Editor’s note: Actor Paul Sorvino has died. The following story appeared in The News Journal on Jan. 27, 2010, after Sorvino visited the BBC Tavern in Greenville to promote a line of Italian-style sauces he was selling at the time.
All eyes are on the door. Whenever anyone walks in, the crowd clustering around the bar immediately zeroes in.
A nattily dressed, stout, sixtyish man with a tan and short, silver hair strolls into the BBC Tavern and Grill. For a brief moment, a collective breath is held and there is more head-swiveling than on a July afternoon on Dewey Beach.
Is it him?
After some neck craning and a good, long, hard look, BBC owner David Dietz, who is standing in a reserved area of the restaurant, says what many are already thinking: “That’s not him.”
The customer, an older man of, apparently, Italian heritage, is not the older man of Italian heritage the bar crowd is hoping to meet.
Actor Paul Sorvino is more than an hour late for his appearance at the restaurant off of Kennett Pike, and his diehard fans are getting a little restless.
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But no one is leaving. Miss a chance to shake hands, get an autograph and update your Facebook page with a photograph of one of the “Goodfellas?” Fuhgeddaboudit.
Sorvino came to the BBC Tavern last week hawking his new line of marinara and vodka sauces. Why Delaware? His company Paul Sorvino Foods Inc. has offices in Newark and Greenville. The sauces, which sell for about $7 a jar, can be purchased at Janssen’s, Zingo’s, ShopRite, Acme, Giant and Superfresh stores.
Dietz says the BBC kitchen staff for the past few hours has been reciting lines from “Goodfellas” and joking about slicing cloves of garlic with a razor blade. It’s one of Sorvino’s memorable moments in the classic 1990 Martin Scorsese movie, as his mob boss character “Paulie Cicero” prepares an elaborate prison feast for jailed wise guys.
Finally, a white stretch limo pulls into the BBC parking lot bringing Sorvino and a small entourage, including one man whom he speaks to in Italian.
In “Goodfellas,” Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill observes this about Sorvino’s character: “Paulie may have moved slow, but it was only because Paulie didn’t have to move for anybody.”
It’s a description that’s still apt two decades later.
Sorvino is a big guy and his height and demeanor are imposing. The trained opera singer has a booming voice, and his warm personality immediately fills the room. (He asks for a glass of San Pellegrino and says he may switch later to “Jack” or perhaps wine.)
Sorvino, 70, says he began working on his food line about six years ago, after meeting Wilmington-based seafood broker Ronnie Robinson in 2003 in Rehoboth Beach. The pair started out selling shrimp, but Sorvino Foods has since switched to pasta sauces that bear the veteran actor’s name and image.
The Neapolitan sauce is a family recipe.
“My father is from Naples,” says Sorvino, a first-generation Italian-American born in Brooklyn. It’s nearly the same recipe he grew up eating. Sorvino says he’s been cooking since he was 12.
The sauce is made with San Marzano tomatoes, olive oil, salt, garlic, fresh basil, oregano and black pepper.
Is it something Sorvino ate on Sundays with his family?
“No, no. Sunday sauce is a meat sauce. This is a marinara, meaning without the meat. This is a Wednesday sauce,” he says, joking.
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Sorvino says the company will soon be developing a line of Sorvino wine, pasta and olive oil imported from Italy’s Puglia region.
Yet, the actor hasn’t abandoned the stage for the stove.
Sorvino says plans are underway for him to play King Lear in an upcoming movie.
“It’ll be with my daughter,” he says, referring to Oscar-winning actress Mira Sorvino, “and Ron Perlman. You know, ‘Hellboy.’ “
