“I asked him for a favor,” he later explained. Borgese then turned around and mentioned the debt to a wiseguy friend of his during a round of golf. The unidentified victim, whose jaw and ribs were broken in the beating, allegedly owed money to a car dealership in upstate New York-the dealer reportedly asked Borgese to help him collect the debt. “I used extortionate means to collect a debt from a person,” Borgese admitted in Brooklyn Federal Court. In 2011, the actor faced a multi-year jail sentence after pleading guilty to extortion-Borgese had a hand in a debt collection turned savage assault, perpetrated by heavies from the Gambino family. Unfortunately, the long arm of the law did not treat Borgese quite so well. “I knew John Gotti-I knew all those guys from the neighborhood,” Borgese once told the New York Post. (Paul Sorvino’s character in the film, Paul Cicero, was based on Vario Sr.) Borgese also played crime family captain Lorenzo “Larry Boy” Barese in 14 episodes of HBO’s The Sopranos, a role not quite as true to his life, though not by much. Art imitated life years later when Borgese was cast as Sonny Bunz, that very same nightclub’s put-upon, absurdly named owner, in Martin Scorsese’s mob classic Goodfellas. Borgese was a friend of Paul “Little Paulie” Vario Jr.-Little Paulie’s father, prominent mobster Paul Vario Sr., got Borgese a gig at the Bamboo Lounge, a well-known hot spot for local wiseguys. The actor was born and raised in Brooklyn, the son of a connected “street guy,” and gravitated towards show business at a young age, getting an early break as an aspiring nightclub singer through a connection of his own. Anthony “Tony” Borgese, Goodfellas (1990), The Sopranos (1999)Īs you see, Tony Borgese (stage name: Tony Darrow) has appeared in two of mob drama’s crowning achievements. Oh, yeah, the guy sat in front of the board, and he says, ‘No, no, he’s a wiseguy, been downtown.
“I won Italian of the Year twice in New York, and I’m not Italian,” Caan, who is of Jewish descent, once said. Caan’s relationship with the Russos-made especially significant by the fact that Andy Mush is the godfather to Caan’s son, Scott-earned him quite a reputation in New York City. “Joseph Russo is a dear friend of mine, and I cannot express enough how pleased I am that your office has taken interest and is in pursuit of correcting this problem,” Caan wrote. “But don’t wear it in Florida.”Īndy Mush was not the only member of the Colombo family whom Caan was close to-the actor also once wrote to Brooklyn’s District Attorney to thank him for investigating a corrupt FBI agent who had jailed Joseph “Jo-Jo” Russo, Andy Mush’s son. A week later, Montana gifted her an antique diamond wristwatch, placing it on her desk wrapped up in a Kleenex. “I’d like an antique watch with diamonds on it, but I’ll get another $15 one,” McCartt joked. Or he’d put a candle in front of a cuckoo clock, and when the cuckoo would pop out, the candle would fall over and start a fire.” Bettye McCartt, assistant to producer Al Ruddy, had her own mobster moment with Montana: when she broke her watch, he noticed and asked her what kind of replacement she wanted. “He’d tie tampons on the tail of a mouse, dip it in kerosene, light it, and let the mouse run through a building. “ used to tell us all these things, like, he was an arsonist,” associate producer Gray Frederickson told Vanity Fair.
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The director famously once asked Montana if he knew how to spin the cylinder of a revolver, to which the enforcer-turned-actor responded, “You kiddin’?” In fact, it was in Montana’s capacity as a bodyguard for one of the family’s young dons that he found himself on The Godfather set, where Coppola “fell in love” with the not-so-gentle giant and quickly cast him as Brasi. The six-foot-six, 300-plus-pound actor and former world-wrestling champion busied himself as muscle for New York City’s Colombo crime family in the ’70s. Yet it turns out that as the fiercely loyal but-four-decade-old spoiler alert-doomed mob enforcer Luca Brasi, Montana was all but playing himself. Lenny Montana is something of a one-hit wonder as an actor, known best (or perhaps only) for his role in Francis Ford Coppola’s gangster classic.