Sit Down with Vincent Pastore | Michael Franzese

hey everyone welcome to another sit down with michael francis hope everybody is doing well and if you recall this past monday we did mob movie monday we reviewed season 2 episode 13 it was called the fun house and it's the one where big got killed off great comments thank you very much enjoyed what all of you had to say and today my very special guest is vincent pasteur he played big you all know him and the first time that you probably recognized him was in the hbo gotti movie with armand desanti you know i love that film he played angelo ruggierio a guy that i knew well so it's great to have him aboard we got him by zoom you know i'd rather sit in person you're going to watch we may be doing that at some point in time but today my good friend vincent pasteur [Music] first of all i love your entire body of work because with me when any time i watch any kind of mob related film it's all about authenticity that's it and you nail it every time i became a big fan of your work going way back to the first hbo gotti movie when you played angelo ruggierio i mean you killed the role i knew angelo pretty well and i don't know if you studied him or not but you just killed the role i tell you what happened i had gone in to audition for the director robert harmon and uh you know he knew my cousin and i had worked with him before he gave me the role and i was uptown and i was having a couple of drinks and i got beat we didn't have uh you know cell phones back then i got beat so i went to the pay phone and i called up my agent i said what's up they said where'd you go i says um celebrating i got the part they said no no no no aman asante is waiting for you so i went back downtown and armand was there and he was sitting at the end of the table and he wasn't armand he was john gotti and he started talking to me and i had to become angelo and then he says okay now you got the part and they turned around and he said to the director i want vinnie to come to uh toronto two weeks before we shoot and hang out with me and that's that's what happened and um and i remember uh some of the guys came up to see us work and they said the same thing that i was nailing it but um uh even uh even uh the kid john gotti junior said to me over dinner one night he said vinnie you nailed angelo but i never met i met him once it was weird i was coming out of the mulberry street bar and i was doing the state of grace and i was walking up the street and he was walking down the street with john and sammy and i never thought that years later i would play that guy isn't that something it is something but i got to tell you it's it's eerie how good you were in that role because i knew him fairly well i mean i didn't hang out with him all the time but i knew him fairly well and just your mannerisms and the way you spoke i mean you really nailed it i got to tell you so i became a fan at that point i got to tell you this i don't know if you've seen any of my other videos but i always talk that movie up i think it's one of the top three movies ever made in this genre armand asante was amazing as gotti anthony quinn i got to tell you he was just so great every scene just came alive every scene it was one of the best ever done we were up in uh toronto shooting and anthony who's with his new wife the young wife and they had the baby and the baby must have been like nine months old and quinn says here hold the baby i said why he says hold the baby and i said how does it feel to have a baby at your age he says it makes me feel young you know vinnie that one scene when he walked into the bar and he called john and he was upset because he had been fighting for his life all night that one scene i'm telling you i don't know if anybody ever played a better scene in that life than he did at that point it was so good these two zips gonna whack yeah did you know neil i did yeah of course you know because other people in other versions uh played neil but they say quinn nailed it it was terrific i mean all of you did all of you did i always say armand played gotti better than god he played himself he was he was that good but you all nailed it everybody in that movie was just terrific i mean it i i don't know how many times i saw it but i can probably recite it from start to finish working on that project more than sopranos and i'll tell you why uh we had a lot of freedom the opening scene while sitting around the table armond insisted and sariko put a gallon of wine underneath and we would drink it and i mean actors are not allowed to do that but that made the scene real yeah but we were drinking and we were making up lines and and that's how armon worked and the scene when i was on the dock and i was smoking and he took the cigarette out of my mouth and threw it down i didn't know he was going to do that and the cannoli scene i had no idea he was going to pull that off i was going to say how much of that was improvised yeah well it was scripted and it was originally called king of the volcano uh-huh that's what the screenplay was really king of the volcano and then they changed it to gotti but you know it was a great script you know but we had freedom freedom you could improvise you had to do it word for word with david chase yeah i mean you know scorsese don't work like that coppola don't work like that you know well you know i recently uh in the last couple of months i've been speaking to armand i'm probably going to meet him on the 23rd for that gotti reunion are you going to be there i can't do it because i'm running around with uh sharipa and michael imperioli uh doing this thing called conversations with sopranos and the promoters are saying that mob con is a conflict of interest for all of us really you know because we're doing the bagata and that's that you know atlantic city's crazy man you play one casino they don't want you doing another casino so i had to tell federico michael i couldn't do it but um i wanted to do it but you know uh me and michael and steve we started this uh thing pre-pandemic and we went to australia and we did a lot of cities and it's a show it's called conversations with sopranos where uh a comedian or a band opens up and then they show clips from sopranos strippers clips michael's clips in the mic clips and then we come out there and uh we get interviewed and then we do q a with the audience and then we do a photo op and it's a nice night it's an intimate night and we have ahead of us uh 15 cities in europe and already uh like five cities up in canada and all it's all coming back because we couldn't do any work during the pandemic so it's coming back we're doing staten island we're doing regatta we're doing a lot of things and it's coming back and i respect what the guys