Chazz Palminteri is proud of his accomplishments. “I’m the only guy ever in the history of show business,” he said in our recent interview, “to write a one-man show and star in it, write the screenplay from the show and star in it, and write a musical based on the show and star in it.”
The show is “A Bronx Tale,” which Palminteri brings to the Historic Park Theatre in Cranston on October 2. The show is semi-autobiographical, based on Palminteri’s childhood years in the 1960s in the Bronx. It includes his witnessing a shooting when he was just nine, and “navigating the challenges of growing up in an Italian American working-class neighborhood.” That last piece is from the Wikipedia description.
There’s conflict between the young protagonist’s father and Sonny, a local mob boss, who introduces the boy to the temptations of organized crime. In the one-man show, which Palminteri will perform in Cranston, he plays 18 different characters, including the young boy, the father, and the folks from the neighborhood.
Palminteri says the show was created out of necessity. “I was working as a doorman” in Los Angeles “because of was running out of money from guest starring.” He had done some guest spots on network shows, but nothing that provided a breakthrough for him. “It’s so hard to break through, to get that one part.”
“I had $200 left in the bank” and he wasn’t getting any great parts, so he said, “I’ll write one myself. So, I started writing about this killing I saw when I was nine years old.”
He decided to stage the show himself, playing all the parts. “People though I was crazy. But I did it, and it exploded.”
Palminteri said studio executives kept coming to see the show. “They wanted it, but they didn’t want me. They’d say, ‘It’s impossible to do it with you. We need a star.’”
The studios kept upping their offers, but they didn’t want Palminteri to be part of the actual film. “Then (Robert) DeNiro saw it. He said it was the greatest show I ever saw. He said, ‘You did a whole movie by yourself.’”
Then DeNiro said he wanted to make the movie. “He said, ‘You should play Sonny. I’ll play the father. If you shake my hand, that’s how it will be.”
And that’s what happened. The movie came out in 1993 and “it exploded from there,” says Palminteri. From that, he turned the play into a musical, with the help of Alan Menken, an Academy Award winner, Emmy winner, Tony winner, and Grammy winner.
Now 75 years old, Palminteri says that people’s favorite version is the one-man show, which he’s been doing off and on for 35 years. “I do the whole thing, play all the parts. People laugh, they’re crying. You’ve never seen anything like this.”
He’s doing the one-man show about 25 times a year. He says he gets to a point where he says “that’s enough for this year, but people say, ‘You sell out, you got to come back.’”
Palminteri has several projects he’s working on. “I’m in a TV series, ‘Godfather of Harlem,’ with Forest Whitaker” and another series called “Gravesend.” He also just finished a movie with John Travolta called “Amore.”
“I have a very big podcast, ‘The Chazz Palminteri Show’ on YouTube.”
Chazz Palminteri performs “A Bronx Tale” at the Historic Park Theatre in Cranston on October 2. Tickets are available at www.ticketsales.com. Simply search for Historic Park Theatre once there.
