The Gangs of New York, Las Vegas and New Jersey

Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, and David Proval
visit a pool hall in 1973's "Mean Streets."

There is something wonderful about the array of faces on display in Martin Scorsese's mob movies, from "Mean Streets" and "Goodfellas" to "Casino," "The Departed," and "The Irishman," as well as all those magnificent mugs in "The Sopranos."

We're reminded of the canvas of kissers that made up the cadre of henchmen for Johnny Friendly in 1954's "On the Waterfront." You remember Johnny Friendly, right? Burly guy (played by Lee J. Cobb), crooked union boss with mob cred who has it in for squealer longshoreman Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), even has Malloy's brother Charley (Rod Steiger) murdered. One of Johnny Friendly's thugs is a recognizable Fred Gwynne, TV's future Herman Munster, appropriately called "Slim" (pictured below).

But we're talking about the other hoods Friendly surrounds himself with: goons with faces that are lived in, pusses that look like they've been punched around some. And they were, since a lot of these guys were real-life boxers. These guys were the cinematic ancestors of the mugs found in "Goodfellas" and "The Sopranos."

Now, we're not saying any of these palookas were actually connected, but boxing in those days was...well, let's put it this way, in "On the Waterfront," Johnny Friendly had Terry ("I coulda been a contenduh") Malloy take a dive in a title fight to win a bet.

Tony Galento (left) enjoys an off-camera laugh with costar and
fellow boxer Tami Mauriello on the set of "On the Waterfront."

Tony Galento, whose character in "On the Waterfront" was appropriately named "Truck," was a heavyweight boxer branded "Two Ton," noted for such publicity stunts as boxing a 550-pound bear,
boxing a kangaroo, and wrestling an octopus. Feared as a no-holds-barred brawler with a devastating left hook, he rarely allowed rules or sportsmanship to interfere with his singular aim to knock the other guy out. He refrained from showering as a strategy of distraction; one-time heavyweight champ Max Baer Sr. once complained that he "smelled of rotten tuna and a tub of old liquor being sweated out."

Prior to a 1939 bout for the heavyweight championship of the world against reigning belt-holder Joe Louis, Galento predicted he would "moida da bum." Surprisingly, Galento floored the champ in the second round in Yankee Stadium (pictured above), but Louis, realizing the challenger was hitting too hard, succeeded in knocking him out "as quickly as I could."

Tillio (Tami Mauriello) and Slim (Fred Gwynne) move in to
work over Terry Malloy in "On the Waterfront."

Stefano "Tami" Mauriello, cast as Tillio in "On the Waterfront," boxed as "The Bronx Barkeep" and challenged opponents, including Joe Louis, for the world's Light-Heavyweight and Heavyweight titles.

Outside the ring, Tami Mauriello clowns around with Frank Sinatra.

Abe Simon (pictured below), a fighter ignominiously nicknamed "The Ape," played Barney in "On the Waterfront." Along with boxing old-timer Jack Dempsey and newcomer Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay), Simon appeared in the 1962 melodrama "Requiem for a Heavyweight," written by Rod Serling and starring Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney, and Julie Harris.

Known as the last Jewish boxer to contend for the World Heavyweight boxing title, Simon (pictured below), who won his first 14 bouts, 12 by knockout, fought Joe Louis twice.

Four decades after "On the Waterfront," director Martin Scorsese hired actual parolees as off-screen consultants, as well as former FBI agents who had busted them, for 1995's "Casino." Like "Goodfellas" before it, "Casino" featured fictionalized versions of real people. Robert De Niro's Sam "Ace" Rothstein was based on Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, Joe Pesci's Nicholas "Nicky" Santoro was based on Anthony "Tony the The Ant" Spilotro, Sharon Stone's Ginger McKenna was based on Geri McGee, and Frank Vincent's Frankie Marino was based on Frank Cullotta.

Ace and Nicky discuss business in "Casino."

