In 1999, Academy Award-winning actor Joe Pesci decided to take a break from acting. After a long
hiatus, he popped up intermittently in various film and music projects until his triumphant
return in The Irishman. Here's some info on what Pesci was up to during his time away.
"Did you say 'yutes?'"
“Yeah, two Yutes.”
“What is a yute?”
“Oh, Excuse me your honor. Two Youths…”
The music career Joe Pesci left acting to pursue is totally legit. The man can croon
a jazz tune with the best of them, and Pesci isn't a Johnny-come-lately on the jazz scene;
he's been at it for more than 50 years. Biography reports he played guitar in
the '60s with the band Јоеу Dее аnd thе Ѕtаrlіtеrѕ at the famous Peppermint Lounge.
In 1968, he recorded his first album, Lіttlе Јое Ѕurе Саn Ѕіng, under the pseudonym "Joe
Ritchie." He released an album in 2003 with Joey Defrancesco entitled Falling in Love Again,
this time using the pseudonym "Joe Doggs." And his 2019 album, Pesci... Still Singing,
includes two duets with Adam Levine, and was published under Pesci's real name.
Not everything he records is sublime jazz, though. He has a goofy single called "Wise
Guy," in which he raps about a mafia gangster persona. The song was on his 1998 Vincent
Laguardia Gambini Sings just for You album, which set his My Cousin Vinny character to music.
Switching gears yet again, Pesci recorded an out-of-this-world cover of "The Nearness of
You" in 2017 with legendary jazz singer Jimmy Scott. So while gangster films
and playing violent characters may be the first thing you associate with Joe Pesci,
don't forget about the music, which is an integral part of his story.
Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro go way back. De Niro "discovered" Pesci after
being impressed by his work in The Death Collector, the New York Times reports.
De Niro brought Pesci to the attention of Martin Scorsese, who then cast him in Raging Bull
and future films like Casino and Goodfellas. The trio have become almost synonymous with films that
not only focus on the dark world of criminals and gangsters, but absolute classics that are still
revered to this day. Though Pesci had sworn off acting, he couldn't resist working with his old
pal again and came out of retirement to appear in The Good Shepherd in 2006, which De Niro directed.
While the dream team of Pesci, De Niro and Scorsese is theatrical magic, Deadline reported
that Pesci apparently turned down the offer to appear in The Irishman about 50 times before
finally accepting the role of Russell Bufalino in the film. Maybe he was just playing hard to get.
Joe Pesci was doing radio and plays by age four and was a regular on the variety show Star Time
Kids when he was just ten. When you get a taste of love from audiences at such a young age,
applause is a high you chase for the rest of your life.
While his first credited film, The Death Collector, was a bust,
it led him to a bustling career that cemented his name into film history.
With an Academy Award win for Goodfellas and numerous nominations for other ensemble-cast
films he starred in like The Irishman and Casino. Even his co-stars have won awards,
like his My Cousin Vinny scene partner Marisa Tomei, who won an Oscar for her work on the film.
The actor told the Los Angeles Times -
"I try to bring a little fun to all my characters, a little black humor."
"I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh?
I'm here to f----- amuse you? What do you mean funny? Funny how, how am I funny?"
In 1990, Pesci was able to show off his physical comedy chops in the classic Home Alone,
playing one of the attempted robbers who are continually thwarted by Macaulay Culkin. In fact,
he has always had comedic sensibility and timing. Even back in the '60s,
he performed as part of a comedy duo with асtоr Frаnk Vіnсеnt in comedy clubs throughout New
Jersey. It's hard to believe one person could have so many fascinating life experiences.
Like many retirees, Joe Pesci has time on his hands to take part in fighting proposed
development around the neighborhood. But, unlike many retirees, he is New Jersey royalty. So, when
the actor joined some of his neighbors in writing letters to oppose a proposed 300-foot dock on a
neighbor's property in Lavallette, New Jersey, it became a story that wound up in Page Six.
Pesci's house, which he has owned since 1990,
is on Barnegat Bay. He complained in his letter that the extended length of
the proposed dock would block the views of homeowners and also cited safety concerns.
Mafia characters spend a lot of time on docks dumping bodies, but this time,
it looks like Pesci is dumping the property,
eventually putting it on the market. Realtor.com reported that he listed it for $6.5 million.
