One-Man Show

In 1989, the struggling actor had finally won the attention he was seeking with "A Bronx Tale." His one-man showcase in a small Los Angeles theater drew rave reviews and Hollywood came knockin’.

"It was like, unbelievable. It became the hottest property since ‘Rocky,’ " he recalls.

The actor, who says he had $187 in the bank, found himself sitting in one producer’s office facing a choice: "If you sign that paper, we’ll give you a check for $1 million."

But that paper would have signed away Palminteri’s attachment to his work, yielding the right to play the main character, Sonny, to whatever big star won out.

"Is there a bathroom here?" he asked.

"I look in the mirror. I got the card in my pocket," he remembers. "I take it out and look at it."

Maybe you’ve seen the movie. "My father always said, ‘The saddest thing in life is wasted talent. Don’t waste your life.’ He wrote it on a card and put it in my room."

Palminteri put the card back in his wallet, walked back into the room, said "No thank you" to any deal in which he didn’t write the screenplay and play Sonny.

"This movie might not get done," they warned.

"It’ll get done."

The next week, Robert De Niro showed up. "I’ll play the father and direct, and you write it and play Sonny," he said. "You should, because it’s about your life."

They shook hands and the deal was done.

• • •

The other event that changed Palminteri’s life came much earlier, when he was a young boy and watched one man kill another on a public street.

The shooting became the genesis for "A Bronx Tale." It’s the story of how the shooter, a neighborhood mob figure, became a second father to the future star.

The real Sonny? "I would never say the name," Palminteri says. He will say he "was not like a famous guy" on the John Gotti level. "It was a neighborhood thing," he says of Sonny’s stature. And so was the crime, which obviously ran deeper than the parking-space confrontation that sparked it.

"The funny thing is, I still don’t know what it was over," he says. "My father knew, but he would never tell me. He just passed away at 89, and he carried it with him."

Palminteri rose above his tough surroundings and went to the Actor’s Studio, then scored a few tough-guy roles on TV. But in time, "I ran out of money and got frustrated." So he decided to create his own opportunity with a vehicle based on his own story.

He wasn’t the first actor, or the last, to scrape up enough money to rent a small storefront theater and hope the press shows up. But then and now, one-man shows tended to be rooted in stand-up comedy, more along the lines of Billy Crystal’s Broadway hit "700 Sundays."

When "A Bronx Tale" debuted in 1989, Palminteri gave them a one-man movie. "I do the whole movie onstage by myself. That’s why they went crazy," he says. "All the reviews always ended with, ‘the genesis of a great movie.’ "

The actor gives voice to more than a dozen characters. Perhaps in part because of that theatrical conceit, "It’s actually a lot funnier than the movie."

• • •

Palminteri went on to a solid career that included an Oscar nomination for the Woody Allen comedy "Bullets Over Broadway." Now 57, he revived "A Bronx Tale" as a live vehicle two years ago. He took it to Broadway with the help of local producers John Gaughan (son of South Point chairman Michael) and Trent and Matt Othick, and covered much of the country with a tour that lands Wednesday in Las Vegas.

"This is like a big thing for me," he says, because it’s a city where he always wanted to see his name in lights. After all, the actor once shared an olive with Frank Sinatra (a ritual detailed in Bill Zehme’s book "The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin’ ").

Sinatra paid the 1993 "Bronx Tale" movie the highest praise by declaring to Palminteri that he "didn’t (expletive) fall asleep," and that if it didn’t, that meant it was a good movie.

Palminteri says he revived the live show because he only did 84 off-Broadway performances before striking the movie deal, and people kept asking if he would ever do it again.

Could it be something that might go on, say, as long as Hal Holbrook has done "Mark Twain Tonight"? Palminteri says he wouldn’t mind that, but for the physicality of the stage performance — which he demonstrates in a burst of arm swooshes and sound effects better suited for a Warner Bros. cartoon than print.

Some of the recent reviews have noted that "The Sopranos" have come and gone in the time since the movie came out, so "Bronx Tale" doesn’t seem as fresh. Palminteri disputes that, pointing out that we never really find out what Sonny and his gang do as a mob, and — pivotal murder aside — we don’t see them breaking any laws beyond a basement craps game.

"It’s a family story, not a gangster story," he says, one that’s still "entertaining and relevant."

It’s his story. He raises those famous eyebrows and his hands as though there’s nothing else to say. "And I’m proud of it, man."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.