How Gay Is Vo om The Sopranos? | Observer

Contents:

• HOW GAY IS VO OM THE SOPRANOS?
• JOE GANNASLI DISCS HIS LIFE DURG AND SCE PLAYG GAY MOBSTER VO SPATAFORE ON ‘THE SOPRANOS’
• WAS PHIL LEOTARDO GAY?

HOW GAY IS VO OM THE SOPRANOS?

In 2004, the Season 5 episo "Unintified Black Mal", is disclosed to viewers Vo is fact homosexual after he is seen performg fellat on a secury guard early one morng at the Esplana nstctn se by Meadow's boyiend, Fn De Trol. Vo at the gay bar. Later, that eveng while makg a llectn at a gay bar, two Lupertazzi Fay associat, one named Sal Iaccuzzo, saw Vo dancg provotively wh a gay man.

The Iaccuzzo character was based on real-life Gambo Crime Fay po Matthew Lanniello, who was known to extort and own several nightclubs New York Cy that tered to homosexual clientele.

JOE GANNASLI DISCS HIS LIFE DURG AND SCE PLAYG GAY MOBSTER VO SPATAFORE ON ‘THE SOPRANOS’

Vo claimed that his homosexual behavr had been ed by meditn. Lupertazzi crime fay boss Phil Leotardo, a vilent homophobe, mand Vo's ath, so Tony quietly arranged for Carlo Gervasi to make a h on Vo. It was later revealed that Vo was found wh a pool cue stick his rectum, a msage that he was killed bee of his homosexualy.

Phil Leotardo later told Vo's wife, Marie, that her hband was probably killed by two homosexual transients Vo had picked up at a bar.

Gannasli?In what Gannasli cheerfully lls “the year of the queer,” when “Brokeback Mounta” beme a phenomenon and Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Osr playg Tman Capote, Gannasli’s character (spoiler alert: read no further if you haven’t seen the episo yet) was outed Sunday night on “The Sopranos.”Drsed appropriate leather bar attire, Vo Spatafore — the heretofore closeted gay mobster — was sighted by a uple wiseguys who me by the sweaty S&M jot to llect their protectn money.“It’s a joke,” Vo weakly offers, then begs: “Don’t say noth’!”By the end of the episo, he’s checked to a motel wh a gun, lookg suicidal.Fans of the HBO seri were stunned last season when Meadow’s boyiend, Fn, saw a secury guard stg the driver’s seat of a tck — and then Vo’s head popped up.This season, Vo has hung around the hospal while Tony Soprano was reverg om a gunshot wound, tryg to gratiate himself wh Tony’s wife while plottg wh Plie Walnuts to grab her cut of a big sre. (In real life, he’s down to 260 om a high of 400 pounds.)Now that the gay story le is heatg up, the 47-year-old Brooklyn-born actor is immensely pleased, part bee was his ia to make Vo homosexual.“I saw him as, like, a cross between Mike Tyson and Liberace,” Gannasli told The Associated Prs an terview at his home. “I wanted to make him sort of self-nial, self-loathg, a real gay hater.”Gannasli’s suggtn was spired by the book “Murr Mache,” about the Gambo fay, which had an openly gay member also named Vo.“They didn’t bother him about , bee I gus he was good at what he did, which was choppg up bodi,” Gannasli said.Gannasli nces that he had a self-servg motivatn for makg the suggtn: Breakg out of the pack.“I thought that was a way of separatg myself om the other actors, bee I would have been the background most of the time.

WAS PHIL LEOTARDO GAY?

But even amid all the recent gay buzz, Gannasli knows the reactn to Vo won’t be all posive.“I’m a Brooklyn guy. Gannasli is known to Sopranos watchers as “Gay Vo” (or even GaVo, certa exotic circl).

Gannasli dancg gleefully a biker’s p a leather bar, or gog on the lam to a gay Shangri-La ( this se, “Live Free or Die” New Hampshire) and fallg love wh the handsome mtached ok om the der—“Johnny Cak”—that have given TV viewers that rare feelg that they are watchg somethg new. Sure, there have been plenty of gay characters on televisn before: wacky Jack om Will & Grace, or David, the fsy unrtaker wh the hot p boyiend on Six Feet Unr. But the plight of Gay Vo has stirred up siar feelgs to those viewers felt when they first tuned on Sunday nights 1999 to see a Prozac-poppg Mafia boss spill his guts to his therapist.