want they said let's keep this hot thing so i i hope armand don't get mad at me nah but i can't i'll get in trouble i'm sure he understands trouble no i'm sure he understands and remember he's not gotti he's armand so he's not going to hurt you don't worry about it no that's good three weeks ago did you at the the soprano uh uh poolside that we had a blast yeah and that's when we were talking about he said vinnie why don't you do the mob con i said i can't do sopranos he said sit with me and i said let me see but then they said no and i said did i write this like this movie's going to do with sopranos but then the pagoda says you can't do it so i don't know i don't know i don't even know if i should be talking about it but i'm talking like a priest right now yeah that's the business people understand what are you gonna do that movie made my career absolutely absolutely no doubt from there they knew that you know that was a role you could kill any any kind of mob guy you can kill no problem i just finished working on a project uh that they said you can't talk about but i'm going to talk about it uh because it's about our time it's about the disco days and it's about uh casablanca records the guy uh neil ballgard he started casablanca records he discovered donna summer kiss but he was mob connected because he was a compulsive gambler so that's where i come in and i worked my ass off on the roll and actually sheriff referred me we'd do that and after i wrapped uh the kid who wrote this thing it's about his father timmy and brad bogart they hugged me and they said we're so glad you did this part i said nah this is a dream role i said i'm gonna be on uh your show and uh good day new york no no no don't talk about it yet i said why not no don't talk about it yet so it's the movie i can't talk about it yet let me add something to that when you said neil bogart was mob connected you know how many times i was in his office with my father neil bogart high mizrahi phil steinberg casablanca buddha records my dad was involved with them so then you know what this story's about absolutely absolutely look at ps203 now oh yeah yeah something to do with his license plate but that's just the working title they're going to come out i think they're going to call it spinning something but he's got a good cast it's got jeremy jordan as the lead and he's good he plays neil bogart he's on the money but what's his name sebastian montescallo yeah the comedian he's got a big party he placed a guy who was uh donna summers manager okay so your father said oh this is funny i used to go up their office all the time and then neil neil later on he came out to california but when they were in new york i was there all the time casablanca buda records my father was involved as a matter of fact my father's got his name on one of the labels i think from the shangri-la's they they had the shangri-la's too they had all of those bubble gum acts back then yeah so i used to go it was my favorite place to go with my dad it was up to their offices we had a blast in l.a no no in new york first before they went out was in the brill building wow yes those are the days oh yeah vinnie i tell you i got great memories of those days really great great rock and roll right a lot of rock n roll my friend my friend ronnie i called him because he's uh he used to be a pit boss for caesars in vegas and i called him about the role and i said to ronnie and he gave me some advice and uh he said back then all the casinos were mopped up he said so if you're working for his casino and neil bolgart owed you money that's why i don't want to tell you too much about the movie but i talked to him and then i was talking to ronnie i said ronnie do you remember when we used to go see the ronettes at the brooklyn paramount now you were you weren't around that no i was drunk yeah i never went to the paramount that was young there no but you remember the disco days how old were you uh at the discovery of course yeah in the 80s 70s and 80s of course i remember yeah i had a couple of places myself what place did you have well out on long island i had a place called jupiter's then i had a place uh yeah jupiter's was the big one it was in hempstead i don't know if you remember another place that i used to go to all the time was channel 80 philly basilio stone it was paulie vario's place but yeah i love it i loved all those disco days without a doubt they were great we ran peach trees into rochelle and marty and lenny's across the street and then i opened up my own club i went in 1980 i opened up my own club for about seven years but i made a rock and roll club like down on blinking street i had a lot of fun yeah but that's what you that's what you did for what 20 years you were in the club business though well yeah because i went into the club business 1960 about 67 to 80 to 87 and then i walked out i had a bad problem i could talk to you about it you know i had to clean up my act and i got into acting and the act and i was talking to uh my podcast dr drew pinsky yeah and i said do you think that me going into the arts got me away from being addictive to coke and he said you weren't an addict if you were an addict you would have to go to rehab he said but the arts gave you something else yeah i agree with that it gave me like god it gave me something else it gave me a spiritual thing so i was able to change my life but it was hard vinnie what made you decide to go into acting from the clubs to acting how did you spur them all i was finished i kept saying to myself i kept coming home at night trying to go to sleep five o'clock in the morning all buzzed out of my mind you know from that life saying what are you going to do when you're 50 years old you're going to be dead i had to walk away and i walked away and i lost a lot of money and i drove a truck and then i started to think about getting into acting and i ran i ran a club for about five months it wasn't working out but maddie and kevin dillon came in all the time and supported me and the dylan brothers talked me into getting into acting it was weird we were watching uh public greenwich village yeah on television and maddie said you can do what those guys are doing and he was pointing at frank vincent and i wind up working with frank god bless him for 11 movies and then the sopranos and it was like wow and then kevin sent me downtown and and when i see i was in kevin dillon in or saudi arabia on a tour comic-con and kevin said i said kevin you don't know what you and your brother did you changed my life he says no vinnie uh it was all meant to be and that's how a lot of people feel it's all meant to be but you don't see it in front of you no but i agree with that it was meant to be it was just timing timing is everything