In "Casino," Rothstein's attorney, Oscar Goodman, was portrayed by the real-life Oscar Goodman, who, as a defense attorney, represented the real-life Frank Rosenthal, as well as a number of the leading organized crime figures in New Orleans. One of Goodman's most notorious clients was the aforementioned Anthony Spilotro.

Anthony Spilotro (looking uncannily like Joe Pesci)
is accompanied by attorney Oscar Goodman.

Oscar Goodman was elected mayor of Las Vegas in 1999, serving until 2011. Like his fictional counterpart, Anthony Spilotro, along with his brother, was brutally beaten to death and buried in a farming field east of the Illinois-Indiana border. Incidentally, in the 1980s TV series "Crime Story," starring Dennis Farina, the character of Lt. Torello's arch-nemesis, Ray Luca (played by Anthony John Denison), was said to have been inspired by Anthony Spilotro.

Anthony John Denison (left) poses with "Crime Story" costar
Dennis Farina. These days, Tony Denison is on the side of the
law, as Lt. Andy Flynn, on the TNT series "Major Crimes."

Frank Cullotta, depicted as Frankie Marino (and portrayed by Frank Vincent), was a close friend and associate of Anthony Spilotro - until Spilotro put a contract out on him ("no honor among thieves," so they say).

Frank Cullotta, meet Frank Vincent, who plays Frankie Marino.

An enforcer for the Chicago Outfit, Frank Cullotta began his career in crime as a youth, progressing from petty theft to burglary, arson, extortion, armed robbery, and murder. Cullotta served time after he was found in possession of stolen property. He testified against Spilotro and joined the government's witness protection program.

Cullotta not only worked as a technical adviser on "Casino" but appeared onscreen as a hitman, notably dispatching comedian Alan King's character of Andy Stone, based on Allen Dorfman, an insurance consultant for the Teamsters with connections to the Chicago Outfit who was murdered prior to being sentenced for a bribery conviction.

Frank Cullotta is ready for his closeup, Mr. Scorsese...
as he coolly ices Alan King in "Casino."

Before "Casino," there was, of course, "Goodfellas." What Roger Ebert "the best mob movie ever" inspired David Chase, a television writer and producer whose credits include "The Rockford Files" and "Northern Exposure," to create the landmark HBO series "The Sopranos."

David Chase, the creator of "The Sopranos,"
exclaimed, "'Goodfellas' is the Koran for me."

Peter Biskind, contributing editor to Vanity Fair and author of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and Rock 'N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, called "The Sopranos" "perhaps the greatest pop-culture masterpiece of its day." The New Yorker magazine's Pulitzer Prize-winning editor, David Remnick, described "The Sopranos" as mirroring the "mindless commerce and consumption of modern America," deeming it "the richest achievement in the history of television."

Quite naturally, the HBO program, not unlike its cinematic godfather, "The Godfather," was frequently criticized for perpetuating negative stereotypes about Italian-Americans. A number of ethnic-sensitive associations voiced concerns that the series presented distorted and harmful images of Italian-Americans and their cultural values.

A member of New Jersey's Mafia affiliated DeCavalcante crime family assumed the show was "supposed to be about us." After the pilot episode aired, James Gandolfini, who portrayed fictional DiMeo crime family capo Tony Soprano grilling at a backyard cookout, was later informed by a real-life wise guy to never wear shorts again.

"A don doesn't wear shorts."

Gandolfini, who played Tony Soprano from 1999 to 2007, was no stranger to having actual mobsters  praise him for bis portrayal. Brett Martin, a writer for GQ magazine, noted, "In interviews, which the actor did his very best to avoid, the actor would often fall back on some version of 'I'm just a dumb, fat guy from New Jersey.'"

Not surprisingly, several members of the cast of "The Sopranos" were presumed to have genuine mob associations. Gandolfini himself was the son of a school cafeteria lunch lady and a bricklayer-mason-turned-school janitor. His parents were devout Roman Catholics who spoke Italian in their home. James was instilled with a strong respect for his Italian-American identity and visited Italy regularly.

