'Sopranos' actor enjoying life on the links
These days, only the golf ball gets whacked.
Like everyone else in the cast of "The Sopranos," Joe Gannascoli is looking for the next great project to follow the rush of being in one of the most acclaimed TV series of all time. Having played Vito Spatafore, the menacing, top-earning and gay mob captain who was rubbed out, Gannascoli has written a culinary novel ("A Meal to Die For"), established his own line of cigars (Cugine) and had a movie role.
His passion, though, is what takes him from his home in East Rockaway to Eisenhower Park at 5 a.m. most days. He signs in, reads the newspaper, drinks his coffee and waits for daylight so he can continue his quest for par.
Sometimes he walks 36 holes in a day. Often, he plays in outings and, with friends at Vincent's Clam Bar in Carle Place, is planning to host one for the Bright Steps Forward charity next year. He is the spokesman for a putting training device. He has read every instructional book he could find. Mostly, he is going after the game with a vengeance, like Phil Leotardo's crew went after Vito.
"My goal this year was to break 100 and I did that, no problem," he said. "Now I want to get into the low 90s. My real goal is to be scratch in three years. I've been obsessive compulsive about a lot of things: eating, drinking, gambling."
Now it's golf. As a kid in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn, he didn't get much beyond pitch and putt. He played a lot of baseball and hockey, which wore down his hips so much that he had to have both replaced during his "Sopranos" run.
Feeling healthy, he started taking swings last year on the set of the Martin Lawrence movie "College Road Trip." Between takes of a golf scene, he started hitting good shots. "I had to stop because we were losing all the balls," he said. "I said, 'You know what? I'm going to start playing.' "
Aiming at being a scratch golfer is not a stretch for someone who shoots high. He was a self-taught chef who worked in restaurants throughout the country and eventually opened his own, Soup as Art. Along the way, a friend suggested that he audition for a part in the play, "The Juiceman." He caught the acting bug, took lessons and kept auditioning. He started with a bit part in "The Sopranos" - a customer in the bakery who wonders about his loaf after Christopher shoots the baker in the foot.
The next season, he was hired to play Vito, who was a big part of the story line even after he was whacked. Gannascoli went to the writers with the idea of expanding the character after having read a book about a gay mobster. It did get him more screen time in the iconic series. "That was like being part of the '27 Yankees," said the intense sports fan who occasionally appears on WFAN, talking about the Yankees and Giants.
His fellow golfers at Eisenhower usually recognize him. "They ask questions about the ["Sopranos"] ending or whether there's going to be a movie," Gannascoli said, adding that he is glad to talk about it, but eventually likes to settle into the round.
He finds golf, like acting, a huge and irresistible challenge. Unlike Vito, Joe is a good family man who plays early in the day so he can be home with wife, Diana, and their 10-week-old daughter, Viviana, who was baptized last week. He has rejected his agent's suggestion to move to Los Angeles.
"I've auditioned for a few things and I'm waiting to hear, but I'm not the type to sit around by the phone," he said. "If acting finds me, great. It will be hard to match what 'The Sopranos' was."
Shooting par might be close, though.
