Today actor Frank Vincent who played gangster roles in many movies died at age 78 from complications with heart surgery. Most recently he played Phil Leotardo in Sopranos,

i just saw the news. very sad.

RIP sad to hear that

He's gone to the Great Shinebox in the Sky.

Frank Vincent was a drummer years ago. He specialized in one kind of rhythm called a "shuffle" beat (think "Just a Gigolo" or "Oh Marie")

I was working in a very popular club on Las Olas in Ft.Laud Fl back around 2008.

Frank would come in often and always wanted to sit in on drums with the band.

I'm sorry to speak ill of the dead but he was not the nicest guy unless you were buying him a drink or lighting a 25.00 Cuban cigar for him that you had just "given" him. Notice the word given is singled out.

Thats what the guy was all about. He'd walk into any club and people would just be falling all over themselves to BUY HIM a drink GIVE him a cigar etc.

Not once in all the times he sat in with the band did he ever put a single dollar in the tip bowl, or offer to buy the band a drink. Now its usually good manners and displays class to at least do something nice for the drummer who just let you use his 5000.00 set of drums, but no, not with Frank it wasn't.

Not too far from this particular club was a small street with a lot of stores and clubs (33rd off of A1A) well Frank and the guy who played Pig Pussy and Tom Sizemore were supposed to shoot a reality series there called "Pawn Fellas".

The show completely tanked, never made it off the ground. My point being that on the side of the store they were using to shoot pilots there was this big mural painted.

The mural had Clark Gable, Betty Davis, Marilyn Monroe, Peter Lorre and a whole bunch more famous stars from the glory days of Hollywood. but right smack in the middle of all those legendary stars was Frank Vincent. His head pained bigger than all the rest, with those big fake neon white chicklet teeth of his.

I think if you look around youtube you can still find some "Pawn fella" clips.

RIP Frank

Sal

Frank used to substitute on a Sirius radio show called the wise guy show. It starred Big pussy pastor the guy from the sopranos. I used to call into that show once in a while. In the 1980s I became friends with Joe Pesci. Joe and frank were both in the same movie together called the death collector. The star of that movie was an actor or Joey Cortese. He was a big tall guy. Any way joe Pesci told me he had a fight on the set with cortese. Cortese was 6' 3" and Joe Pesci was like 5'4" Pesci told me he was doing a number on the guy until the crew broke it up. So I asked Vincent if that happened even though I knew that it did happen. For some reason Vincent denied it. I never told him that his friend Pesci told me that it did happen. Later in the 80 I met Cortese at the mayflower hotel. Tried to sell him a piece of art but Cortese was a fraid to buy it. But it was a nice guy. I never asked him about the fight no point to it.

Thank you Turnbull. My monitor is now full of the coffee I spit out laughing.

"He's gone... And there's nothing we can do about it."

RIP, Frank Vincent.

Thought of plawrence when I heard the news. Don't recall the specifics of the story, but didn't Paul encounter him at a basketball game, where he, er, wasn't so nice? 😂