Danny Aiello

I Only Know Who I Am when I Am Somebody Else: My Life on the Street, on the Stage, and in the Movies Danny Aiello

Publisher Marketing: Beloved stage and screen actor Danny Aiello s big-hearted memoir reveals a man of passion, integrity, and guts and lays bare one of the most unlikely success stories ever told. Danny Aiello admits that he backed into his acting career by mistake. That s easy to see when you begin at the beginning: raised by his loving and fiercely resilient mother in the tenements of Manhattan and the South Bronx, and forever haunted by the death of his infant brother, Danny struggled early on to define who he was and who he could be. It wasn t until he took to the stage in the wee hours to belt out standards that Danny Aiello found his voice and his purpose: he was born to act. Performing in converted churches and touring companies led to supporting roles in such films as "The Godfather: Part II" and "Moonstruck," and an Oscar nomination for his role as the embattled Salvatore in Spike Lee s "Do the Right Thing." For a guy who had never set foot in an acting class, this was supreme validation for being an outsider who followed his heart. In a raw and real chronicle of his gritty urban past, Danny Aiello looks back with appreciation, amusement, and frank disbelief at his unconventional road to success. He offers candid observations on working with luminary directors Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, and Robert Altman, among others, and a vast roster of actors, including Robert De Niro, Paul Newman, Madonna, Cher, and Lauren Bacall. He opens up about friends he loved, friends he lost, and the professional relationships that weren t meant to be. Above all, Danny Aiello imparts a life lesson straight out of his own experience to anyone who s ever felt like an outsider: It s never too late to become who you want to be, to find happiness and fulfillment, and to embrace the winding road to get there." Review Citations: Audio File 04/01/2015 pg. 36 (EAN 9781476751924, Open Ebook) - *Starred Review Publishers Weekly 11/17/2014 (EAN 9781476751900, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Aiello, Danny Danny Aiello is a beloved American actor and Academy Award-nominee who has appeared in numerous motion pictures, most famously "Moonstruck" and "Do the Right Thing", as well as "Once Upon a Time in America", " Ruby", " The Godfather: Part II", " Hudson Hawk", " The Purple Rose of Cairo", " Leon: The Professional", " Two Days in the Valley", and "Dinner Rush". He is also known for his role as Don Domenico Clericuzio in the CBS television miniseries "Mario Puzo's The Last Don". Contributor Bio:  Reavill, Gil GIL REAVILL is an author, screenwriter, and playwright. His work has been widely featured in magazines and he is the author of "Aftermath, Inc.: Cleaning Up After CSI Goes Home". Reavill co-authored "Beyond All Reason: My Life With Susan Smith "and the screenplay that became the 2006 film D"irty", starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. He lives in Westchester County, New York with his wife, Jean Zimmerman, and their daughter.