of it to the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin, and the public can go check it out.
Legendary Privacy
Because he rarely speaks to journalists, De Niro's interviews are the stuff of lore, and they usually don't reveal much. When Esquire landed a cover story with him in the '90s, their interviewer was given a long list of things not to ask. Forbidden topics included family, politics, religion, and fancy wine.
Voting Viewpoint
Although he dislikes being asked in the press about his political stance, De Niro is a proud Democrat, and has supported all the blue presidential candidates since at least 2000. Controversially, he also lobbied Congress against impeaching Bill Clinton. He's wore his politics on his sleeve for decades now.
Caring About Kids
At the 1981 Oscars, for instance, a fan handed De Niro a green ribbon to memorialize several children who'd been victims of a serial killer in Georgia. De Niro immediately pinned the ribbon to his lapel, and when he gave his Best Actor speech later that night, the ribbon got major screen time — spreading awareness to everyone watching.
Community Investment
When he's not acting, De Niro is active in the NYC business world. He co-owns famed upscale restaurants Nobu and Layla, and cofounded the Tribeca Film Festival in 2001 as a way to bring vibrance back to Lower Manhattan after 9/11.
Anti-Vaccine Movement
De Niro revealed in 2016 that his son Elliot has autism and called for researching all its possible causes. This was the year of his controversial decision to allow the film Vaxxed to screen at TFI; though the film was eventually pulled, De Niro still believes in a possible link between vaccines and autism.
Survivor
He's a tough guy, but De Niro hasn't been without his own health battles. After being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2003, he was treated through surgery at New York's famed MSK Cancer Center, and luckily hasn't relapsed since.
Laying Down the Law
Other battles include De Niro's production company sueing one of its former employees in 2019 for $6 million. Why? Allegedly, she'd embezzled money, breached her contract, and spent her workdays binging Friends on Netflix. But that wasn't the only personal difficulty he's had on his mind.
Rocky Road
De Niro's love life has been a journey. He had two kids with fellow actor Diahnne Abbott before they divorced in 1988; he then married Grace Hightower in 1997, with whom he had a son. They filed for divorce in 1999, ended up renewing their vows in 2004, and then split in 2018. Whew.
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