Frank Vincent

Frank Vincent (born August 4, 1939) is an American actor and musician. Among other noted roles, he played Phil Leotardo in the HBO series The Sopranos and Billy Batts in the Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas .

Biography

Early life

Vincent, an Italian American, was born Frank Vincent Gattuso in North Adams, Massachusetts, but was raised in Jersey City, New Jersey. His father, Frank Vincent Gattuso, Sr., was an iron worker.^[1][2] Vincent has two brothers: Nick and Jimmy. His father was one of six children (Lucia [Lucille], Filippo [Philip], Antonio [Tony], Frank, James [Jimmie] and Cecilia [Ceil]) all born in Massachusetts to Italian immigrants Nicolò Gattuso and Francesca Di Peri. His Uncle Phil served in the UK in World War II and married an English girl so Frank has an English cousin called Michael Gattuso.^[3] He is of Sicilian (paternal grandfather) and Neapolitan descent.^{[citation needed]}

Career

In the late 1970s, Frank teamed up with Joe Pesci, performing in local clubs like the Arlington Lounge and other venues around Northern New Jersey as "Vincent and Pesci". The comedy duo's material was a play on Martin and Lewis and Abbott and Costello.

As an accomplished player of the drums, trumpet, and piano, Vincent originally intended on a career in music, but in 1975, he co-starred in the low-budget gangster movie, The Death Collector along with Joe Pesci, where he was spotted by Martin Scorsese. Scorsese was impressed and hired Vincent to appear in a major supporting role in Raging Bull, which saw him link up once again with Pesci. The two would go on to appear together in several other movies. Another familiar co-star and good friend of Vincent's is Robert De Niro, who is also friends with Pesci.

Vincent is usually typecast as a gangster. He appeared in Scorsese's 1990 film Goodfellas, where he played Billy Batts, a made man in the Gambino crime family. He also played a prominent role in Scorsese's 1995 film Casino as Frank Marino (based on real-life gangster Frank Cullotta), the sidekick of Pesci's character. It has been noted that, in Goodfellas, Pesci's character beats Vincent's to death, while Vincent's character turns the tables in Casino.

In 1996, Vincent appeared in rap artist Nas' video "Street Dreams" as his character Frankie Marino from Casino. The video mirrors Casino at certain times. In the television movie Gotti, Vincent played Robert "DiB" DiBernardo, an associate of Mafia boss John Gotti, whose life the film chronicled. In the HBO TV series The Sopranos, he had his most prominent role yet, as Phil Leotardo, a ruthless New York gangster who, as boss of the show's fictional Lupertazzi crime family, becomes the show's chief antagonist in the final seasons.

Vincent also had a leading role in the heist movie This Thing of Ours in 2003. One of his more light-hearted roles came when he was in a British television commercial for Peugeot cars. In early 2005, Frank Vincent appeared on Irish television in a series of television commercials for Irish bank Permanent TSB. In 1999, he won the Italian American Entertainer of the Year Award. Among Frank's other noted performances include his appearance in the 2003 film Remedy. In 2001, Vincent lent his voice to Mafia boss Salvatore Leone in the controversial computer and video game Grand Theft Auto III. He later reprised that role in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004) and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (2005).

In 2006, he released his first book, A Guy's Guide to Being a Man's Man to positive reviews. His idol is Dean Martin.^[4] He has also released a line of hand-rolled cigars which have his picture prominently displayed on the band.^[5]

In the summer of 2008, he played Lieutenant Marino in the independent film The Tested directed by Russell Costanzo^[6] and in 2009, he made a cameo appearance alongside fellow Sopranos actor Steve Schirripa in Stargate Atlantis episode "Vegas".^[7]

References

External links

• Official site. Requires Macromedia Flash Player
• Frank Vincent at the Internet Movie Database
• American Mafia.com