Gotti Biopic Star Was to Boost Lillo Brancato's Acting Career
After spending eight years behind bars for his role in the killing of a city cop, Lillo Brancato, the actor known for his “A Bronx Tale” debut and a small recurring role in The Sopranos season two (he was one of the two guys who shot Christopher Moltisanti) allegedly "landed a part in a boxing epic being filmed in Brooklyn and Staten Island."
The New York Post reported that Alec Baldwin, Danny Glover and Mike Tyson star in "Back in the Day," the story of a Bensonhurst youth who trains to be a prizefighter under the tutelage of a local mobster.
Not a single cliche in this one!
According to the Post, Brancato, 38, called the Hollywood role a “blessing” and gave all the credit to producer and star William DeMeo. Brancato was involved, though not charged with, the brutal murder of an off duty NYPD officer who tried to stop Brancato and an ex-mob associate from robbing a next door apartment for narcotics.
Read all about it here.
“I know a lot of people were nervous about hiring someone who had a tainted past,” DeMeo said. But “we didn’t care what other people think. I could tell deep down in my heart that he changed. I wanted to give him a second chance.”
DeMeo played an even smaller recurring role in the Sopranos.
We remember DeMeo from his vanity mob flick "Wannabes." DeMeo somehow coaxed the venerable Joe Viterelli, who died in 2004, to appear in his film as the mob boss Santo (which is the only reason it's worth viewing). Known for his pug face and gruff voice, Viterelli made his 1990 acting debut playing a mob boss supposedly based on Roy DeMeo in the film State of Grace, a fine gangster film focused on the Irish Westies, which shot up Manhattan's West Side in the 1980s and 1990s under the Gambino family's flag. He appeared in many hit films, including Mickey Blue Eyes, Bullets Over Broadway and Analyze This, which really bought him to our attention.
Brancato met DeMeo in a battle to play a young and completely unbelievable version of Carlo Gambino in the forgettable 2001 made-for-TV film “Boss of Bosses” about Gambino crime family boss Paul Castellano. Chazz Palminteri played the lead, though we always believed he should've used any excuse to get a script made in which he could play Vincent "The Chin" Gigante....
Brancato said he is thrilled to once again star in a major production and also work with former world heavyweight champ Tyson.
As reported, in December 2005, Brancato was charged with second-degree murder for his role in a burglary in the Bronx.
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| Lillo Brancato to star in mob film alongside Alec Baldwin. |
The New York Post reported that Alec Baldwin, Danny Glover and Mike Tyson star in "Back in the Day," the story of a Bensonhurst youth who trains to be a prizefighter under the tutelage of a local mobster.
Not a single cliche in this one!
According to the Post, Brancato, 38, called the Hollywood role a “blessing” and gave all the credit to producer and star William DeMeo. Brancato was involved, though not charged with, the brutal murder of an off duty NYPD officer who tried to stop Brancato and an ex-mob associate from robbing a next door apartment for narcotics.
Read all about it here.
“I know a lot of people were nervous about hiring someone who had a tainted past,” DeMeo said. But “we didn’t care what other people think. I could tell deep down in my heart that he changed. I wanted to give him a second chance.”
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| Joe Viterelli |
DeMeo played an even smaller recurring role in the Sopranos.
We remember DeMeo from his vanity mob flick "Wannabes." DeMeo somehow coaxed the venerable Joe Viterelli, who died in 2004, to appear in his film as the mob boss Santo (which is the only reason it's worth viewing). Known for his pug face and gruff voice, Viterelli made his 1990 acting debut playing a mob boss supposedly based on Roy DeMeo in the film State of Grace, a fine gangster film focused on the Irish Westies, which shot up Manhattan's West Side in the 1980s and 1990s under the Gambino family's flag. He appeared in many hit films, including Mickey Blue Eyes, Bullets Over Broadway and Analyze This, which really bought him to our attention.
Brancato met DeMeo in a battle to play a young and completely unbelievable version of Carlo Gambino in the forgettable 2001 made-for-TV film “Boss of Bosses” about Gambino crime family boss Paul Castellano. Chazz Palminteri played the lead, though we always believed he should've used any excuse to get a script made in which he could play Vincent "The Chin" Gigante....
Brancato said he is thrilled to once again star in a major production and also work with former world heavyweight champ Tyson.
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Art imitating life: Lillo himself was shot twice, but made out much better
than his character on The Sopranos.
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Off-duty police officer Daniel Enchautegui was killed in a shootout when he confronted Brancato and a former half-assed wiseguy nursing a drug problem. Brancato was subsequently acquitted of murder but was convicted of first-degree attempted burglary and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Co-defendant Steven Armento, a former associate of the Genovese family who'd been shelved owing to his narcotics problem, was convicted of firing the fatal shot. The two had broken into the apartment of a deceased acquaintance to pilfer drugs they believed were still stashed in the rental unit.
Brancato, 37, paroled in January 2014, told the NY Daily News that the slaying of the NYPD officer was never far from his thoughts.
The New York Post reported in 2013 that Brancato had beaten a fellow inmate at an upstate prison because he wouldn't cut short a phone call to his wife.
On the night of Jan. 26, the jailed actor decided he was tired of waiting in line in a rec room at the Oneida Correctional Facility. First he started badgering petty thief Alvaro Hernandez, who refused to cut short his conversation with his wife.
Hernandez, 39, says Brancato jumped him and gave him a beating.
“He thinks he runs the place, like he’s God’s gift to this earth. He tells me, ‘Hang up the phone! I gotta use the phone!’ ” Hernandez said.
“He forces open the door and spits at me, and he’s punching me in the face and on the head.”
Other inmates, including Steven Molinaro, 22, grandson of Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, intervened, and Hernandez was taken to the prison nurse.
After an investigation, Brancato, 33, lost phone and commissary privileges and was “T-blocked” — confined to his cell for 23 hours a day for a month.
The Rome prison typically houses about 400 inmates.
Brancato, 37, paroled in January 2014, told the NY Daily News that the slaying of the NYPD officer was never far from his thoughts.
The New York Post reported in 2013 that Brancato had beaten a fellow inmate at an upstate prison because he wouldn't cut short a phone call to his wife.
On the night of Jan. 26, the jailed actor decided he was tired of waiting in line in a rec room at the Oneida Correctional Facility. First he started badgering petty thief Alvaro Hernandez, who refused to cut short his conversation with his wife.
Hernandez, 39, says Brancato jumped him and gave him a beating.
“He thinks he runs the place, like he’s God’s gift to this earth. He tells me, ‘Hang up the phone! I gotta use the phone!’ ” Hernandez said.
“He forces open the door and spits at me, and he’s punching me in the face and on the head.”
Other inmates, including Steven Molinaro, 22, grandson of Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, intervened, and Hernandez was taken to the prison nurse.
After an investigation, Brancato, 33, lost phone and commissary privileges and was “T-blocked” — confined to his cell for 23 hours a day for a month.
The Rome prison typically houses about 400 inmates.