in life and it was your time you know i never realized vinnie i was looking at you have done so much work in so many different areas i don't think people realize that you've done everything between movies and television and dancing with the stars i saw you you want to get involved but broadway was crazy because you know when they do chicago and new york they always like to fill in every three months with like a celebrity to play the league roles you know um everybody did it uh-huh they decided to have aida come in to play big mama i eat it to toro and i went in and played amos the guy who's married to roxy and i auditioned and i got it i got my union card and then bullets over broadway came along and i and me and tony darrow you know tony yeah me and tony were neck to neck and tony you know tony and i go back from goodfellas he came out of the office with marty and he said you might have to go home and he just gave me the part and did he gave him sonny bamboo right in the office because i went in and i talked to marty and he gave me something smaller but that's tony so now we're having final callbacks and tony's in there and i hear him singing because he had to sing and act and he comes out he looks me in the face he said vinny don't even bother going in he was confident huh thanks tony so i go in and this was thursday afternoon saturday morning 7 30 tony calls me now why is tony call me saturday morning 7 30. he said vinnie i just talked to woody allen he said he wanted to go with the fat guy i knew i had the pot already i said oh tony thanks for telling me is that why i got the part he says yeah you look more like joe vidarelli okay tony okay that was a nice way of telling you people think that we're if we're real the humor that we have in the film uh you know with each other uh on stage is real i teach acting over at hp studios and now i'm doing zoom in and i i have a lot of wonderful wonderful studio students for the past couple years and i say acting is learning how to take your own identity to your own stamp and put it into the role that nobody else can do i said when you look at the great ones you know it was them they created the role jimmy stewart gary cooper bogart cagney g robinson the great ones spencer tracy could do anything yeah so don't ever be ashamed to take on a role that you think is too easy or you shouldn't be doing it's another job you know if somebody hands you a job and says you only got two lines in the movie well let me see you do a good job with those two lines right you know because that's your work and then you just wind up starting off like i did from doing extra work from fighting on the sets with the ads because i was trying to say a line they were saying you're an extra shut up [Laughter] working with gotti working on the sopranos just working uh with this casablanca film and i got a movie out now called birthday cake which is good paul savino's in it and lorraine bronco is it out already yeah it's out right now on demand birthday cake okay about killing me joe dinofrio lorraine bronco it's good it's about a a crew in brooklyn i'm happy you know and that's why i wasn't pushing you off i didn't want to talk to you but i was doing this movie my head's in that movie for that whole week man you know what i'm saying no i get it vinny let me ask you this okay because i have a a real respect for actors and i'll tell you why for a lot of reasons obviously but for this reason especially i've been a speaker now for 25 years i can get up in front of 20 000 people doesn't bother me at all i have no issue with that but i can't even read my own notes on stage they distract me so some guy he wants me to do a role in a movie and it was like playing myself it wasn't difficult but when i saw the pages of dialogue i said there's no way i'm going to remember this and i'm not a dumb guy but i just i don't know how you guys remember your lines can i tell you something yeah uh get your email my email from your guys and you ever have something like that we'll zoom each other i'll help you it's it's called memorization you can't learn everything at once you gotta learn the first two lines and the next two lines and you go back from the top that's what i teach my kids really i'm gonna tell you something i'm not gonna say his name but you know the answer years ago we're working on a project and we were shooting in larchmont and a dear friend of mine had a major role and he had like a two-page monologue to do he was on the set he kept blowing it so they said thank you uh we're gonna wrap for today and they sent them home and the next day roy schneider showed up and he was off book and he he shot they shot the scene with him wow you got to know your lines buddy so once you know your lines then you're home like i have a workshop uh that i teach and i say unlike last night we were on from 5 30 to 9 30 rehearsing for next week and i said you guys gotta know your lines i know you're doing zoom i know you can look down and read look up i said but if you were on stage you couldn't do that right you would shoot a movie you couldn't do that you got to learn your lines i said once you learn your lines then you're halfway home so if that's your only problem michael that's not a problem yeah that's it for me she got up trying to memorize something like little like a like a menu you don't have a problem memorizing lines you think you do what if i said we're going to shoot a movie tomorrow me and you and it's all improvisation no improv i could do no problem yeah so it's just like when somebody hands you a script right yes if i got a script and i'm looking at him saying how am i going to remember all of this you know it looks difficult to me yeah and i it's not easy you know i you know it's not easy and i think the older we get the harder it is to retain all that stuff yeah i'm speaking for myself 20 years ago when we shot the sopranos and i had all those monologues and all those scenes with everybody i could learn that stuff in like a day and two days really now it takes me about four or five days to really really learn it but i also think that i'm not as disciplined see you know when you're starting off you're hungry yeah in anything right sure absolutely you know now people call me up and say would you like to audition for something i said i don't want to do it tony rico is the same way don't bother me you don't want to audition for nut no more he doesn't even want to work no more in fact no really you know tony yeah i saw him a couple about two years ago i did a little skit with him uh about donald trump and he was a waiter in a restaurant even for those few minutes we laughed and laughed and laughed he's funny i got to tell you yeah i love tony he is funny i knew tony do you remember the grand