Vincent Pastore, the actor who made Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero one of The Sopranos’ most remembered figures, died at 80 after being found dead in his Bronx residence on Aug. 1. A neighbor found him after he had not been heard from for three days, and the circumstances of his death were still being investigated.
That is the immediate news for viewers who knew Pastore from HBO’s mob drama and for fans who followed him long after it ended. He was best known for playing Tony Soprano’s longtime friend and mob enforcer turned FBI Informant, a role whose murder became one of the Emmy-winning series’ most memorable scenes.
Pastore’s career stretched far beyond that part. Born in the Bronx on July 14, 1946, he fought in the Vietnam war before graduating from Pace University with a degree in drama. He appeared in The Jerky Boys: The Movie in 1995, then in the 1996 HBO TV movie Gotti alongside Tony Sirico, Frank Vincent and Dominic Chianese. He also had roles in Goodfellas, Carlito’s Way and Men of Respect, and later turned up in Mickey Blue Eyes, Two Family House, Riding in Cars with Boys, Witness to the Mob, Deuces Wild, Mafia!, Serving Sara, This Thing of Ours, Shark Tale, Bachelor Party Vegas, Once Upon a Time in Brooklyn, Money Train, A Brooklyn State of Mind, The Deli, Spinning Gold and Guy Ritchie’s Revolver.
He kept working across television as well, with frequent guest spots on Law & Order and major roles on One Life to Live, The Practice, Son of the Beach, Queens Supreme, Hawaii Five-0, Wu-Tang: An American Saga and The Last Don II. He later became a series regular on Gravesend, guest starred on Yellowjackets and appeared on Celebrity Apprentice, Celebrity Family Feud, Dancing With the Stars, Shark Tank and Celebrity Fit Club during the 2000s. He also hosted The Wiseguy Show on SiriusXM, a fit for an actor who spent much of his career playing tough, talkative men with a way of making every room feel smaller.
The part that made him a familiar face came with a built-in end point, but the larger question around Pastore is a more ordinary and more painful one: why he died when he had not been heard from for days. His family includes his daughter, Renee, and the investigation into what happened inside that Bronx residence remains the unfinished part of the story.