He played basketball and acted in plays in high school, where he was named "Class Flirt" in the yearbook. He worked as a bouncer while earning a communications degree in college. Prior to being introduced to acting, he also worked as a bartender and club manager in Manhattan. In the early 1990s, he appeared in the Broadway productions of "A Streetcar Named Desire," featuring Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin, and "On the Waterfront," in the role of Charley Malloy, played in the movie by Rod Steiger.

After an uncredited bit part as a henchman in the Bruce Willis-Damon Wayans action flick "The Last Boy Scout," Gandolfini landed his breakthrough role as Virgil, the gleefully sadistic enforcer who has a knockdown drag-out brawl with Patricia Arquette in "True Romance" (pictured below) directed by Ridley Scott from a script by Quentin Tarantino.

Gandolfini said his performance in "True Romance" was inspired by an old friend of his who was actually a hitman. Claiming he was nothing like Tony Soprano in real life, he once described his personality as that of "a 260-pound Woody Allen." Gandolfini died of a heart attack while visiting his beloved Rome. He was 51.

Probably the most popular character on "The Sopranos" was the ill-fated Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero. Bronx-born and raised in New Rochelle, New York, Vincent Pastore was running a nightclub in New Rochelle when his friends, actor siblings Matt and Kevin Dillon, persuaded him to pursue a career in acting. One of his first assignments was to portray a criminal on "America's Most Wanted." He also drove a taxi at the time. After the episode aired, one of his fares called the cab company to inform them a criminal was working for them.

Typically cast as Italian-American wise guys on television and in films, Vincent Pastore (pictured above, with James Gandolfini) had roles as an extra in "Goodfellas" and "Carlito's Way." In "Goodfellas," he can be seen very quickly wheeling a coatrack through the kitchen of The Bamboo Lounge, while he appears as a "Copa Wiseguy" in "Carlito's Way."

One of the most colorful characters in "The Sopranos," "Paulie Walnuts" Gualtieri was a paranoid, superstitious psychopath. Before turning to acting, Tony Sirico was arrested 28 times. In 1967, he served 13 months for robbing a Brooklyn after-hours club. In February of 1970, he was indicted for extortion and menacing but plea-bargained to a charge of felony gun possession. Early in 1971, he was sentenced to a maximum of four years, serving 20 months. Like a scenario out of a mob movie, one of Sirico's brothers is a Catholic priest.

Tony Sirico mugs with Frank Vincent.

During his imprisonment, Sirico saw an acting troupe comprised of ex-convicts, which inspired him to give acting a try. Among his many credits, he has appeared in seven Woody Allen films, from 1994's "Bullets Over Broadway" to the upcoming "Wonder Wheel." However, it's portrayals of gangsters and hoods that appeal most to the actor. One of his early roles was as mobster Tony Stacks in "Goodfellas."

Tony Sirico and Ronald Maccone rough up a mook in "Goodfellas."

"I've done like 45 movies, played 40 gangsters and five crooked cops," Sirico once joked. "It makes for some great movies," he remarked about playing wise guys. "I mean, some of my favorite films growing up, have been, forgive me, gangster films." He claimed he learned how to walk and talk by watching James Cagney. "It's that, it's the power, it's the glamour. The mob just has all that mysticism around it that's magical."

One of the most recognizable mugs on "The Soprano" was that of the perpetually frowning consigliere Silvio Dante, played by the perpetually frowning Steven Van Zandt.

During his run on "The Sopranos," Steven Van Zandt observed,
"I am having the experience two times in my life of doing something
that makes New Jersey fashionable. What are the odds on that?"

