Big Pussy RIP
By 
Vincent Pastore, a character actor who specialized in playing Italian American tough guys, most notably the foot soldier turned F.B.I. informant Salvatore Bonpensiero, known to his friends as Big Pussy, on the classic HBO series “The Sopranos,” has died at his home in the Bronx. He was 80.
His manager, Robert Attermann, said that Mr. Pastore’s body was discovered by friends on Saturday.
Tall and sturdily built, Mr. Pastore had a substantial career in TV and movies playing mob enforcers, capos and the like before being cast in a major role on “The Sopranos,” which premiered in 1999.
His character was known as Big Pussy — not for any obscene reason, but because he had started his career in crime as a cat burglar. His friends added “Big” to distinguish him from another character, Gennaro Malanga, known as Little Pussy.
Eighty years is a good run. Of the core Sopranos crime family we’re now down to Michael Imperioli and Steven Van Zandt. Dominic Chianese is now 95 and must (along with Al Pacino) be among the last members standing of the Godfather II cast. In any case, Sal Bonpensiero was a complex character and Pastore did a remarkable job of handling what was essentially a double acting job; he was always lying to whomever he was with, whether his friends or the Feds or his family. His last episode ranks as one of the best eps in the entire series, and one of the few times that dream sequences were used effectively in the Sopranos.
Photo Credit: By HBO, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=163956741