Vincent "Vinny Ocean" Palermo (born June 4, 1944) is a former Italian--American mobster who was de facto boss of the New Jersey DeCavalcante crime family before becoming a government witness. Fictional mob boss Tony Soprano, the protagonist of the HBO series The Sopranos, is said to be based upon Palermo.Palermo was raised in a traditional Italian family in Brooklyn, New York. He has five sisters, including Claire and Nancy, and one brother. His father was an Italian immigrant who moved to New York when he was a teenager. Palermo came from a close-knit family, and was said to have lived a harmonious lifestyle. He was an altar boy during adolescence. When Palermo was sixteen, his father died, which forced him to leave school and work two jobs to help support his family, as his mother was a bedridden asthmatic. In his earlier years, Palermo worked at a wholesale fish business in the Fulton Fish Market, where he earned the nickname "Vinny Ocean".