Joe Pesci (1943)

 early life

Pesci was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Mary, who worked part-time as a barber, and Angelo Pesci, a forklift driver for General Motors and bartender. Pesci was raised in Belleville, New Jersey and attended Belleville High School. By the time Pesci was five years old, he was appearing in plays in New York. A few years later, at age ten, he was a regular on a television variety show called Startime Kids, which also featured Connie Francis. He started out working as a barber in the 1960s, following in his mother's footsteps.

 acting career

The first film he starred in was the 1975 low budget crime film The Death Collector with Frank Vincent. After the film Pesci returned to run his restaurant in The Bronx, Pesci then got a phone call from Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro who were impressed with his performance in the film and asked him to co-star in a 1980 film with Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. Pesci won the BAFTA Award for Most Outstanding Newcomer to Leading Film Roles in 1981 and was nominated an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Subsequently, he performed with De Niro in the films Once Upon a Time in America, and in Scorsese's Goodfellas , and Casino. He also had small role in 1993's A Bronx Tale and 2007's The Good Shepherd, which were both directed by and starred De Niro.

The pairing became famous enough to inspire a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live called "The Joe Pesci Show". Pesci hosted SNL on October 10, 1992. During the monologue, he restored a picture of Pope John Paul II, which had been torn by Sinéad O'Connor on the previous broadcast; he demonstrated this by tearing up a photo of O'Connor, which was met with huge applause.

In 1988, Pesci co-starred with pop singer Michael Jackson in the musical-fantasy film Moonwalker as the film's antagonist, Frankie "Mr. Big" LiDeo (an anagram for one of the film's producers and longtime Jackson manager Frank DiLeo). In the film, Pesci was featured in the fifth and final segment, a full-length movie calledSmooth Criminal which was based on Michael Jackson's song of the same name.

He later co-starred in the blockbuster Home Alone , playing Harry Lyme; one of two bumbling burglars , who attempt to rob the house of the character played by Macaulay Culkin. Two years later, he reprised his role in the sequel.

Pesci also played David Ferrie in 1991's JFK and the title character in the 1992 comedy My Cousin Vinny. He appeared as Leo Getz in the Lethal Weapon sequels, released in 1989, 1992 and 1998 respectively.

He had starring roles in several other films including Easy Money , Once Upon a Time in America , Man on Fire , The Super , Jimmy Hollywood , With Honors and Gone Fishin' .

 personal life

Pesci was married to Claudia Martha Haro from 1988 to 1992. He has a daughter, Tiffany, from this marriage. In July 2007, Pesci, then 64, became engaged to actress/model Angie Everhart, who was 37 at the time. However, according to Everhart, they were never actually engaged. They announced their breakup in April 2008.