Tony Sirico, ‘Sopranos’ actor who played Paulie Walnuts, dies at 79
“I have an arsenal of weapons and an army of men, and I’m going to use them,” Tony Sirico, who played the mob henchman “Paulie Walnuts” in the HBO crime drama “The Sopranos” was once quoted as saying, “and . . . I’m going to come back here and carve my initials in your forehead. You better learn a lesson. You better show me the respect I deserve.”
The lines seem to have come from a script for the groundbreaking series, which aired from 1999 to 2007, won 21 Emmy Awards and is acclaimed as one of the greatest programs in television history. But the words are taken verbatim from a 1970 police charging record, documenting the reasons for Sirico’s arrest on extortion and weapons charges.
Long before he became renowned for playing a silver-haired enforcer for New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano (played by James Gandolfini), Sirico was a real-life hoodlum who was arrested 28 times and spent two stints in prison, totaling almost three years.
The memories of his earlier life were never far from the surface as Sirico portrayed Paulie Walnuts throughout the six-season run of “The Sopranos,” creating one of television’s most unforgettable characters. Sirico was 79 when he died July 8 at an assisted-living facility in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
The death was announced in a statement from his brother Robert Sirico, a Catholic priest in Michigan. He reportedly had dementia.
Before “The Sopranos,” Sirico had played a mobster in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” (1990), had acted in several films directed by Woody Allen, including “Bullets Over Broadway,” “Mighty Aphrodite” and “Everyone Says I Love You,” and appeared in the 1997 police corruption drama “Cop Land” with Sylvester Stallone and Ray Liotta.
When he auditioned for “The Sopranos,” Sirico was 55 and living with his mother in a small apartment in Brooklyn. He tried out for two roles and was told by David Chase, the show’s creator, that he didn’t get either of them.
“He said, ‘No, I got you in mind for somebody else,’” Sirico said on CNN’s “Larry King Live” in 2001, “and along came Paulie Walnuts.”
The character’s formal name was Peter Paul Gualtieri, who had been a trusted lieutenant of Tony Soprano’s late father, Johnny Boy Soprano. During the show’s first season, Paulie Walnuts described his life in this way: “I was born, grew up, spent a few years in the Army, a few more in the can and here I am, a half a wise guy.”
He got his nickname when he thought he thought he had hijacked a truck loaded with televisions. It turned out to carrying nuts.
Sirico wore a pinkie ring in real life, the same as Paulie. When the show’s wardrobe staff picked out a shirt for him, he said he had one just like it at home. On the show, while sitting outside a meat market that was an informal mob clubhouse, Paulie would flip open an aluminum reflector, brightening the tan on his neck and face.
And then there was his hair: a pompadour first sculpted into place in the ‘50s, now highlighted by two wings of silver slicked back on the sides. Sirico refused to let anyone touch his hair and spent hours combing and spraying it before shooting a scene.
His character killed more people than any other during the course of the show – – nine – – but there was much more to “The Sopranos” than mob violence. It was about families, both criminal and nuclear; about being part of a fading culture failing to adapt to change; and about the problems associated with addiction and depression.
When Tony Soprano revealed he was seeing a therapist, Paulie admitted he had, too: “I had some issues.”
Sirico once said, “If Paulie can’t curse, he can’t talk,” and he delivered some of the show’s funniest lines, always in a serious, deadpan style, usually punctuated by profanity. In one episode, he was cooking lunch for his pals when he paused for a long disquisition on the dangers of wet shoelaces.
“Why would they be wet?” he asked, while everyone was eating. “You go to public bathrooms? You stand at the urinal? . . . You look at ladies’ johns, you could eat maple walnut ice cream from the toilets . . . But the men’s? Heh! . . . Even if you keep your shoes tied, and you’re not dragging your laces through urine . . .”
Perhaps Sirico’s most memorable episode came in the third season, when he and his fellow mobster – – Christopher Moltisanti (played by Michael Imperioli) – – journey to New Jersey’s
desolate Pine Barrens in pursuit of a Russian rival in the dead of winter.
Paulie receives his orders from Tony Soprano, who says, “Bad connection, so I’m going to talk fast. The guy you are looking for is an ex-commando. He killed 16 Chechen rebels single-handed.”
Paulie: “Get . . . outta here.”
Tony: “Yeah, nice, huh? He was with the Interior Ministry. Guy’s some kind of Russian Green Beret. This guy cannot come back to tell this story. You understand?”
The telephone connection goes dead, and Paulie explains the situation to Christopher: “You’re not going to believe this. He killed 16 Czechoslovakians. Guy was an interior decorator.”
Christopher: “His house looked like s---.”
They chase the Russian on foot through the snow, wearing light leather jackets and no hats or gloves. (The scene was filmed in 11-degree weather.) Christopher shoots at the fleeing Russian but succeeds only in killing a deer.
Running through woods, Paulie tumbles to the ground, ends up with snow caked in his mussed hair, then looks forlornly at his foot, saying, “I lost my shoe.”
Gennaro Anthony Sirico Jr. was born July 29, 1942, in Brooklyn and grew up in the heavily Italian Bensonhurst section. His father was a dockworker and later ran a candy shop, and his mother was a homemaker.