Joe Pesci Biography Quotes 4 Report mistakes
| 4 Quotes | |
| Occup. | Actor |
| From | USA |
| Born | February 9, 1943 |
| Age | 82 years |
Joe Pesci was born on February 9, 1943, in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Belleville in an Italian American family. His mother worked as a hairdresser, and his father held a series of blue-collar jobs, including forklift driver and bartender. From an early age, performance was central to his life: as a child he appeared on the television variety program Startime Kids, which helped him develop confidence on stage and an ear for timing. He spent his teenage years around New Jersey musicians and show people, becoming friends with Frankie Valli and Tommy DeVito; as a young man he introduced DeVito to songwriter Bob Gaudio, a link that helped solidify the lineup that became the Four Seasons. Pesci also learned the discipline of manual work, cutting hair like his mother, while playing guitar and singing in clubs.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s he was part of a working lounge act on the New Jersey circuit, most notably partnering with drummer-actor Frank Vincent in a sharp, sometimes combative comedy-music duo. The hours on smoky stages honed a style that could turn from charm to menace in a single beat. Their club work helped lead to film roles, and Pesci caught attention in the low-budget crime picture The Death Collector (also released as Family Enforcer), where his quicksilver presence stood out.
Breakthrough with Scorsese and De Niro
That early film brought him to the attention of Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese, who cast Pesci as Joey LaMotta, the volatile, loyal brother and manager in Raging Bull (1980). The performance earned Pesci an Academy Award nomination and a BAFTA award for a newcomer, and it established a defining collaboration with Scorsese and De Niro. A decade later he portrayed the unpredictable Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas (1990), a role built around a terrifying and unforgettable spontaneity. The famed restaurant exchange with Ray Liotta, grounded in Pesci's own recollections of street talk, became a touchstone of modern screen acting. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and accepted it with a brief, memorable speech that mirrored his economy on screen.
Pesci reunited with Scorsese and De Niro in Casino (1995), playing a ferocious enforcer whose volatility balanced against De Niro's cooler strategist. Across these films, Scorsese's trust and De Niro's rapport gave Pesci the space to refine a style that was both tightly controlled and electrifying.
Range Beyond Gangster Roles
Even as he became emblematic of Scorsese's crime epics, Pesci demonstrated remarkable range. In My Cousin Vinny (1992), directed by Jonathan Lynn, he turned a fish-out-of-water courtroom comedy into a star vehicle, bouncing off Marisa Tomei's scene-stealing performance and playing deftly with Ralph Macchio's straight man energy. He served as antic comic relief as Leo Getz in the Lethal Weapon series opposite Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, showing how far he could push speed, patter, and physical humor without losing the audience's sympathy. As one of the bumbling Wet Bandits in Home Alone (1990) and its sequel, acting alongside Macaulay Culkin and Daniel Stern under director Chris Columbus and producer John Hughes, he created a family-film villain who was menacing enough to matter and funny enough to adore.
Pesci also took striking character turns in Oliver Stone's JFK (1991) with Kevin Costner, and made appearances that nodded to his roots in projects connected to friends and collaborators, such as a cameo in A Bronx Tale with De Niro.
Hiatus and Selective Returns
After a run of high-profile titles through the 1990s, including comedies like The Super, Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag, and Gone Fishin', Pesci largely stepped back from the constant churn of filmmaking. He preferred a quieter life and chose roles sparingly. When De Niro directed The Good Shepherd (2006), Pesci appeared briefly in a scene of chilly authority. He next took a rare lead in Love Ranch (2010) opposite Helen Mirren, and then kept his distance from the screen again.
His most celebrated return came with The Irishman (2019), a long-gestating project led by Scorsese and De Niro and featuring Al Pacino and Harvey Keitel. Persuaded by the old team, Pesci played Russell Bufalino with unusual restraint, channeling menace through stillness instead of outbursts. The performance earned widespread acclaim and brought another Academy Award nomination, underlining his continued command decades after his breakthrough.
Music and Stage Roots
Parallel to acting, Pesci maintained a musical life. He released the pop-inflected Little Joe Sure Can Sing! in 1968, recorded under the name Joe Ritchie, reflecting the lounge repertoire he had developed with Frank Vincent. After his comedic courtroom turn, he issued Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You (1998), a playful album tied to the swaggering character from My Cousin Vinny. Many years later, Pesci returned to standards and jazz phrasing with Pesci... Still Singing (2019), collaborating with contemporary artists and reaffirming that music was never just a sideline. The same instincts that enliven his musical phrasing shaped his screen improvisations; working with Scorsese, De Niro, Ray Liotta, and others, he often built scenes from lived rhythms and the cadences of conversation.
Personal Life and Legacy
Private by nature, Pesci rarely courts publicity. He has been married and divorced, including a marriage to actress and model Claudia Haro, with whom he has a daughter. Longstanding friendships in the industry, especially with Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, and Frank Vincent, form the spine of his professional story. He is known for loyalty to collaborators and for a careful approach to selecting work, choosing to appear only when the material or the team feels indispensable.
Joe Pesci's legacy rests on a paradox: a small physical stature matched with oversized presence, a performer capable of eruptive danger one moment and meticulous, understated wit the next. From Newark stages to Academy Award acclaim, from the wild invention of Goodfellas to the quiet power of The Irishman, he shaped a vision of American character that is at once streetwise, musical, and deeply human. Through decades of collaboration with artists like Scorsese, De Niro, Ray Liotta, Sharon Stone, Al Pacino, and Harvey Keitel, he left an indelible mark on both crime cinema and comedy, defining what it means to steal a scene by making it feel true.
Our collection contains 4 quotes who is written by Joe, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Sarcastic - Respect.
Other people realated to Joe: Taylor Hackford (Director), Moira Kelly (Actress), Angie Everhart (Model), Richard Donner (Director), James Woods (Actor), Illeana Douglas (Actress), Taryn Manning (Actress), Lorraine Bracco (Actress), Anna Paquin (Actress), Don Rickles (Comedian)