Since 1975, with a brief hiatus, Van Zandt, a longtime collaborator with Bruce Springsteen, has been a member of the singer's E Street Band. Unable to distance himself from the mob following the departure of "The Sopranos," Van Zant, for three seasons, starting in 2012, starred in the Netflix series ""Lilyhammer," playing Frank Tagliano, a former underboss in a New York crime family who moves to Norway under the FBI's witness protection program.

The actor behind Bobby Baccalieri, a capo and Tony Soprano's doomed brother-in-law, Steve Schrripa, was working as the entertainment director at the Riviera Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip when he was cast in Martin Scorsese's "Casino" as a customer at the bar in the scene where Joe Pesci furiously stabs a patron with a pen.

In his final scene in "The Sopranos," Steve Schirripa admires
a model train car in a hobby shop. "Personally," the actor said,
"the better they killed you, the better it was...Mine was fantastic
...'Hey, we're going to give you a good f***ing send-off."

Schirripa recalled his first impression upon reading his introductory scenes in the script for "The Sopranos," saying, "I remember reading it, going, 'Wait a minute.' I mean, Tony's calling me a 'calzone with legs,' and, 'Consider the salad, you fat f***.' And I'm not much bigger than him. So at first I thought, 'They hired the wrong guy.' And then they had me come in...and fitted me for a fat suit. And for the first two seasons I was in a fat suit. And then I guess, in season four, David (Chase) thought I was fat enough on my own."

In 2002, Steve Schirripa published A Goomba's Guide to Life, a tongue-in-cheek how-to manual that became a surprising best seller. Schirripa followed up with The Goomba's Book of Love and The Goomba Diet: Large and Loving It. Since 2015, Schirripa has portrayed Detective Anthony Abetemarco on the CBS series "Blue Bloods."

Steve Schirripa: It's good to be the goomba.

Speaking of goombas, we part with a nod to a meatball who never appeared in "The Sopranos" but was nevertheless typecast as an Italian-American hoodlum. Joe Viterelli is best known for his deadpan portrayal of Jelly, the often-confused right-hand made man of mob boss Paul Vitti (Robert De Niro) in the hit 1999 comedy "Analyze This," costarring Billy Crystal and directed by Harold Ramis.

Growing up in a tough neighborhood on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Joe Viterelli was fond of playing classical guitar, something he didn't share with his friends. "They woulda thought I was a sissy," he said. "I used to save my hard-robbed money and sneak off to Carnegie Hall and Broadway theaters."

Although he became associated with such roles, Joe was never associated with the mob. In his 20s, he inherited four music schools that had been started by his family. "I actually taught classical guitar," he recalled. "But things went wrong. Then I opened a few bars. I drove a truck. I owned a cleaning service. I even had a job drilling holes in bowling balls to feed my five kids."

Leo Penn, a prolific TV director and father of actors Sean and Chris Penn, as well as musician Michael Penn, tried to convince Viterelli to go into acting. "For half my life," Joe remarked, "I've been keeping a low profile and now you want to put my mug on a 40-foot screen?" Viterelli eventually received a phone call from Sean Penn, who was in New York City to film "State of Grace," a 1990 neo-film noir about the Irish mob co-starring Ed Harris and Gary Oldman. Sean asked Joe, "Would you do me a favor?" Viterelli proved himself a natural actor and launched a new career. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, he appeared in more than 40 movies.

Remarking on Viterelli's performance in "Analyze This," critic Roger Ebert noted, "He lends a subtle dimension to the movie," giving De Niro "a context, and someone who understands him. The comedy here isn't all on the surface, and Viterelli is one reason why." In an interview with Larry King, Viterelli said that De Niro was "the easiest man to work with in the world" and that Crystal was "the funniest guy I ever met in my life." It was Crystal who delivered a eulogy at the funeral for Joe Viterelli, who succumbed to complications from heart surgery in January 2004, age 66.

Joe Viterelli never had a manager. In 2000, he told the New York Daily News, "Ninety percent of my fan mail is from kids 6 through 19. They send me graduation pictures and report cards. Look at me, I'm a role model."