Those were the words that I was hoping not to hear when I approached Frank Vincent at the Chicago Hollywood Celebrities Show on Saturday, September 25, 2010. Because this might mean that I was about to be whacked for even thinking about asking for a deal. Vincent’s looks and voice just ooze quintessential gangster in such films as Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and Casino – all classic Martin Scorsese films starring Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci. In two out of the three, Mr. Pesci makes mince meat out of Frank Vincent, but in the third one, the tables are turned and Vincent destroys Pesci with a baseball bat. I had just one question to ask: did the two of them get along in real life?
He laughed when I asked because he knew that they seem to have an intense rivalry on the screen. He told me that yes, they were good friends. But our familiar gabbing started out a bit rockier when I refused to pay the asking price of $35 for an autograph/photo op combo. I made his handler an offer he couldn’t refuse: $25. For a moment I saw that glint in Vincent’s eyes, the eyes that were in fact ready to tell me to go home and get my shine box – as his character Billy Batts told Pesci in Goodfellas shortly before Pesci and his posse beat him to death.
Martin Scorsese directs Frank Vincent and Joe Pesci in Raging Bull
If Frank Vincent was never actually part of the mafia, he has certainly perfected the part – because even off-screen, his friendly demeanor has a bit of an undercurrent of gangster in it. This made it all the more thrilling to meet this icon of three incredible Scorsese films.
Celebrities of the Fall Chicago collectors show will continue…
That scene in “Goodfellas” where Billy Batts is killed is one of the most vicious killings I have ever viewed on the screen — even when Frank Vincent’s character in “The Sopranos” gets his head run over, it is not as graphic, although that was TV. I suppose Mr Vincent is used to his characters dying a violent death.
Brian Fisher
November 13th, 2010
$25??
You got a little out of line there yourself, Brad. A little bit disrespectful.
Yeah you did. Little bit. Lil’ bit.
Eric Hubble
December 1st, 2010