BloG
Stories & Articles about Italian Americans who have contributed to the entertainment industry.
Joy Mangano – Italian American Inventor & TV Personality
Joy Mangano was born in 1956, in East Meadow, New York, to Italian-American parents. Mangano began inventing at an early age when, as a teenager working at an animal hospital in Huntington, New York, on Long Island, she dreamed up a fluorescent flea collar to keep...
Tomie dePaola – Italian American Author
Thomas Anthony “Tomie” dePaola was born on September 15, 1934, in Meriden, Connecticut, to Joseph and Florence May DePaola. His mother read to Tomie from the time he was in diapers; cementing his love for books. When he was only four years old, he was certain that he...
Penny Marshall – Italian American Actress
Carole Penny Marshall was born in the Bronx, New York City, New York, on October 15, 1943, to Marjorie and Anthony "Tony" Masciarelli, later Anthony Wallace Marshall, a director of industrial films and later a producer. Her father was of Italian descent, his family...
Sonny Bono – Italian American Musician
Salvatore Phillip "Sonny" Bono was born in Detroit in 1935, to parents Santo Bono (born in Montelepre, Palermo, Italy) and Zena "Jean" DiMercurio. His mother called him "Sono" as a term of endearment, which evolved over time into "Sonny". Bono decided early in life to...
Joe Oriolo – Italian American Animator
Joseph "Joe" Oriolo was born in Union City, NJ in 1913, the son of Italian immigrants. As a child, he drew constantly and dreamed of becoming a cartoon animator. In 1933, at age 20, he went to work for Fleischer Studios as an errand boy, where his talent as a...
Michael Giacchino – Italian American Composer
Michael Giacchino was born in Riverside Township, New Jersey in 1967. His father's ancestors were Italian immigrants from Sicily and his mother's ancestors emigrated from Abruzzo; he holds dual American and Italian citizenship. Giacchino began combining images...
Joe Venuti – Italian American Musician
Giuseppe "Joe" Venuti was an Italian-American jazz musician and pioneer jazz violinist. He was born in Philadelphia in 1903. Considered the father of jazz violin, he pioneered the use of string instruments in jazz along with the guitarist Eddie Lang, a friend since...
Kelly Ripa – Italian American Actress
Kelly Maria Ripa was born in 1970 and raised in Berlin, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Esther, a homemaker, and Joseph Ripa, a labor union president and bus driver. She has three-quarters Italian and one-quarter Irish ancestry. During her high school years she was...
Teddy Randazzo – Italian American Musician
Alessandro Carmelo "Teddy" Randazzo was born in New York City in 1935. In the early years of rock and roll, Randazzo played accordion with a group called The Three Chuckles and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show numerous times. Their first hit "Runaround", was a top 20...
The Russo Brothers – Italian American Directors
Anthony Russo (born February 3, 1970) and Joseph Russo (born July 18, 1971), collectively known as the Russo Brothers, were born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, the sons of Patricia Gallupoli and attorney and judge Basil Russo. Their paternal and maternal families...
Richard Jeni – Italian American Comedian
Richard John Colangelo, better known by his stage name Richard Jeni, was born in 1957. Jeni was raised in an Italian-American Roman Catholic family in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. He graduated with honors from Hunter College, earning a bachelor's degree in comparative...
Beverly D’Angelo – Italian American Actress
Beverly Heather D'Angelo was born in 1951 in Columbus, Ohio. Her parents were Priscilla and Eugene Constantino "Gene" D'Angelo, a bass player and television station manager at WBNS-TV in Columbus. D'Angelo worked as an illustrator at Hanna-Barbera Studios and as a...