Willie Cicci is, without a doubt, one of Mr. Babe's favorite characters. Spinell was fantastic, as TB pointed out earlier. And he also spawned one of my family's most oft-repeated Godfather lines "Cicci! A porta!".

Don't want to hijack here, but I will tell a little story about that line. My father was a hospital pharmacist and the hospital director's name was Frank, who my father called "Cheech". One of the pharmacy technician's was from India and didn't speak English all that well. He asked where the name "Cheech" came from. My father explained that it was an Italian nickname for Frank, and encouraged the poor, innocent man to not only refer to the hospital director as Cheech, but to stand at the doorway and repeat that Cicc! A porta! phrase, telling him that it meant, "Please let me open the door for you, Frank." This poor man, trying to become an American citizen, would've rather died than speak to the director of the hospital that way, but he did it for years, thinking he was sucking up.


President Emeritus of the Neal Pulcawer Fan Club