Who's Sorry Now: The True Story of a Stand-Up Guy - Softcover

Pantoliano, Joe; Evanier, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1480118818 ISBN 13: 9781480118812

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012

Synopsis

Everyone knows him as Ralph Cifaretto on the HBO hit show The Sopranos. But before Tony, Carmela, Silvio, and Dr. Melfi took Sunday-night television by storm, Joe Pantoliano was one of America's busiest actors, giving unforgettable performances in such films as Memento, The Matrix, The Fugitive, and Risky Business. Now, the street-smart kid who grew up in Sinatra's hometown shares the stage with the eccentric and colorful wise guys from his family and neighborhood. Fade in on the projects of Hoboken, New Jersey, during the fifties and sixties. That's little Joey, running numbers with his chain-smoking mother, Mary, so they can keep a roof over their heads. When he wasn't busy staying one step ahead of the bill collectors, he was learning the ropes from "Cousin" Florie: his "stepfather" and a wise guy whose connections to the Genovese family couldn't keep him out of jail for drug trafficking. Then there was Joey's real father, "Monk," a factory worker with a weakness for gambling at the track who was later reborn as a hearse chauffeur for the local funeral parlor. With a winning blend of humor, charm, and pure showmanship, Pantoliano tells it like it was. From a connected Jersey street kid to a successful Hollywood actor who would, ironically, re-create his wise-guy boyhood in role after role, Who's Sorry Now is an irresistibly entertaining treat for anyone interested in this true-life "Soprano" and a real stand-up guy.

About this title

About the Author

Joe Pantoliano has appeared in over sixty movies, including Memento, The Matrix, Bound, The Fugitive, The Goonies, Midnight Run, Empire of the Sun, and Risky Business. He is a regular featured player on The Sopranos.

From Publishers Weekly

Sopranos actor Pantoliano, who plays the belligerent and misogynistic Ralph Cifaretto, enters the celebrity memoir arena with a jovial account of his 1950s and '60s youth in Hoboken and Fort Lee, N.J. In addition to his familiar Sopranos role, Pantoliano has appeared in over 60 movies, including Memento and The Fugitive, and will make his directorial debut with the upcoming Just Like Mona. But he saves his career for future volumes, instead concentrating here on his eccentric Italian-American family and the stormy relationship and "shared misery" of his parents, Mommy and Monk. Equal space goes to his relatives, girlfriends and childhood "pals in the projects," a gang of "piss-ant grade-schoolers" who broke into railroad cars to steal whatever they found. Young Joey's grades suffered, and by junior high, he lived in a "dyslexic bubble," but wound up righting himself by acting in school plays, eventually moving to regional theater and, finally, Hollywood. Chapters are headlined with street addresses ("310 Jackson Street," "159 Palisade Avenue"), noting each of the family's evictions or moves to yet another Garden State location. Readers meet colorful characters, including cousin "Patty-Boy," local dogcatcher Uncle Popeye and wise guy Florie, who moves in after exiting the Atlanta Penitentiary ("A New York mobster in the house had serious cachet for a twelve-year-old"). The once-dyslexic "Joey Pants" writes with energy, humor and honesty, and his passionate closing chapter, with Joey attempting to break away from his clinging, cursing Mommy to become a big-time actor, is the icing on the cake.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1480118818
• ISBN 13: 9781480118812
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 312