Celebrating the contributions of italian americans to the entertainment industry
Since Italians started immigrating to the United States, they’ve brought great contributions to the entertainment industry. Many of the great bands, shows, and artists we know of today have used these contributions our ancestors brought with them and influenced American society.
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Dan Castellaneta – Italian American Voice Actor
Daniel Louis Castellaneta was born in 1957 at Roseland Community Hospital on Chicago's south side and was raised in River Forest and Oak Park, Illinois. He is of Italian descent, born to Elsie Lagorio and Louis Castellaneta. Castellaneta became adept at...
Lou Costello – Italian American Comedian
Italian American comedian Louis Francis Cristillo was born on March 6, 1906, in Paterson, New Jersey. Growing up, Lou was a gifted athlete and played a number of sports in high school, but his main pasion was acting. Lou grew up admiring silent films and actors,...
Tony Danza – Italian American Actor
Antonio Salvatore Iadanza (Tony Danza) was born in 1951 in Brooklyn, New York, to parents Anne Cammisa and Matty Anthony Iadanza. His mother was a bookkeeper and his father worked as a waste collector in Brooklyn. Danza's father was of Italian ancestry and Danza's...
Frank Mancuso – Film Studio Executive
Frank G. Mancuso (born July 25, 1933) is an Italian American former film studio executive. Mancuso was the chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures between 1984 and 1991, and of MGM between 1993 and 1999, when he retired. Mancuso started as an usher in a theater in...
Anne Bancroft – Italian American Actress
Anna Maria Louisa Italiano was born in 1931 in the Bronx, New York. She was the middle of three daughters of parents Mildred DiNapoli, a telephone operator, and Michael G. Italiano a dress pattern maker. Her parents were both children of Italian immigrants. In an...
Alan Alda – Italian American Actor
Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo was born in 1936 in the Bronx, New York City. Alda spent his childhood with his parents travelling around the United States in support of his father's job as a performer in burlesque theatres. His Italian father Robert Alda (born Alfonso...
Carmine Coppola – Italian American Composer
Carmine Valentino Coppola was born in 1910 in New York City. He was the son of Maria Zasa and Agostino Coppola, who came to the United States from Bernalda, Basilicata. His brother was opera conductor and composer Anton Coppola. Coppola played the flute. He studied at...
Charles Atlas – Italian American Bodybuilder
Angelo Siciliano was born in Acri, Calabria, Italy, on October 30, 1892. Eleven years later, he and his family traveled through Ellis Island and settled in Brooklyn, New York. As a young boy, Angelo was often teased and bullied about his small stature. He was inspired...
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...