Genaro Anthony "Tony" Sirico, Jr. (born July 29, 1942) is an American character actor who is most famous for his role as Paulie Gualtieri in the television series The Sopranos.
Sirico was born in Midwood, Brooklyn to Sicilian parents. Sirico has played gangsters in a number of films, including Mob Queen, Gangsters, Love and Money, Fingers, The Last Fight, Goodfellas, Innocent Blood, Bullets Over Broadway, The Pick-up Artist, Mighty Aphrodite, Got...
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Genaro Anthony "Tony" Sirico, Jr. (born July 29, 1942) is an American character actor who is most famous for his role as Paulie Gualtieri in the television series The Sopranos.
Sirico was born in Midwood, Brooklyn to Sicilian parents. Sirico has played gangsters in a number of films, including Mob Queen, Gangsters, Love and Money, Fingers, The Last Fight, Goodfellas, Innocent Blood, Bullets Over Broadway, The Pick-up Artist, Mighty Aphrodite, Gotti, Cop Land, and Mickey Blue Eyes. He also played policemen in the films Dead Presidents and Deconstructing Harry.
Before turning to acting, Sirico was reportedly a mob associate of the Colombo crime family serving under Carmine "Junior" Persico and had been arrested twenty-eight times. There is a Sopranos reference to this fact when Paulie says "I made it through the seventies by the skin of my nuts when the Colombos were goin' at it." In 1967, he was sent to prison for robbing a Brooklyn after hours club, but was released after serving...
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