Following small roles in the mob films “Goodfellas” (1990), “Men of Respect” (1990), and “Carlito’s Way” (1993), plus a supporting turn in “The Jerky Boys” (1995), Pastore landed his first major break as mobster Angelo Ruggiero in HBO’s “Gotti” (1996), appearing opposite future “Sopranos” co-stars Tony Sirico, Frank Vincent, and Dominic Chianese. But his defining role came three years later, when David Chase cast him as Salvatore “Big Pu**y” Bonpensiero, the lifelong friend of James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano whose shocking reveal as an FBI informant culminated in one of the mob drama’s most memorable deaths in the Season 2 finale.<\/p>\n
Though killed off after 26 episodes, Pastore returned for four additional guest appearances through the series’ sixth and final season.<\/p>\n
Following “The Sopranos,” Pastore racked up numerous TV guest-star credits, appearing in episodes of “Blue Bloods,” “The Curse,” “Ed,” “Everybody Hates Chris,” “General Hospital,” “Grounded for Life,” “Hawaii Five-0,” “Las Vegas,” “Less Than Perfect,” “The Practice,” “One Life to Live,” and “Wu-Tang: An American Saga.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most recently, he lent his voice to a Season 3 episode of “Yellowjackets.”<\/p>\n
Pastore also appeared on several reality shows, competing on Season 1 of “Celebrity Apprentice,” from which he quit in Week 5. He also became the first celebrity entrepreneur to pitch a product on “Shark Tank,” appearing during Season 2 alongside business partner Johnny Gennaro to seek funding for Broccoli Wad, a silicone money clip inspired by the broccoli bands used to hold stacks of cash. Though they accepted an offer from Barbara Corcoran, the deal ultimately never closed.<\/p>\n
He also competed on Season 4 of “Celebrity Fit Club” and appeared in a 2008 episode of “Celebrity Family Feud.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following small roles in the mob films “Goodfellas” (1990), “Men of Respect” (1990), and “Carlito’s Way” (1993), plus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":841335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75],"class_list":["post-841334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}