Chazz Palminteri came to Campisi's Egyptian Lounge to talk pizza, murder and his musical, A Bronx Tale, which AT&T Performing Arts Center is presenting Dec. 26-Jan. 6, 2019.
First, the pizza.
"This is the truth," he says. "I've been to a lot of Italian restaurants. The pizza here is great. It's solid. It's really legit. The key is the sauce. You got to have great sauce. The sauce is the foundation. When I come to Dallas, I'm coming to Campisi's," he says.
Then we moved on to the murder that changed his life. Palminteri was 9 years old, sitting on the stoop outside his family home in the Bronx, when he heard the screeching of a car pulling into a spot and saw a man kill another man with a bat just five feet away from him.
When he was asked to identify the perpetrator, "I was smart enough to know you didn't rat," he says. His silence earned him the loyalty of the mobster who committed the crime. Over time, Palminteri felt conflicting loyalties for the glamorous mobster who inspired fear and respect in his neighborhood and his own law-abiding father, a bus driver who never missed a day of work.
Years later, when he was in his mid-30s, at a crossroads as an actor, fired as a bouncer, out of money and feeling stymied after being passed over for role after role, he thought back to this pivotal moment in his life.
Even though he'd never been a writer, he'd always had a knack for telling stories. He quickly crafted an autobiographically inspired one-man show, A Bronx Tale, which allowed him to play multiple roles. That became a 1989 off-Broadway hit with theatergoers and Hollywood glitterati.
Many producers wanted to make a film version. But they had a condition: that he wouldn't write the screenplay and he wouldn't perform in it.
Remembering how his friend Sylvester Stallone held out to star in his film script, Rocky, the penniless Palminteri stood firm, turning down offers of $250,000, $500,000 and $1 million.
"Not a chance, not gonna happen," he recalls being told of his chances to star in and write the film. "We need a star."
Still, he held out, convinced someone would believe in him.
Finally, Robert De Niro showed up in his dressing room after a performance and told Palminteri he wanted to direct a movie adaptation with Palminteri playing Sonny, the mobster, and De Niro as the boy's father. That film debuted in 1993. The following year, the now-bankable Palminteri earned an Academy Award nomination for Bullets Over Broadway.
Palminteri feels immense gratitude to De Niro, who supported him as an actor and writer and resisted studio attempts to tamper with the story.
"Bob never let anyone touch the script," he says. "He knew it was my life."
Palminteri became a producer on the 2016 Broadway musical adaptation, which was co-directed by De Niro and Jerry Zaks and features a score by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater. Palminteri didn't open as Sonny in the show, but he did fill in and play the part in 2018 before the show closed in August. Palminteri has been deeply involved in the casting. He was impressed with and approved Burleson's Frankie Leoni, who played the part of the young boy on Broadway and now in the national tour.
He also worked closely with Joe Barbara, who plays Sonny in the national tour.
For Barbara, getting to know Palminteri has been the key to understanding the complex character he plays.
"It would be intimidating if Chazz wasn't so gracious and supportive," Barbara says on the phone. "There's no one better to give you a sense of who Sonny was than Chazz." Through Palminteri, he's seen Sonny at his worst, but also at his best -- as a man who truly wanted the boy he mentored to have a better life than he did. In a way, Barbara says, because of Palminteri's depiction of Sonny, "the best part of his spirit is living on."
Palminteri says he never seriously considered following in Sonny's footsteps.
"If I did that, it would have hurt my mother and father, and I would have ended up in trouble."
But playing him as an actor gave him the best of both worlds, he says.
"Being a wise guy is not a good thing, but playing one is the best. You get all the perks, but you don't have to worry about what will happen to you."
He's actually only received one piece of criticism for A Bronx Tale, and he took it to heart. It was from the wise guys in the neighborhood. He remembers waiting nervously for their verdict after they saw the show.
They loved it, they told him after the show, but they said, 'You gotta change the names,'" he recalls.
That was one rewrite he was willing to do and did -- quickly.
Details
Dec. 26-Jan. 6. AT&T Performing Arts Center at Winspear Opera House, 2403 Flora St. attpac.org.
