More than a quarter century after it premiered, The Sopranos still sits near the top of many conversations about the best television ever made, and part of the reason is how deep its bench went. James Gandolfini and Edie Falco earned the awards, but the show’s world felt real because of the faces around them — actors who seemed to have walked in off an actual New Jersey street corner.
Vincent Pastore was one of the most essential of those faces. His Salvatore Bonpensiero was there from the first episode, and his storyline produced what many fans still consider one of the most devastating turns the series ever took. As reported by Deadline, Pastore has died at 80. He was found dead in his Bronx home on Aug. 1 by a neighbor, reportedly after three days without contact. The circumstances of his death are under investigation. His manager Bob McGowan told Deadline:
“Vinnie was a great guy, he would help anyone and was very charitable.”
Pastore’s path to acting was about as unlikely as they come. Born in the Bronx on July 14, 1946, he served in Vietnam before earning a degree in drama from Pace University, then spent years driving a limo while doing community theater on the side. His break reportedly came through Kevin Dillon, who saw him in a community play alongside his brother Matt and helped open the first door. Through the early 1990s, he took small parts in films like Goodfellas and Carlito’s Way. The 1996 HBO movie Gotti put him alongside Tony Sirico, Frank Vincent, and Dominic Chianese, all of whom would later share the screen with him again on The Sopranos.
Pastore, as Bonpensiero, was Tony’s longtime friend and enforcer, and the character’s arc, from trusted confidant to FBI informant to the subject of one of the show’s most wrenching episodes, gave Pastore material most character actors never get. There’s a fair argument that the emotional weight of that storyline, and the way it haunted Tony for seasons afterward, only worked because Pastore made the character so warm and familiar first. He worked steadily for decades after, in films like Shark Tale, Mickey Blue Eyes, and Guy Ritchie’s Revolver, and on television everywhere from Law & Order to Wu-Tang: An American Saga to a recent guest spot on Yellowjackets.
He also leaned into his persona with evident good humor, turning up on Celebrity Apprentice, Dancing with the Stars, and Shark Tank, and hosting The Wiseguy Show on SiriusXM. Pastore’s passing adds him to the list of notable Sopranos actors who have died since the series ended, including James Gandolfini, Tony Sirico, Frank Vincent, Denise Borino-Quinn and Suzanne Shepherd, among others.
- Release Date
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1999 – 2007-00-00
- Network
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HBO
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
