The decision has cost him roles in two movies, which he said would have paid him more in three weeks than in the six months he has spent on the road. He’s taken a hiatus from movie-making to take “A Bronx Tale” out on the road - and to spend off-weeks traveling to places like Minneapolis to do in-person publicity to generate advance buzz for his labor of love, which plays the State Theatre for a week-long engagement beginning Tuesday. Though not an A-list movie star, the 57-year-old actor has used his imposing 6-foot-3-inch frame, his intense presence and a gravelly speaking voice that makes no attempt to hide his upbringing to carve out a healthy career in films. The 1993 film version of “A Bronx Tale” was a hit and lit a fuse under Palminteri’s career. If it was going to be made into a movie, the then-unknown and still-broke actor demanded the right to write the screenplay - and to star as Sonny. The actor resisted overtures - and offers that started at $250,000 and advanced into seven figures - to sell his story. His self-produced version of the play, in which Palminteri played 18 characters, was a hit in L.A., and drew in producers and directors hungry to make the story into a movie. “The first time I did it in its entirety, people were blown away, they stood up, it was like, holy sh-.” “At the end of 10 months, I had this 90-minute rocket ship,” he said over lunch at a tony downtown Minneapolis restaurant, where Palminteri splashed profanities as he did olive oil on his salad greens. Shortly after that, Palminteri figured that, if he wanted to appear in a great play, he’d have to write it himself.Īnd, following the old adage to write what you know, Palminteri bought a bunch of yellow notepads and began writing a 90-minute play about the two men who shaped his growing-up years: Lorenzo, his poor but scrupulously honest bus-driver father and Sonny, the Mafioso who ran his business out of the bar next door. As the guy on the right side of the velvet rope, Palminteri told him to take a hike.įifteen minutes later, Palminteri got fired, having unwittingly refused admission to “Swifty” Lazar, then the most powerful talent agent in Hollywood. nightclub and one evening, found himself face to face with a short, surly, bespectacled would-be patron who demanded entry. It was 1988 and Palminteri - who had moved from his native New York to the West Coast to try his hand in Hollywood - was out of work and out of money. But it’s a good story, and it goes like this: Chazz Palminteri has told the story of how he came to write “A Bronx Tale” countless times.
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