1. Steve Schirripa is best known for portraying Bobby Bacala on The Sopranos, Leo Boykewich on The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and Detective Anthony Abetemarco on Blue Bloods.
28 Facts About Steve Schirripa
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Steve Schirripa is the voice of Roberto in the Open Season film series.
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Steve Schirripa was born on September 3,1957 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York City.
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Steve Schirripa grew up in a low-income household with four siblings, went to Lafayette High School and graduated from Brooklyn College.
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Steve Schirripa got his first taste of show business in his job as entertainment director of the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
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Steve Schirripa had several minor roles in films, including The Runner and Joe Dirt.
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Steve Schirripa played Baccalieri for five seasons, and for the first two seasons he wore a fat suit to fit the role.
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In 2008, Steve Schirripa appeared on CBS's primetime game show Million Dollar Password, and in 2019, Steve Schirripa appeared on the game show Pyramid alongside Jamie-Lynn Sigler.
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Steve Schirripa made an uncredited appearance along with fellow Soprano star Vincent Pastore on a sixth season episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force entitled "She Creature".
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Steve Schirripa was a frequent guest on the Don Imus radio program.
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Steve Schirripa did spots as "Steve the Judgmental Bastard" on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and taped several episodes of The Gong Show with Dave Attell, as one of the celebrity judges.
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From 2008 to 2012, Steve Schirripa had a recurring role in the ABC Family show, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, as Leo Boykewich, Ben's dad.
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Steve Schirripa was in 2009's My Fake Fiance with Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence as the Monkey.
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Steve Schirripa has appeared on the Tonight Show more than 40 times as a guest and as a correspondent.
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Steve Schirripa hosted NBC's poker game show, Face the Ace, with the premiere episode airing on August 1,2009.
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In 2011 and 2012, Steve Schirripa hosted and narrated the television true-crime series Nothing Personal, which premiered in the US on Investigation Discovery and in the UK on History.
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Steve Schirripa has guest-starred in the American version of Top Gear.
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Steve Schirripa played Sonny Rosselli in A Poet Long Ago, a short film written by Pete Hamill and directed by Bob Giraldi, which gained entry into a number of film festivals in 2013.
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In July 2017, Steve Schirripa appeared in a segment on John Oliver's satirical news show Last Week Tonight satirizing Boris Epshteyn and the right-wing tone of mandatory segments given to member stations by the Sinclair Broadcast Group.
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Steve Schirripa co-hosted a podcast with Michael Imperioli called Talking Sopranos, which began on April 6,2020.
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On September 17,2020, Imperioli and Steve Schirripa signed a deal with HarperCollins book imprint William Morrow and Company to write an oral history of the show; the book titled Woke Up This Morning: The Definitive Oral History of The Sopranos was released on November 2,2021.
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Steve Schirripa said in interviews in 2025 that he would be appearing in some episodes of Dexter: Resurrection.
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Steve Schirripa's acting roles often portrayed "goombas," slang for stereotypical Italian-American tough guys and often denoting connections to the Mafia.
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Steve Schirripa carried that persona over into real life but with a comedic twist, especially in appearances on talk and game shows.
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Steve Schirripa followed up with The Goomba's Book of Love, co-authored with Charles Fleming in 2003.
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Steve Schirripa and Fleming collaborated on two books about Nicky Deuce, a suburban teenager who is sent to visit his grandparents in Brooklyn.
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In 2014, Schirripa launched a line of organic vegan pasta sauces under the business name of Uncle Steve's Italian Specialties Group.
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Steve Schirripa appeared on the Eric Andre Show to promote the sauce.