‘The Sopranos’ star Vincent Pastore dies at 80

Vincent Pastore, the highly experienced character actor who rose to fame for his portrayal of Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero, a mafia character and FBI informant, in the award-winning HBO series The Sopranos, has died at the age of 80.

Pastore’s dead body was discovered on Saturday, August 1, 2026, at his Bronx home after three days without hearing from him, reports Deadline. At the time of this writing, the cause of death has yet to be disclosed, and investigations are ongoing.

The veteran actor’s manager, Bob McGowan, has confirmed the news and praised Pastore for being generous and charitable. “Vinnie was a great guy who would help anyone,” McGowan told Deadline. He learned about the death of his client from the actor’s Sopranos co-star and friend, Vincent Curatola, and sent his condolences to his family, per TheWrap.

Born on July 14, 1946, in the Bronx, Pastore had celebrated his 80th birthday less than three weeks before his death. After serving in the Vietnam War, he graduated with a drama degree from Pace University, per Deadline. According to Parade, he also served in the U.S. Navy, as stated on the military service site Together We Served.

After working in the music industry, he decided to become an actor. Pastore ran discos and rock-and-roll bars in New Rochelle, New York, performed in community theater, and worked in film in his 40s, as stated in an interview conducted at HB Studio, where he taught. He revealed that encouragement from Kevin and Matt Dillon, who used to hang out in his bars in the 1980s, pushed him to start his acting career.

In the early 1990s, he portrayed small roles in various crime films like Goodfellas, Men of Respect, and Carlito’s Way. He gained recognition as Tony Scarboni in The Jerky Boys: The Movie (1995) and Angelo Ruggiero in HBO’s crime film Gotti (1996), where he got acquainted with other future Sopranos actors, Tony Sirico, Frank Vincent, and Dominic Chianese, reported TVLine.

1999 became a breakthrough year for him when The Sopranos creator David Chase gave him the role of Bonpensiero, one of Tony Soprano’s oldest friends. The revelation that Bonpensiero was an FBI informant and his killing in the second season finale became one of the most famous moments in the series and kept haunting James Gandolfini’s Tony all those years, noted Parade.

Pastore said that he saw Bonpensiero as a vulnerable character rather than a menacing one. “I saw Big Pussy as a man with a big heart,” he told Edge Magazine in 2014, as quoted by Far Out Magazine. He stated that Chase created a character with qualities of being tough but sensitive as well, and gave an example of a scene in which the character cries in the bathroom at the party. He also admitted that he based his characters not on his upbringing but on his personality, since although he grew up among bookies and loan sharks in his Italian-American neighborhood, he never met any informants.

After graduating from drama school, he continued to work actively. Among the movies he starred in were Mickey Blue Eyes, Two Family House, Riding in Cars with Boys, Serving Sara, Shark Tale, Money Train, Spinning Gold, and Guy Ritchie’s Revolver. On television, he appeared in Law & Order, One Life to Live, The Practice, Hawaii Five-0, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, and Yellowjackets, and became a series regular in Gravesend starting in the third season, as stated by Deadline and Parade.

Moreover, he continued to be a popular participant of reality shows including The Celebrity Apprentice, Dancing with the Stars, Celebrity Fit Club, Celebrity Family Feud, and Shark Tank, per Parade. Later, he hosted The Wiseguy Show on SiriusXM. On Broadway, he performed in Chicago and Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway, and he was co-founder of the Renegade Theater Group along with Maureen Van Zandt, per HB Studio.

He leaves behind his daughter, Renee, Far Out Magazine writes.