finale yes i do well i met tony there that's the first time i've ever met him really he was sitting at the front table uh king creole was playing oh that goes way back yeah it's opening night yeah because my friend frankie lagentano was partners down there uh-huh tony he told me to clean up my act because we were doing something crazy what you do back then and that's the first time i met him so and he had black hair flipped back white shoes no socks and then years later i meet tony through john gallagher we were working together on some films and i said uh then we did a play together i said you don't remember me you started my beer and me and tony became best friends i loved tony david chase was smart when he teamed us up he didn't know he was going to do that the pilot we weren't teamed up the second episode me and tony going around looking for the car remember that yeah i do i got to tell you funny david chase story i got out of i don't know him but i had just gotten out of prison i was on parole and a friend of mine told me come over to universal studio he had a cottage day he was doing some movies he said read some scripts for me because i don't want you to get violated i had got violated once he said you got a year to go on parole just sit in the office read scripts i'll pay you that's it so i'm right next to spielberg's uh cottage there on universal and my agent at the time jack gillardy i don't know if you remember remember jack from icm i don't know if you know him you know he used to be married to annette funicello he was a big-time agent then he calls me up and he says this guy is doing a uh a mob series and uh he wants you to be a consultant and i said what's it about his name was david chase and they were creating the sopranos for fox at that time so i'm thinking ah maybe it's something i should get involved in then i thought about it and the guy said no i don't do this you know it's mob related maybe you shouldn't be involved and so i passed on it shows you how smart i was right never got involved but that was it i never spoke to him or anything else but he did contact me that was in 19 uh gosh i think it was 91 somewhere around 93 i don't remember exactly well maybe a little later but somewhere around there yeah a lot of guys i know said that they were technical consultants for david yeah i mean yeah you had to be i know he's from come on he used to ask rico a lot of questions actually yeah tony was almost considered his like advisor well i got to tell you sopranos i mean that was the series that really started all of these great series that was the groundbreaker which is unbelievable really let me ask you this i just watched the uh as a matter of fact i'm going to review it fun house the episode where you got killed off you did a great job in that by the way how did you feel about that about knowing that it was going to be the end to me yeah well they didn't even know they were going to third season so it could have been the entrance really yeah and the david chase uh talked about it on the sharipa imperioli podcast and he said because they asked sheriff sherpa backs me up a lot he said why did you get rid of vinnie he said we didn't know we were going to have a third season we were going season to season the first two seasons so in between the first and second season which we didn't think we were gonna have i called up vinnie and i and i told him we're gonna write his character strong but he's gonna get whacked you know even though we all had seven year contracts nobody you don't think any show is going to go seven years yeah so i said fine and let's go back to tony sarico we're in italy and timmy van patten had arranged for me to go over to shoot this scene that never made uh the episode when they were in italy because i couldn't really be be there since my character was in new york having a problem with my wife but timmy wanted me over there and and david was doing his cameo where he's sitting at the table with the with his cappuccino and siri because this is commendary uh something like that and david just stares at him and during the break tony says to david you really going to get rid of any you really get you know he's family you can't get rid of any and david said i'm not getting rid of any i'm getting rid of big stop asking me but that's tony yeah you up man he'll back you up he went to bed well i got to tell you that that whole episode hit home for me you know just the way the informant the whole thing the way tony found the bugs in the cigar box remember and that whole scene on the boat was very intense really it hit home and you wonder because god bless jimmy because he called me up the morning they announced the emmys of that season and jimmy says to me you got robbed and i said why rob what i took him at my house he says no i just watched the enemies didn't get nominated you didn't watch it i said no i wasn't watching that he got robbed that was if i had any chance ever to get any kind of uh uh an award on my own that was the year uh for maybe best supporting actor in a tv series but the year before and i got it i'm going to show it to you and you see there's my sega ward yeah i see it we got this michael what is that this is 2000 this is screen actors guild best ensemble all right they gave it to us and you bring it home and we went on stage and you wonder if you're ever going to get something like this again in your life hey you deserved it no doubt so that's what it is and you look back and you say i was part of something that was unbelievable it was great i mean we talked about god he was talking about that but sopranos became almost a lifestyle for people i mean sunday night eating macaroni fighting with their wives turn off i got it i can't don't talk to me i gotta watch the show my sister used to call me up in the middle of stoke what's gonna happen next i said sally i'm putting the phone off i i got to watch my show i didn't let nobody come over my house when i used to launch it yeah i wanted to watch it i wanted to see what happened from taking the character from the page into the film you know i wanted to see and what because you know they do a couple of takes you don't know which one they're going to use right but when i'm in the uh the booth and sharika comes over and hits me and i said uh was it this information i stuck you know i didn't take and chase said to me do it again but don't beg he said those guys don't beg and i didn't bank yeah yeah i like when you said don't shoot me in the face you remember that yeah yeah of course i do but some of that was made up the line when i said i got to sit down yeah i just was feeling dizzy yeah i don't know you know when you get into this world i mean i mean i love acton i really do i really do you know we were