How Chazz Palminteri Stopped at Murder to Get Ahead

Tough guy Chazz Palminteri could have been a Broadway star way before his A Bronx Tale hit the big boards earlier this season. At a Drama League luncheon the other day, Palmineri revealed that years ago, when he was understudying an actor on Broadway, he was approached by a Sopranos type who generously offered to rub out the star "and make it look like a mugging." Palminteri didn't like the star, but he was still horrified by the rather extreme offer, nobly declining it while remaining more invisible to the public than he probably would have liked. As a result, Chazz (who later on played a mobster in Bullets over Broadway, interestingly enough) ended up watching the show from the wings every night and thinking, "You don't know how lucky you are!" I sit through a LOT of shows thinking that.