Vincent Gardenia

It's down to the smallest of character parts, uh, parts.

Olympia Dukakis also won, um, uh, the Oscar for her performance as Cher's world-weary mother who just knows her husband, played by Vincent Gardenia, is cheating on her.

Uh, she too won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1987.

And the movie is so full of truth about love and death [laughs] and the human experience, the messiness of love, the complications in relationships.

when we were talking about books i think we talked about it that's right It was made in the early 60s.

Vincent Gardenia, Robert De Niro in his first big role, major role, Michael Moriarty.

It's a baseball movie in the sense that the milieu is baseball.

But it's about friendship, loyalty.

Was it Bad News Bears 2 or 3 that you felt had the, the aura of Fellini? Which one was it?

Oh, well, what about Bang the Drum Slowly? You didn't even like that? De Niro, Gardenia, Moriarty.

No, I, I liked it, but they did not exactly remind me of Tinkers to Evers to Chance.

You are the type of guy, I get the feeling, that enjoys the baseball instructional videos.

But just some of these names I want to just throw out here.

James Avery, Vincent Gardenia, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Shelley Berman, David Schwimmer, Wayne Newton, Kim Delaney, CCH Pounder.

Stephen Root, congrats on the Emmy win.

Elliot Gould, Jeffrey Tambor, Selah Ward, Tova Feldschuh, James Earl Jones, Tess Harper, Kathy Bates, Martin Mull, Cheryl Lee Ralph, Steve Buscemi, Jane Kazmarek, William H. Macy, Bryan Cranston, Christian Slater, Don Cheadle.

And, you know, it comes back.

And Vincent Gardenia, the excellent Vincent Gardenia, as the cop.

You know, "We want you to take a vacation.

We want you to get away." And of course, he goes in the airport, and he does that little, uh, that little, uh, signal with the gun at the end.

[audience cheering] Was it Bad News Bears 2 or 3 that you felt had the, the aura of Fellini? Which one was it?

Oh, well, what about Bang the Drum Slowly? You didn't even like that? De Niro, Gardenia, Moriarty.

No, I, I liked it, but they did not exactly remind me of Tinkers to Evers-

Ugh, I have had no luck lately.

You know, that's how I read it.

And even the scene where Vincent Gardenia is looking at the picture of himself and people, the fact that he, instead of focusing on like trying to get the facts, they're showing him in the movie, taking a moment to look at the picture and deciding if he likes the photo or not.

And so there's a commentary on that.

So I just think these moments are in the movie for a reason.

Well, we should talk about the actress in this movie.

As you were saying earlier, Steve, we have Jeff Goldblum in the film.

Vincent Gardenia, who a lot of you people know from Moonstruck.

Of course, he was fantastic in that film as well.

Their benefactor, a major tobacco producer, is convinced that no town can go cold turkey for long, and he uses every possible manipulative device to make a smoke-filled room out of every room.

This is written by Norman Lear, and starred Dick Van Dyke, Bob Newhart, Jean Stapleton, Vincent Gardenia, and many, many more.

Can we watch this?

I'd watch it.

But incredible, incredible work.

So, but I also do want to mention, I often wonder while I'm watching, I often wonder like when, back in the early seventies, when these shows first aired, did they ever get confused by the fact that Vincent Gardenia played three separate roles, separate roles that, that, They never acknowledge like he's the guy who sells the house to the Jeffersons.

So he's the neighbor who sells the house to the Jeffersons.

And then, of course, he shows up with Betty Garrett as the Lorenzo's as the next door neighbor.