talking before we came on camera i met you uh down on sixth avenue vinnie villa used to do a thing i think it was monday nights and thursday that's right yes yeah and i was with this girl i was dating lisa regina and we it was my birthday and i met you and i was with frank vincent wow your father i think i think sonny was there could have been yeah what year what year was that father when i was working with danny one thing of ours right i met your father and mickey blue eyes he was on the set every day i think your sister got in the movie yeah he showed me a couple of pictures with you and my dad but uh what was her name um uh liz hurley yeah she loved your father after we finished working we used to go sit in this room and sonny and liz would sit next to each other and we'd eat like it was like you know a family dinner it was funny she loved him hey you know you know how many you know how often he told me about that he said liz hurley's in love with me oh yeah he told me that all the time i usually said that take it easy you're a married man that's that's but it was true yeah we had a good time i was out there with cha cha frankie pellegrino god bless the soul jimmy khan it was it was good it was a good shoot yeah jimmy khan was great yeah you know jimmy right yeah he's a great actor terrific when i was doing that show vegas with jimmy uh-huh a pa knocks on my door and she said your ride is here i said my ride yeah to the set and jimmy was down here in a golf course waiting to drive me to the set come on i said oh jimmy how did you know i was on the job he said i asked for you you guys have a lot of fun in these films huh a lot of fun yeah let me ask you this if you uh would you consider doing another series oh yeah i'll do it with you let's do it what do you want to do well i got one pending that's why i'm asking you they're doing i don't want to get in trouble now because that's how you get in trouble no no trouble you agree come on how are you going to get in trouble by telling somebody i could do something then i couldn't do it no no no well listen uh if you're going to make a commitment right now then i'm going to hold you to it yeah well that's that's why i got in trouble i'm going to tell you something right now michael uh uh right on your show if you create a project for me and as long as you go along with screen acting guild rules because i'm on the board i'm working for you okay let me tell you this now that's almost a commitment kennedy marshall you know who they are right frank marshall yeah do you know what a big production company ron shelton is the writer and uh we've been working on it for 14 months they just delivered the final draft it's a tv series of the pilot we just got it and they're starting to cast now so frank is bringing it to i'm not sure what network he's bringing it to but it's all starting now i've been working on this for 14 years i want to do that i got to be crazy why i gotta be crazy if i say no that's right you gotta be in it i'm gonna tell you there's a couple of jobs that were coming along during the pandemic and after the pandemic i said i can't do it because i didn't want to travel i was freaking out i don't want to get on a plane but that's all over now yeah we worked through the entire pandemic that's when we developed it all it's good uh vinnie i got to tell you you know they've been approaching me for about 20 years people coming to me to make a movie on my life it just never felt right but when i sat down with frank marshall and and ron shelton we were they were talking about a movie and then he said you know what there's too much content here michael this has got to be a television series it's about me my dad you know all this but they did a great job on the pilot i'm really happy with everything they got three are you better off for the television show now because because of what happened with the pandemic people at home war watching television they don't want to go to the movies no more exactly i mean the movies are doing bad they're going to be they're closing down theaters amc all these places getting closed down people are going to stay home i teach on zoom podcasts around yeah i wanted to sit with you why don't why don't we work this out i'm gonna write on that now you got me on tape that i'll i'll come out and we'll go to dinner and we'll talk about this project 100 as soon as you're ready we're ready i'm serious i can come out in august august is good i'll be here you just let me know when you want to talk to me directly it's better that way right yeah that's good yeah all right so get everybody uh to give you my information all right you got it because it'd be good who else are you gonna try to get in i don't know who they they're looking for all you know good names well you gotta ask them if they want me first i want you what do you mean all right michael i got a job they'll want you for sure no no doubt about here's the only thing i told him uh you know and i told ron i said look if i'm going to do a movie about or see series about myself i'm a bug for authenticity the actors got to be authentic and and that's you you know and there's plenty of roles in there you're perfect for it i'm committing myself on on camera too how's that well like now that i got great hair you know i i you know i think i got to play a ball that's okay you could pull it off we you were never the boss before right yeah i did a bit with willie dimeo uh but he didn't use my scene i was a boss and he says oh i got something for you as a boss i know i never really played a boss yet but i but there may be some something else a little more colorful okay all right i don't know you you're gonna just gonna be on based on real people right oh absolutely yes all right so yeah you figure it out i'll figure it out i got something in mind already but i'm not gonna expose it yet no good all right i think we'll let too many people know right now that i'm committed with you but that's okay we i don't care let's go let's do it all right you got it the only thing is that you know what happens is that we talk about your father i worked with danny provenzano who's a sweetheart on a project and it was thing of oz and it was good and then danny and i had a problem because i got sick and today michael i just got a hormone shot now you know what those hormone shots are for they keep telling you they they fight the cancer yes so while i was working on my broadway play in rehearsal i wind up having cancer prostrate and i had to go take it out and i went through radiology so danny asked me to do a project with him and i said yes but the day of i couldn't get out of the bathroom because of the radiation yeah uh and i was slowed in and and me and danny had a big problem but we settled we