This is my drawing
of Chazz. You can
buy prints of it here.
A Bronx Tale, tells about a boy
struggling between the values of his working class bus-driver father (Robert De Niro) and
Sonny (Chazz), the glamorous neighborhood gangster. Sonny becomes like a second father to
the boy after he refuses to identify him in a murder he witnessed. While this is a true
story based on Chazz's own childhood, he has no romantic feelings about the Mafia.
"If you do right, good things will follow. If you do wrong, bad things will follow.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. You reap what you sow. These are fundamental rules of
life. No matter how big you are, you must live the laws of life, or you will pay the
consequences. When you realize that, you realize you're the same as everybody else." Axcess
Magazine, "Street Wise Socrates The world according to Chazz Palminteri" May,
1996 .
If you only know the Bronx through the
movies you'd think everyone was a wiseguy. Not according to Chazz. "Was there
organized crime in my neighborhood? Of course there was. But the main part of this
community was always the working man. Always the butcher, the baker, the cop, the fireman.
But, as society is, the organized crime gets the glory, the fame. Hollywood's obsessed
with the Mafia because those movies make money. Period. End of story. If they didn't make
money they wouldn't be obsessed with it." "Italians in America", a
documentary on A&E "It's a beautiful place. Movies like Fort Apache made people think the Bronx is one
big ghetto. There's the Bronx Zoo, one of the best zoos in the world - not in the country,
in the world, thank you. The Botanical Gardens, with the big hothouse, the wonderful
flowers and the museum. See Yankee Stadium, watch the Yankees play. Split Rock is
wonderful golf course. I've played there a few times. I can go on and on. Playboy, July
1996
After his big break in A Bronx Tale he got a
second chance to work with a New York icon, Woody Allen, in Bullets over Broadway.
He played another gangster but this time in a comedy. The result earned him an Academy
Award Nomination for best supporting actor. It also showed Hollywood that Chazz had great
comic timing, and wasn't just another tough guy. "One hundred years from now, people
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