Vincent Pastore, the actor who made "Big Pussy" a household name on The Sopranos, was found dead in his Bronx home Saturday at 80 — and the establishment press couldn't wait to romanticize his mobster roles while actual racketeering in Washington goes uncovered.
Four major outlets rushed obituaries celebrating Pastore's turn as Salvatore Bonpensiero, the FBI informant who got whacked in season two. The Associated Press, The Guardian, CBS News, and the New York Post all led with the gangster angle — his 30-episode run as a mob turncoat, his roles in Goodfellas and Gotti. The press loves a Hollywood mobster. Real corruption? Not so much.
Pastore was found after friends hadn't heard from him for days, according to his manager Bob McGowan, who learned of the death from actor Vincent Curatola. Police told the New York Post the death was natural causes; CBS confirmed no indication of criminality. His longtime friend Stephen Villano told the Post Pastore had just passed a physical and "was totally healthy."
Here's what the coverage buried: Pastore enlisted in the Navy during Vietnam. He attended Pace University on his own dime. He beat prostate cancer. He donated every dollar he won on Celebrity Apprentice to charity. He supported St. Jude's, the NYPD widows and orphans fund, and veterans in the Bronx — what Villano called "back to blue, all the time."
"He said, 'I'm an actor. I play a character,'" Villano told the Post. "People would think that this is the man, but that wasn't the man. The man was generous, he was kind, he was caring."
The Guardian and AP both reduced Pastore to "mobsters and tough guys" in their ledes. CBS at least noted his charity work through his agent's statement. But the framing was the same across all four outlets: mobster first, man second.
Meanwhile, the same media apparatus that fawns over fictional wise guys can't be bothered to track the actual shakedowns — the lobbying dollars flooding Capitol Hill, the revolving door between regulators and the industries they're supposed to police, the bipartisan deals that sell out working Americans. Pastore played a rat on TV. The real rats wear suits and write the laws.
Pastore is survived by his daughter, Renee. He served his country, served his community, and made a living playing characters Americans loved to watch. The press treated his death as one more mob story. The real mob stories — the ones with lobbying disclosures and committee chairmanships — they'll never touch.
Pastore understood the difference between fiction and reality. The beltway press still doesn't.