made up and i could talk to you about it because i know a lot of his friends watch the show and danny's like he's my dear friend now we made up man and that's what people do you went on but you got to be careful because danny was right he said vinnie i raised the money with your name and you didn't show up for work i said i was sick but that's the same thing michael if you tell somebody you're going to do something you better be there and that's what i even tell my students if you and i you and this kid is supposed to rehearse tonight because you'll have a show tomorrow night and you don't show for rehearsal you know you're hurting you're hurting that person so when i couldn't go to work that day yeah i was sick but i hurt a lot of people and that's why when time goes by after everything calms down and you look at each other you know when i see danny and we talk you realize that you're men if you make up no you're right let me tell you something danny's a nice guy but look i i gotta tell you this when it comes to health in a situation like that especially with cancer unfortunately i'm very familiar with that that's a whole different issue i mean when you're sick like that what are you gonna do obviously not intentional when you don't show up but that's that that's a rough thing to deal with cancer i've had i've seen too much of it so i get it yeah i was supposed to do this uh show uh after the pandemic well not after the pandemic it was in october up in rhode island i go get a psa test my doc says vinnie your psa is 12. i said how could that happen he says well you know the pandemic stressful i want to send you for an mri and all that stuff i said what are you talking about you said vinnie i want to make sure it didn't get into your bones so i called up about rhode island i said i can't make it so i said federico and i went for my test i was scared man i was scared so then he brought it down so today i go in and i didn't want to go in you know a doctor stephen charles sweetheart he said i'm giving you a hormone shot i said you didn't even check my blood he says no i'm just going to give you a hormone shot go get out of here uh it's only going to help you now do i want a hormone shot no because it makes you cranky uh it hurts your sex drive you know all of but guess what it's fighting the cancer you know so and then tomorrow i gotta go in for uh health from my heart because but it could be the heat you get old you get scared but if you can't go to work for somebody because you're sick that's people gotta understand that but if you're making a production company lose a lot of money you know no i get vinnie let me ask you do you want this because if you don't want this on camera we won't put it on there it's up to you anything that you just said about the cancer no about you about the cancer are you okay oh no the cancer is good to talk about all right okay you know i got a friend of mine her husband uh he's a musician he played with uh chicory and everybody and this this woman i'm not saying her name she's on the sopranos she's doing a pendant she said can you talk to my husband because she knows i'm a cancer survivor because i'm a survivor it didn't come back right i had it in 2014 it didn't oh terrific did i get so i consider myself a survivor so i get on the phone i talk to roger and i tell you his name but i'd say he's listening i said what's going on and he's telling me and i said you're going to beat it well i got to go through radio i said don't worry about it i see you're going to beat it and then i called him uh last week i said i'm going for a hormone shot he said they got me on hormone shots i said that's okay now i know a guy he was a wise guy he was good friends with my father he lived till he was 92 years old and my doctor today said to me i kept so-and-so alive too is 92. just take the shot where do you want it and your answer in your belt well listen i gotta tell you know you know my dad passed away right did you know that yeah i know i saw i i saw that didn't they let sonny out and let him come home yeah he was he got out at uh he was 100 when he got out in 2017 he was home for three years he passed away last february during a pandemic but i want to tell my dad had prostate cancer for years but it never went anywhere it just it stayed in one spot it never it never metastasized or anything else never had the prostate taken out no you didn't have it taken out he lived with well you know why because your father was a bull yeah i mean he was cruel he was a tough guy nah not that i'm a big but your father was a tough guy he was a tough guy but you know what i believe in he was pretty healthy even at all of a sudden he goes this was february of last year all of a sudden he goes into the hospital within five days he passed i believe he got the covert and we didn't know what it was back then because it just started what month was that february of 2020 that's when they just started to talk about it started i was teaching march uh 11th they closed down the school and they closed down the city march 13th exactly so a month before that we still didn't really know what was going on because he was healthy all of a sudden within five days gone wow and i started to think about it afterwards you know everybody's saying well mike he's 103 what do you expect and then i started thinking well wait a second but he was healthy he beat pneumonia twice he got pneumonia twice in in the in jail he beat it twice so he was he was strong in that regard then all of a sudden so that's what i believe we don't know you know for sure but anyway he lived with prostate cancer for years and uh never went anywhere yeah while woody allen said to me one night it was at the uh opening night we were doing press and woody was walking it was in the museum of natural history it was weird and i pulled him over stand next to one of these pyramids or some and i said woody i got to talk to you so why he said you did a great job he did a great job i said woody you know i've been fighting cancer uh thank god for susan strowman the director she's talked me into not quit he says hi what kind of cancer i said prostrate he said well if you're gonna get cancer that's the best kind of gut okay woody make a joke out of everything you know you want to know son but yeah he was right you could live with that i'm not your father lived i'm i'm okay i fee i don't fear the cancer as much as i feed a heart with just heating all this stuff you know that's what i feared but i got to stay healthy people say how do you stay healthy well i don't eat macaroni six nights a week no more you know i don't need heroes i'm eating one meal a day what about pizza what about pizza well fortune unfortunately the pizza shop out here on city island went out of