Hollywood Italians: Dagos, Palookas, Romeos, Wise Guys, and Sopranos

From the silent era and The Black Hand (1906) to HBO's hit series The Sopranos, Hollywood has had a love-hate affair with Italian Americans. Now in paperback, Hollywood Italians is a celebration of nearly a century of images of Italians in American motion pictures and their often under-appreciated, underpraised, and truly remarkable contribution to popular culture. Hollywood Italians covers the careers of dozens of stars among them Rudolph Valentino, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, John Travolta, Sylvester Stallone, Marisa Tomei, and James Galdolfini. In addition, the book reviews the work of such Italian American directors as Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese in a fresh light. In all, Hollywood Italians discusses scores of films with a concentration on their literary and European-cinematic roots. The book is capped by a no-holds-barred examination of The Godfather and its two sequels as well as the international television phenomenon The Sopranos.