Vincent Pastore, the Mobster “Big Pussy” on ‘The Sopranos,’ Dies at 80

Vincent Pastore, the Bronx-born actor who portrayed Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero, the mob informant who winds up sleeping with the fishes, quite literally, on The Sopranos, has died. Pastore was found dead by Steve Villano, the actor’s self-described “right-hand man,” in his Bronx home.

He apparently died in his sleep, he added. “Because he was a cat burglar, like Cary Grant,” Pastore said.

What Happened

After Sal gets nabbed by the FBI on The Sopranos, he chooses to become an informer to avoid life in prison. He is soon sniffed out, however, and his fate is sealed when he appears to Tony (James Gandolfini) as a talking.

• Sopranos creator David Chase hired him for the role of Sal — the character wasn’t even known as Big Pussy yet — soon after he auditioned for the HBO drama in 1998.

• It came down to Pastore and Johnny “Roast Beef” Williams, the actor recalled in 2022 on Chazz Palminteri’s podcast.

• Pastore, who had appeared in 21 of the show’s first 26 episodes, was extremely popular with viewers; he would show up four more times in flashbacks or dreams through the series’ 2007 conclusion.

Key Details

On the second-season finale, “Funhouse,” Sal is gunned down on a boat by Tony, Paulie (Tony Sirico) and Silvio (Steven Van Zandt) and dumped overboard. “I was 50 years old … and I’m on a plane and I’m going to work,” he.

• Even though he was no longer on one of TV’s hottest shows after getting whacked, he said he looked at the bright side as he was flying to Los Angeles for the first time.

• Pastore was born in the Bronx on July 14, 1946.

• He then made his professional acting debut in True Love (1989), starring Annabella Sciorra and Aida Turturro.

Why It Matters

His father, John, was a bookmaker who had to give up that business in order to get married — the family of his future wife Natalie insisted — but resumed making loans when he retired from his job as a school custodian..

• Casting director Ellen Lewis saw him in that and put him in GoodFellas, and he was in Penny Marshall‘s Awakenings in 1990, too.

• He was a leading man in the indies A Tale of Two Pizzas (2003), Heaven’s Messenger (2008), Dough Boys (2008) and Pizza With Bullets (2010) and still active recently, with a turn in the.

What Reports Say

Coverage of the story so far points to:

• On the small screen, Pastore sparkled in the 1997 CBS miniseries The Last Don, starring Danny Aiello, and showed up on everything from Law & Order, The Practice and Everybody Hates Chris to Blue.

• Pastore did lots of stage work, and on Broadway he played Amos Hart in the 2007-08 revival of Chicago and the mob kingpin Nick Valenti in 2014 in Bullets Over Broadway.

• Continued reporting by The Hollywood Reporter as more details emerge