business so i got to go off the island to get a slice of pizza so i go once a week i go where do you go here's what i'm going to tell you don't know this but when you come out here in august i got a pizza franchise it's called slices we got six stores now we're going to open up all around the country and i guarantee it's one of the best slices of pizza you ever ate how's that pizza franchise yeah you know my friend richie yeah you know richie mulberry street yeah of course that's how i got to you through my friend jay who knows richie good and that's how we got this connection richie's got a place opening up in vegas in september what's it called mulberry street pizza in a new casino i sent him a soprano picture to hang up i grew up with richie back in the disco days and then he was with kathy moriarty and uh at mulberry street pizza and then he wound up with raquel welch i know he's what now he's an old-time friend a lot of guys don't like him though but i love him what are you gonna do well i gotta tell you i bet you my pizza's better than his i'm throwing down the challenge how's that yeah i would love to come out and talk business i'm serious no so am i no i said to you on on your show because i have my own podcast and sometimes after i do the podcast i say you know what i shouldn't have said that but i don't think i said anything tonight with you that i actually need edited you know um if anything we can encourage people uh to get their psa checked and you know about the cancer stuff the danny and vinnie's story uh i got a feeling me and danny gonna probably make a movie out of that i'll tell you this along with the cancer let me tell you 1996 right i'm not a sun worshiper i like the warm weather but i don't sit out in the sun i just never did that i go on boats and all of that but i'm not a sun worshiper my wife notices this little spot on my leg right she says go to the doctor i said i don't worship son she was worried that it might have been a cancerous spot i said no i'm not going go i'm not going finally she bothered me so much i go right it was a melanoma believe it or not and they had to cut it out of me in 1996 the point being when you think you got you got to go for your checkups there's no doubt about it i go for my annual now i had to go every six months for five years after i had this cut out but uh people that don't go for their checkups and don't they're silly you gotta go there's no doubt my father johnny lived to he was 97. all right kept him going michael gallon of wine my mom's a cookie you know and uh he was a one of a kind one of a kind and he's lying in bed 97 years old we knew we were going to lose him and the phone rings and this guy frank calls and i pick up the phone what's up your father there i said yeah he talks to him yeah you could come over i said what's that about he says coming over i said for what he needs some money i said you're not a voter nobody no money he said you're not going to be here next week he said you go collect i said no i'm not going to go collect i got a new city the old timers were my dad for some reason vinnie he believed in vitamins when we were kids he used to chase us around the house with cod liver oil he made us like the little rascals he made us take cod liver oil he would take 25 to 30 pills a day we thought he was crazy my mother used to harass him all the time meanwhile he lived to 103. so you must have known what he was talking about i take a lot of that's all i'm living on now vitamins i'm trying to get away from prescription meds i went to my diabetic doctor and she said i'm taking you off of metformin i said thank you she said what are you been doing yourself i said i'm watching how i live now the pandemic shook me up i think this pandemic really shook up so many people's families are closer again and people are reaching out and and you it was fun to think a little and we're watching our health you know uh uh you know i would love to live as long as my father and your father did but i don't see it in the stars i'd say maybe about another 10 years or something so i'm going to enjoy myself well let's see who knows you know hopefully it's more than that why don't you come on our show now you owe me hey you're pulling a reverse on me huh the show michael vinnie any time any time christian hook it up and you come on and we interview you anytime i'm ready i would love it the guys in new york would love it that's a deal you you call me i'll be there i just made a commitment to you so we both committed to one i made a commitment to you as well that i'm going to be working with you that's right it's not a commitment it's like okay we're gonna we're gonna start doing things together excellent and i think that's nice it's a nice way to start off the fourth of july weekend vinnie i would look very forward to it i i mean it so you're going to come out here i'm not just saying this no i believe you i believe you you're old school like me we say something we're going to do it that's it i'm going to depend on seeing you sometime in august whenever you're scheduled when i come out there we got to have that face off with palmer i'm ready let's do it you got to do that absolutely we should what do you want to do in front of your joint or in front of you in front of my drawing i'm new i need i need to uh promote she's got to come over like me and frank vincent we had a movie we did a movie called tell two pizzas and they judged the pizza who had the better pizza so who's the judge i can't be the judge no you'll be in trouble i'll bring the judge that's all right well i think you would richie uh there should be a couple of judges we'll have a couple i guarantee i'm gonna i'm not even worried that would be great he loved that listen i tasted his pizza it's good but mine is better i can tell you right now so i'm not worried i'm going to win plus i'll tell you i gotta taste it sliced versus mulberry street pizza is it cheaper no it's probably no i cost more richie charges a lot of money for his pizza how much is a pie do you know i don't know but he made he cleaned up during the pandemic that's for sure i i guarantee i'm more expensive but i got a it's a better piece of pizza you got to pay for what you got you know that that's right like anything wait until we negotiate my fee for working with you that's that's between you and frank but i'll be there don't worry but i'll help you out i'll back you up vinny cause i want you in there all right i just want you to send me uh when this show goes on at clips i can sit back and watch the interview and i'm gonna hold you to uh coming on to forget about it podcast with me and johnny over the summer and uh we could talk about uh some things and we could have a lot of fun but let me know um uh uh who's gonna