Joe Pesci, a 75-year-old Italian-American Actor, Comedian, and Singer born on Feb 9, 1943, at Newark, New Jersey. His full name is Joseph Frank Pesci. Best known for his performance as the comical role in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. He’s famous at Leo Getz in the Lethal Weapon Franchise, along with his character in My Cousin Vinny (1992).
Playing mostly as a supporting actor and having a wide field of characters acting, Joe Pesci is one of the most recognized actors. He has won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and the other 13 awards. Also13 times nominated, for different awards.
Joe Pesci Net Worth
Joe Pesci, An American Actor, musician, and comedian has a total net worth of $50 million.
Height
Joe is 1.63 m tall.
Joe Pesci Latest and Upcoming movies
The new upcoming movie of Joe Pesci is “The Irishman”. The movie is an American epic crime film. However, Martin Scorsese directed and produced the movie. But Steven Zaillian wrote the story, based on the 2004 book “I Heard You Paint Houses”. In this movie, Joe Pesci appeared as Russel Bufalino.
Most importantly, the movie had its premiere at the 57th New York Film festival on September 27, 2019. However, the movie released in the limited theatres on November 1, 2019. But seems to be digitally released on Netflix on November 27, 2019. Hope, this movie can revive the career of Joe Pesci as the movie “The Raging Bulls” did in 1980.
Early-life
Joe was born in a Blue-collar family to Father Angelo Pesci, and Mother Mary (nee Mesce). His father was a forklift driver for General Motors and as well as a bartender and Mother, a parttime barber. Persci started acting, dancing, and music from a very young age. He seems to be a humble and gentle kid, as he has maintained that personality. In Belleville, New Jersey, Pesci attended Belleville High School. At the early age of 10, he had already entered the field of acting.
He appeared regularly on a variety TV show named “Startime Kids” as a kid actor. Most importantly, this show also featured another future star, Connie Francis. However, at the age of 5, Joe Pesci already had performed in onstage acting. Later, Joe surprisingly engaged in the formation of the band “Four Seasons”. As he was friends with Frankie Valli and Tommy DeVito. They were both nine years senior and 15 years senior to Perci, respectively. Later, in 1959, Joe introduced them to hotshot songwriter Bib Gaudio, who helped the formation of “Four Seasons” greatly.
Early-Career
Joe Pesci’s movie career had him win 1 Oscar, 1 Golden Globe, and the other 12 wins and 13 nominations. But it all started with his role in the low budget Crime thriller film “The Death Collector” (1976). He had appeared before this movie as an unaccredited dancer in 1961 on Hey Let’s Twist but had to wait for another 15 years before getting into a credited film. In the early ’20s, he started his singing career, going around local night clubs, and also playing guitar for a pop band with the singer Joey Dee and the Starliters. Consequently, he recorded an album named “Little Joe Sure Can Sing” under the stage name of Joc Richie.
Later, he started a musical comedy act alongside Frank Vincent, the actor mostly known for his role as Phil Leutardo from the hit show “The Sopranos.” They did this act starting from the late ’60s to the early ’70s. After his first accredited movie “The Death Collector” Joe was not able to land any new roles.
From 1979
It looked like his movie career was destined for an abrupt end. So, without any future role insight and economic hurdles to pass, Perci began working as an Italian Restaurant Manager in New York City. It was not going to happen. Because the actor Robert DeNiro who had noticed and loved the role of Joel Perci in the movie “The Death Collector” recommended him for a character to producer Martin Scorsese. As a result, Joe appeared as the brother of boxer Jake LaMotta, played by Robert DeNiro in the biopic “The Raging Bulls” (1980).
Joe’s role in the movie “The Raging Bulls” was stunning. The performance of the actors made many emotionally stirred. Because the actors so pledged to this movie that they actually had fought in the production to make it more authentic. Pesci caused a real accident on the stage when he broke the ribs of actor DeNiro with his fists. It made it to the final cut which is now taken as a classic scene. This role won him various critical praise, and most importantly, he nominated for Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for best supporting actor. This movie sparked light to the extinguished movie career of Perci and lifted him to the ride of Hollywood fame.
