By Michael Buckley
19 Dec 2004

Next came Archibald MacLeish's Scratch, in which Chianese played a Juror. Based on Stephen Vincent Benet's "The Devil and Daniel Webster," it starred Patrick Magee as Webster and Will Geer as Scratch, the Devil. "I always looked up to Will Geer, and I befriended Patrick Magee."

Recalls Chianese, "We were in Boston [prior to the New York opening], and my agent called to say that Francis Ford Coppola wanted to see me again for 'The Godfather.' I had met with him a few weeks earlier in New York. I said, 'No, I'm in a play; I don't want to be bothered with these films.'" Scratch closed following four performances; "The Godfather" won an Oscar as Best Picture.

"Francis remembered me at the time he was doing 'Godfather, Part II,' [in which he was cast as Johnny Ola]. It was great working with [Al] Pacino, [Robert] Duvall, [John] Cazale, all those guys. That gave me a film career, which kept me alive financially."

He has several movies to his credit, including "All the President's Men" and "Dog Day Afternoon," but Chianese says, "Those are tiny roles. I did two other movies ["Q&A" (1990), "Night Falls on Manhattan" (1997)] with Sidney Lumet; I had better parts in those."

In David Mamet's The Water Engine, which starred Patti LuPone, Chianese played a candy store owner. "We didn't last too long on Broadway [24 performances]. The theatre was too big. It was an intimate kind of play."

At the Cort in 1979, Chianese appeared in Richard III, starring Al Pacino ("a great friend; he's very sensitive to people's needs"). Then followed the 1985 production of Requiem for a Heavyweight, starring John Lithgow. "He would get a standing ovation every night. We did it at Long Wharf, with Lithgow and Richie Dreyfuss. We went on tour, and again standing ovations. We came to Broadway [with George Segal succeeding Dreyfuss]. Opening night, we got a standing ovation; the next day, they posted the closing notice. That was a heartbreaker! They didn't produce it right; there was no advance sale."

Chianese's most recent Broadway engagement, the 1995 Circle-in-the Square revival of Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo, cast him as Father DeLeo. "It was a good production. Mercedes Ruehl was fun to work with."

This past summer, Chianese appeared at the Delacorte in the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of Much Ado About Nothing. "It only took me 50 years to do Shakespeare in the Park. David Esbjornson is one of the best directors I've ever worked with."

He's married to Jane Pittson-Chianese, "who works for the United Nations. We've been together about 12 years, but we just got married in June 2003. It was a great wedding; all 'The Sopranos' attended." The actor is the father of six: "four girls, two boys."

His advice to actors starting out, notes Chianese, "is to do theatre, and to study with someone like Walt Witcover. I need to do plays. Otherwise, I lose my touch." He also has two albums ("Hits" and "Ungrateful Heart") in release. Filming on "The Sopranos," which won this year's Emmy as Best Drama, starts in mid-April, but the episodes won't be seen until 2006. Observes Dominic Chianese, "Uncle Junior's kind of a funny guy. He's such a serious old bastard."

***

Michael Buckley also writes for TheaterMania.com, and is the author of the book "Between Takes (Interviews with Hollywood Legends)," to be published in 2005.

Dominic Chianese in A Second Hand Memory
photo by Carol Rosegg

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