Gay vito sopranos

Last week, the actor Joseph Gannascoli—who, as Vito on The Sopranos,is living out this television season’s only great tragic love story—was tooling around Lynbrook, Drawn-out Island, in a unused silver Mercedes R350 with a back seat filled with flowering plants. He was wearing a Giants sweatshirt and sneakers, and was taking a journalist on a tour through his neighborhood’s quiet maze of split-level houses and manicured, postage-stamp lawns. He pulled up in front of an unassuming two-story white house, which he and his wife, Diana, moved into last August—the first house the player has owned, after letting go of a rent-controlled apartment in his elderly stomping ground of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, after 25 years.

Mr. Gannascoli, who at 47 is still a large man even after losing 160 pounds, removed the plants from the back of the Mercedes and hung them carefully off the branches of a tree on the front lawn. He was stepping gingerly after undergoing hip surgery five weeks earlier. He proudly pointed out some yard work: a mosaic-tiled bird bath and, plunked down in the grass, a massive boulder that he thinks looks like a bear. Looking at the boulder, he paused and said, “How long till they write ‘fag’

What Happened to Vito in The Sopranos? His Tragic Storyline, Explained

The Sopranos is one of the foremost things to happen to HBO, let alone television entirely. With creative story arcs and interesting characters to follow, the mafia violence succinctly tied it all together. It pushed television into anew era, often called The Golden Age.The Sopranos did a beautiful job of creating characters that audiences could latch on to. Fans got to watch the rise of some of the secondary characters who kept the North Jersey mob afloat. One of those characters was Vito Spatafore, played by Joseph R. Gannascoli.

Vito had a different arc than most of the characters in The Sopranos but faced the same turmoil that most of the secondary characters dealt with. Vito took opportunities to develop a top earner and worked hard to receive his place in the world of organized crime. He also had a personal life that minute to no one knew about, until it caught up with him. While Vito had a valiant start in the North Jersey Mafia, his downfall is one of the most tragic occurrences in the show.

Updated by Arthur Goyaz on January 20, 2025: Vito Spatafore is one of The Sopranos' most tragic charact

The Sopranos was a show with some wild twists, but arguably its most shocking revelation was that Vito Spatafore, the portly capo of the Aprile crew and one of Tony’s foremost earners, was actually a closeted gay. Initially spotted by Meadow’s boyfriend Finn DeTrolio going down on a security guard, Vito’s proclivities remained a private to the lie down of the crew from season five until a scant episodes into season six. Vito gets spotted at a leather bar, mid lasso dance, and is forced to flee his closeted life, building up to a sort of “lost weekend” in New Hampshire in possibly my favorite episode, “Johnny Cakes.”

We’ve been discussing all of these episodes in-depth on our Sopranos podcast, Pod Yourself A Gun. Recently, we got in touch with Joe Gannascoli, the thespian who played Vito. Actually, he emailed us out of the blue. As it turns out, Gannascoli’s story is as compelling as his character’s. Gannascoli, who had originally appeared as a bakery customer named “Gino” in season one (one of only three actors to play more than one speaking character on the show, the other two having both played twins),

Inside the real-life mob story that inspired Vito’s iconic gay storyline on The Sopranos & why it was tricky to pitch

TWENTY-five years ago today, The Sopranos premiered on HBO - a cornerstone moment in pop culture that undoubtedly changed television forever.

Across its six seasons, the James Gandolfini-led mobster titanic brought to life a colorful cast of remembered characters and crafted lasting storylines, punctuated by bursts of graphic violence, iconic one-liners, and dark humor.

But The Sopranos was more than just a usual mob story; it was a groundbreaking show that served as a subtle character study, tackling the then-taboo topics of male mental health, toxic masculinity, and even sexuality.

Perhaps The Sopranos's boldest convention-challenging exploration came during the show's final season when Vito Spatafore - Tony Soprano's highest earner - was revealed to be a closeted gay man.

Vito's sexuality was first hinted at during season 5 of the show when the portly mafia captain was spotted by the lover of Tony Soprano's daughter giving oral sex to a male security guard near a construction site.

The subject

The Real Reason Vito Got A Desire Story On 'The Sopranos'
The Sopranos' love storyline is easily one of the more important in the entire series. Arguably, the choice to include a story about the ramifications of being male lover or bi within a strict, conservative hierarchal society such as the mob was important to all of television. While many debate the merits of gay actors playing straight characters and straight actors playing gay characters, there's no doubt that Joseph R. Gannascoli's portrayal of Vito Spatafore was potent. Because of his performance, we understood the struggle he had coming out under mob command and in a culture that demonized homosexuality. While his character's end was tragic, it was also real... not just in a symbolic sense but almost in a literal one as well. Here's the truth about the inclusion of Vito's gay love-story in HBO's very exact mob drama.
Joe Suggested The Story For Vito
Then groundwork for Vito's final storyline in The Sopranos was laid in Season Five when Meadow's boyfriend caught Vito in a lovey-dovey moment with a guy. But it wasn't until Season Six that this story thread was explored. Vito's intimate life started to get leaked to Tony Sopr