Joe Pesci Movie Career
After his success on Raging bulls, Pesci was very much in demand. In 1982, Joe returned to the biopic “I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can” with actress Jill Clayburg. On the same year he appeared in the lead role, the owner of a New Jersey bowling alley with dreams of becoming a singer in LA, Ruby Dennis in a German film “Dear Mr. Wonderful,“ and as Nick Cerone alongside co-actor Rodney Dangerfield in “Easy Money” (1983). He appeared as a notorious mobster, Frankie Monaldi, on Frankie Monaldi’s one of the most critically acclaimed films “Once upon a time in America” (1984) alongside Robert De Niro and James Wood. He appeared as a Leo Getz, a comically pestiferous government witness on “Lethal Weapon 2” (1984).
From 1990 to 2010
Joe later appeared on “Goodfellas” (1990) as Tommy DeVito, a psychotic gangster, who was based on a real-life characters Thomas DeSimone on which the man himself appreciated Perci for the “90% to 95% accurate description” of his life., winning Oscar’s award for the best supporting actor which is one of the highest rewards he has ever gotten. In 1990, he appeared on stage as a ridiculous and idiotic Burglar, Harry Lime, in adventure comedy and the now-classic “Home alone”.
He also has shared the stage with the king of pop Michael Jackson on the film “Moonwalker” as Mr. Big. In 1992 he co-starred with Morsia Jomei in My Cousin Vinny as a lawyer with a bad win history trying to defend his cousin and her friend from accused murder. He later appeared on the sequel of Home alone, “Home alone 2: Lost in Newyork City” and on the sequel of Lethal weapon 2, “Lethal Weapon 3” in 1992.
In 1999, Joe announced his retirement from films and started pursuing a musical career. Later, he returned in acting in a Camoin 2009 spy thriller CIA movie, “The Good Shepherd“. Also in 2010 co-starred with Hellen Mirren in Love Ranch.
Current Life
The actor was just 55 and very active until the time of retirement. Even though the actor seemed to have ended his career abruptly, the signs that the actor was not happy were quite abundant. Also when he appeared in public, he seems genuinely unhappy and kind of apathetic about being an actor and fed-up. Joe Pesci in his Oscar win gave the shortest speech in the Academy’s history lasting only for six seconds. Playing different people and impersonating them, who, according to the actor, had no resemblance to him for years, affected his thinking and lifestyle.
The actor was quoted saying in a game of golf, the game which he loved and was seen playing a lot, “didn’t know who the hell was about to hit the damn ball” claiming that it could have been any of the characters from his various roles which clearly showed the actors frustration. It is no secret that impersonating someone could affect the person’s mental health and seeing that Perci often played roles of criminals, characters who were short-tempered and prone to explosive outbursts, it could have very likely effected the calm and helping nature of the actor.
The actor was set to return to Hollywood fame with the movie based on book adaptation of the true-crime book, “Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father. But the producers changed the contract and denied to cast him in the film. Therefore, the actor sued the $3 million to the production company. In the twist of event and coincidence, Tommy DeSimone was murdered allegedly by John Gotti himself. The Goti film finally released with a new director and John Travolta as the lead actor.
Joe Pesci Personal life and family
Seen in various movies in various roles mostly as mobsters and also to comedy leads and quirky sidekicks, Pesci frequently worked with longtime friend Robert De Niro and director Martin Scorsese even stating, “We work so well together. It’s like breathing in and out. It’s so easy for us – we feed off each other”. And also stating, “Marty is probably one of the best directors of our generation and previous generations” I’ve ever worked.
In 1964; He married to model and actress, Claudia Haro. From Her, he has a daughter Tiffany. Later, he engaged to American actor and producer, Angie Everhart but sadly, this relationship also didn’t last for long. However, he has been in a relationship for five times, married three times and divorced three times. Most importantly, he’s currently single.