Vincent Pastore, a prolific actor best known for playing Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero opposite James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano on the HBO mob drama "The Sopranos," has died.
Pastore was found dead by a neighbor on Saturday, Deadline reported. He was 80. According to TMZ, Pastore’s neighbor and friend, Stephen Villano, found Pastore after he hadn’t heard from the actor in several days.
TMZ said the New York Fire Department received a call about an unresponsive mN at approximately 2:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, and they were followed on the scene by the New York Police Department, which is investigating the case. Pastore’s cause of death is unknown, TMZ reported.
Pastore played Big Pussy in all six seasons of creator David Chase’s The Sopranos, from 1999 to 2007. An enforcer for Tony Soprano, Pastore’s character was featured in 30 episodes over the run of the series, even though his character was killed off in The Sopranos’ Season 2 finale.
Big Pussy, who was an FBI informant, was whacked in Episode 13 of Season 2 in by Tony, Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri (Tony Sirico) and Silvio Dante (Steven Van Zandt). Pastore told Howard Stern in a 2000 interview that going into Season 2, he knew his character’s days were limited.
“I don’t exactly know when and how we were going to do it," Pastore told Stern. "We didn’t get that script until four days before [we shot it]. David said it was hard for him to write.”
Pastore, along with his fellow cast members from The Sopranos, won an Actor Award (then known as a Screen Actors Guild Award) for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2000. The cast was nominated for the honor again in 2001.
Vincent Pastore Appeared In More Than 180 Screen Projects
Born July 14, 1946, in the Bronx, New York, Pastore’s screen debut was in a supporting role in the 1988 horror thriller Black Roses. The next year, Pastore starred opposite Annabella Sciorra, Ron Eldard and future Sopranos star Aida Turturro in the comedy romance True Love.
Over the next dozen years, Pastore appeared in supporting or bit roles in several films and TV shows, including the Martin Scorsese mob classic Goodfellas and Robin Williams and Robert De Niro’s medical drama Awakenings, both in 1990. Pastore also had a small role in the Al Pacino crime thriller Carlito’s Way in 1993 and played a guest role in four episodes of Law & Order from 1992 to 1996.
Pastore was cast as Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero in 1999, and as a result he landed other roles, such as the part of Tony in Chris Kattan’s comedy Corky Romano in 2001; a part in Matthew Perry and Elizabeth Hurley’s comedy Serving Sara in 2002; and the voice of Luca in the animated hit Shark Tale in 2003. In 2013, Pastore starred opposite De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer in the dark crime comedy The Family.
Pastore also appeared in guest roles in the daytime dramas One Life to Live (2003 to 2004) and General Hospital (2008), and a three-episode turn in the legal drama The Practice in 2004.
The actor’s guest roles over the years included appearances in such series as Las Vegas, Everybody Hates Chris and Hawaii Five-O. In 2021, Pastore starred in the indie crime thriller The Birthday Cake opposite Val Kilmer, Shiloh Fernandez, Jeremy Allen White and Ewan McGregor, as well as his Sopranos co-star Lorraine Bracco.
In 2024, Pastore appeared in a guest role in Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder’s limited series The Curse on Showtime. The actor’s last screen appearance came in a guest voice role in the hit Paramount+ series Yellowjackets in 2025.
Pastore is survived by a daughter.