handle it jay that guy jay about i'm asking my guy kurt how we deal with dealing through jay yeah we can all just connect yeah we'll all connect no no worries we'll get to you okay yeah all right i'm running around with my band uh for my birthday uh up until july 18th after the 18th on three so right after the 18th give me a holler we'll plan to go on your show and then you'll plan to come out here yes whenever you're ready sometime in august august will probably be the perfect time we'll be ready at that point i want to come out in august yeah i'll tell bob mcgowan i'm coming out in fact you know what we could do with this we could let bob know uh because he's la he's on sunset boulevard we can let bob handle everything he's a good guy you know yeah that's how i got hawaii five up because rico couldn't do it you know why same thing you talking about he was having a problem learning the lines really huh he said uh vinnie you take this i can't do it so they threw it actually it was funny i was lying on the beach doing a scene with scott scott comes up to me and he says with tony he disappeared tony used to live with jimmy in the house in l.a did he really yeah he says where's my uncle tony we wrote this role for him this is he couldn't come out obviously he's okay crazy man okay i'll see you on my show and i really want to come out i you know when christian said michael wants to fly out i said that's wonderful but why now i now i have a reason to come out we're going to have a pizza contest and we're going to talk about this project let me ask you do you know uh ed o'neal i know he used to work with louie larusso back in the day yeah you know married with children all of that you know ed when he did knockout with danielle that was a long time ago he's a wonderful guy you would love him you know maybe we'll all get together we'll have some fun okay but listen uh i'm looking for that face-off with the pizza now that's a challenge i'm up for it you want me to tell richie are you gonna die no i want you to tell them i was doing i was uh doing zumba michael and he went to facebook off yeah i got two stores in l.a slices versus uh his pizza place hands down i'm ready i think it's a great idea but you know it's not up to me huh yeah all right but he will why wouldn't he do it come on we'll have some fun we have some fun that's all we'll fix it all right we'll fix the contest all right listen when's your birthday july 14th happy birthday i just had mine in may may 27th okay and how old are you now 70 you're not 70 yeah i'm 70 years old so we did grow so we did go that's funny we talked about a lot of things tonight that i'm not supposed to talk about but i talked about it so who cares you know what when the movie comes out uh i don't know what they're going to call it about the casual blanket records you heard it first hey i'm surprised they didn't speak to uh mizrahi is out here then maybe they did talk to him at all because i was trying to i know he was trying to get involved in a movie about that at one point in time he's out here now richard dreyfuss was supposed to play morris levy oh really but then richard had to drop out for reasons helped and what happened is uh it opened the door for me because i'm not supposed to talk about but i am uh my part got bigger excellent i'm glad you're here that's what happened to me on birthday cake because val couldn't talk because he had a procedure right right he said or somebody came up with the idea let me whisper in vinnie's ear and then he talks i'm gonna watch that tonight and then i'm gonna review it i do this mob movie monday deal so i'm going to review it okay i'm going to review it you know i think you like it it's really scarcity okay it's early it reminds me that this kid goes on like an odyssey lorraine his mother makes him a cake every year and bring it to the uncle's house he's trying to take this cake through the neighborhood and then he winds up going through all these things all these guest stars and then he shows up at the house with the cake and i uh spoiler alert watch it you'll love it i'm going to watch it tonight so that'll be my next review not this monday night with me michael i'm glad we talked today all right vinnie yeah you too be good be healthy and i'll see you soon so right after the 18th give me a holler and then we'll plan it yeah i want to come out i want to come out uh that may happen before the podcast all right you got it you know what's going on uh i have a production meeting tomorrow she's saying my producer i don't want you guys to have guests anymore i said what are you talking about how could you have a show and not talk to a guest what do you talk what do you talk to each other i said that's boring you gotta have a guess like last week we didn't have a guest 20 minutes before the show we never guessed so i called them david paval i said david i'm stuck and david said why do you want penny i said you come on my show he was great david football you know yeah yeah he was a sweetheart and i said and we talked about mean streets for about 40. oh cool great movie you know and we talked about that yeah all right michael all right vinnie i'll wait to hear from you i want to have a great afternoon in la and i will see you soon and it and it's really good that we talked and i'll see you soon all right buddy you guys you got it buddy all right take care bye-bye bye okay so there it is vincent pasteur i thought it was a great conversation he's a great guy you know on screen off screen he's just one of the a-list guys for me really enjoyed it and if you saw now there was a challenge in there slices versus mulberry pizza let's see if he takes it up i'm throwing down the gauntlet let's see which is better i'm not worried i know who's going to come out on top and vinnie said he's going to come out sometime in august we're going to sit down again and i'm sure we'll do it again have another conversation maybe a few other people that we'll bring on board so hope you enjoyed it and you know how i always leave you same way be safe be healthy god bless and yes i will see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Michael Franzese

Views: 388,154

Keywords: michael, franzese, michael franzese, mafia, mob, mobster, mob boss, mafia boss, caporegime, colombo, colombo family, colombo mafia, gambino, gambino family, bonanno, bonanno family, lucchese, lucchese family, genovese, genovese family, john gotti, gotti, american mafia, italian mafia, federal prison, prison gangs, vincent pastore, the sopranos, sit down michael franzese, vinny pastore, mafia sit down, michael franzese interview, sit down, mob actors, mafia actors, sopranos

Id: osOLIUHGfNM

Length: 57min 39sec (3459 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 08 2021