Joe Pesci Biography

Joe Pesci is the short, fiery actor who won an Oscar for his supporting role as Tommy DeVito, the funny-but-psychopathic mobster in Martin Scorsese‘s Goodfellas (1990).

Joe Pesci started his entertainment career as a singer in the 1960s. After small roles in the movies, he made a splash as Robert De Niro‘s brother in Raging Bull (1980) and earned an Oscar nomination. He co-starred again with De Niro in 1984’s Once Upon a Time in America, but it wasn’t until the late 1980s and early 1990s that Pesci became a mainstream celebrity, thanks to a screen persona that was by turns abrasive, volcanic and simply obnoxious.

During the 1990s he appeared in some of the hottest movies of the era, including Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2 (1992), three Lethal Weapon movies (1989-98, with Mel Gibson), a rare comedy (and romantic) role in My Cousin Vinny (1992), Scorsese’s Goodfellas and Casino (1995, with De Niro and Sharon Stone) and The Good Shepherd (2006, directed by De Niro and starring Matt Damon).

In 2019 he paired with Scorsese and De Niro for yet another mob flick, The Irishman, and was rewarded with his third Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.