Chazz Palminteri biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Born Calogero Lorenzo Palminteri on May 15, 1952, Chazz Palminteri grew up in an Italian-American home in the Bronx, New York. Palminteri and his two sisters were raised by their mother Rose, a homemaker, and their father Lorenzo, a bus driver. Palminteri has very fond memories of his upbringing in the Belmont section of the Bronx.

"I loved my neighborhood; I loved my childhood," Palminteri remembers. "Was it a little dangerous? Was it a little racist? Sure. But there was a decency there. It was a working-class neighborhood with fathers who woke up every morning to jobs they didn't like but did it for their families. They were firemen or cops or sanitation workers or bricklayers or bus drivers, like my father. These people are the glue that holds together Italian-American communities around the country."

A natural-born entertainer, as a child Palminteri was known as the neighborhood jokester and storyteller. He began dreaming of becoming an actor at the age of 10 when he saw the classic film On the Waterfront (1954) starring Marlon Brando. Palminteri originally attended DeWitt Clinton High School, but transferred to Theodore Roosevelt High School because he did not like the all-boys environment at DeWitt Clinton. Despite being a poor student—"I would make girls do my homework," he recalls—Palminteri graduated from Roosevelt High in 1973 and immediately set out to make it as an actor.

He studied theatre with Lee Strasburg at the Actor's Studio in New York and worked as a singer and doorman at New York nightclubs while landing a few off-Broadway roles. His biggest part during this period was a role in the 1984 film project Fine Line by then-NYU film student Ang Lee.

'A Bronx Tale'

Unable to make any significant inroads into the New York theatre scene, in 1986 Palminteri packed his bags and moved cross-country to try his luck in Los Angeles. He quickly landed guest spots on popular TV shows such as NBC's Hill Street Blues and CBS's Wiseguy, but failed to land any more permanent roles. When he lost his job as a bouncer at a Los Angeles nightclub, Palminteri felt that his career had hit rock bottom. "I had no money in the bank," he remembers. "I started to cry. And then I remembered my dad, who always told me the saddest thing in life is wasted talent."

It was from this despair that Palminteri found the inspiration to embark on the project that would re-launch his career.