Joe Pesci is full of
surprises. According to TIME, Pesci apparently played at least a small role in the formation of
the popular doo-wop band Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Pesci and Tommy DeVito,
a founding member of the group, are old friends. Pesci introduced DeVito to songwriter Bob Gaudio,
who wrote many of the band's hits. The Jersey Boys musical, written about the formation of the band,
even includes Joe Pesci as a character. When the show opened on Broadway in 2005, Pesci, DeVito,
Gaudio, and Frankie Valli all reunited and hugged on stage.
Here's where it gets kind of meta: Pesci's fictional character in the film Goodfellas
was named Tommy DeVito, after the Four Seasons band member,
though hopefully that's where the similarities between the two ended. Then, when they made a
movie of the Jersey Boys Broadway show, in which there was a character named Joe Pesci,
who was based on the real Joe Pesci but played by an actor because the real Pesci was too old
to play his younger self. And, in between all of that, as the New York Times reported,
Pesci helped DeVito get bit parts in a few movies, including Casino.
As far as legal matters go, Joe Pesci's battle
with a production company is about as Hollywood as it gets. The actor gained 30 pounds in preparation
for the role of Gotti strongarm Angelo Ruggiero in the film, Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father based
on the book of the same name. But the role never materialized because, per The Hollywood Reporter,
the director quit and the new director wanted to give Pesci a smaller part. So, in 2011,
he sued the production company, run by producer Marc Fiore, for $3 million which was the salary
he was to have made for playing Ruggiero, plus punitive damages. Even amid a legal battle,
Fiore told the Daily News he still likes Pesci and still wanted him in the film, just in a different
role. The lawsuit settled in 2013, and CBS reports the details of the settlement remain private.
The film was eventually made, without Pesci. And when Gotti did come out in 2018, it was panned.
Still 2011 wasn't a total waste for Pesci, as he popped up in a now famous Snickers commercial.
"What are ya doing that girl's totally into me!"
"Brad, eat a Snickers."
"Why?"
"Cuz you get a little angry when you're hungry...Better?"
"Better."
Among the myriad of magazine "Top 100" lists on which one might expect
to find Joe Pesci, Golf Digest seems like a curveball. But what do you know,
Pesci appeared as #62 on the magazine's Top 100 Golfers in Hollywood list in 2007.
Yes, Pesci loves the links and has been spotted at many celebrity golf tournaments throughout
his retirement. Andy Garcia complimented Pesci's skills in Today's Golfer and that
the two of them won the Michael Douglas and Friends event with Jack Nicholson.
Pesci frequents a premiere Hollywood power-player club,
Lakeside Country Club. Nicholson told Golf Digest,
"I love playing with Pesh. That's a day's entertainment.
You can sprain your neck just watching Pesh's practice swing."
Nicholson also shared that Pesci and Randy Quaid helped him learn the game.
According to Netflix's The Movies That Made Us, Pesci requested that his call time for Home Alone
be moved to accommodate his golf game. And it worked. The call time was moved to 9 am
to give him time to play a round of golf at 7 a.m. before shooting.
Pesci does what Pesci wants when Pesci wants to do it. That's one reason we love him.
If winning an Oscar didn't do it, Joe Pesci was cemented as a pop-culture legend when
he was lampooned on Saturday Night Live. The legendary sketch comedy series threw
a recurring "Joe Pesci Show" skit into the rotation, with Jim Breuer playing Pesci.
"Hey everyone I'm Joe Pesci! Nice huh? I got my
mic here, got my chair here, I got my desk here, I got my gun here."
On one episode, the real Pesci and De Niro walked on stage at the end of the sketch,
bringing the house down and putting some fear and a beatdown onto the impersonators.
But it isn't just comedy, acting, music, and friendship for which Pesci is known.
He is also a style icon. More specifically, his characters all have one common style thread:
the pointiest shirt collars known to man. GQ explains the collars were
"A staple of New York gangster style in the first half of the 20th century,
when suity bravado was a part of the whole threatening package."
You better believe the shirt he wore to the premiere of The Irishman had a pointy collar;
Pesci took this fashion statement from the screen to the red carpet for his swan song.
Sadly, De Niro and Pacino told The Guardian that The Irishman was the last hurrah of this group of
longtime friends and co-stars. See you on the golf course, gentlemen. Pesci has a tee time at seven.
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