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Both Palminteri children seem headed for show business. Dante, 16, sings in a rock band. His sister Gabriella, 9, sings and dances and is auditioning for a role in "Annie." Gianna, too, is an actress and producer.
The formal dining room, on the opposite side of the entryway, is also a well-used room. Family and friends regularly gather around the glossy walnut table to clink glasses under the glow of a crystal chandelier from Italy.
In nearly every room are mementos the couple brought home from locations Palminteri's work has taken them.
They found their aged, wood entryway table in Paris while Chazz was filming "Excellent Cadavers." The ceramic cat statues in the dining room also came from France, when "Bullets Over Broadway" opened in Paris.
It's hard to miss the towering Jackson Pollock painting that hangs along the stairway. It's not a real piece by the artist, but one painstakingly reproduced for a scene in the movie "Pollock." It was a housewarming gift from the movie's producer, the couple's good friend Peter Brant.
Chazz, a wine lover and casual collector, built a rustic wine cellar in the basement. He commissioned a mural for its wall, an image that depicts Palminteri, his wife, his dog and his cat wandering along a Sicilian dirt road.
The Palminteris have thrown open their doors to animals — currently three dogs, a cat, a gerbil and a guinea pig. In a family that is willing to rescue everything from retired race horses to hermit crabs, Chazz is partial to the dogs, in particular to two purebred German shepherds — one named Caymus after his favorite vineyard, the other named Kai, after Keyser Soze, the pivotal character in one of his best-known movies, "The Usual Suspects."
With such a lively home, Palminteri needed a quiet space for himself, a place to think, write, rehearse and create.
His second-floor office is masculine and refined, with plush burgundy carpet, hunter-green walls, wood paneling and exposed beams. There he broods over his computer in a leather zero-gravity chair.
He writes in the mornings, when the light is soft and the house hushed. He writes in silence.
"I spend hours up here," he says. "I spend days."
Lately, he's working on a play about wounded soldiers who return home from war. He's doing research, including a recent visit with wounded soldiers in Washington.
More than any place in the house, the room underscores the actor's success. There are the clippings, the scripts in progress, the caricature of him that hangs in Sardi's. The photos of the famous faces he calls his friends — Billy Joel, Cher, Elton John, an old shot of Robert DeNiro cradling Palminteri's then-baby son. The posters that advertised his movies nearly cover the walls — and he's only hung the big hits. "Analyze This." "Bullets Over Broadway." "A Bronx Tale." "The Usual Suspects." "Mulholland Falls."
In that room, a space that could swallow his old fifth-floor Bronx walk-up, he feels grateful. When he stops to think about it.
jill.rosen@baltsun.com
Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts
The formal dining room, on the opposite side of the entryway, is also a well-used room. Family and friends regularly gather around the glossy walnut table to clink glasses under the glow of a crystal chandelier from Italy.
They found their aged, wood entryway table in Paris while Chazz was filming "Excellent Cadavers." The ceramic cat statues in the dining room also came from France, when "Bullets Over Broadway" opened in Paris.
It's hard to miss the towering Jackson Pollock painting that hangs along the stairway. It's not a real piece by the artist, but one painstakingly reproduced for a scene in the movie "Pollock." It was a housewarming gift from the movie's producer, the couple's good friend Peter Brant.
Chazz, a wine lover and casual collector, built a rustic wine cellar in the basement. He commissioned a mural for its wall, an image that depicts Palminteri, his wife, his dog and his cat wandering along a Sicilian dirt road.
The Palminteris have thrown open their doors to animals — currently three dogs, a cat, a gerbil and a guinea pig. In a family that is willing to rescue everything from retired race horses to hermit crabs, Chazz is partial to the dogs, in particular to two purebred German shepherds — one named Caymus after his favorite vineyard, the other named Kai, after Keyser Soze, the pivotal character in one of his best-known movies, "The Usual Suspects."
With such a lively home, Palminteri needed a quiet space for himself, a place to think, write, rehearse and create.
His second-floor office is masculine and refined, with plush burgundy carpet, hunter-green walls, wood paneling and exposed beams. There he broods over his computer in a leather zero-gravity chair.
He writes in the mornings, when the light is soft and the house hushed. He writes in silence.
"I spend hours up here," he says. "I spend days."
Lately, he's working on a play about wounded soldiers who return home from war. He's doing research, including a recent visit with wounded soldiers in Washington.
More than any place in the house, the room underscores the actor's success. There are the clippings, the scripts in progress, the caricature of him that hangs in Sardi's. The photos of the famous faces he calls his friends — Billy Joel, Cher, Elton John, an old shot of Robert DeNiro cradling Palminteri's then-baby son. The posters that advertised his movies nearly cover the walls — and he's only hung the big hits. "Analyze This." "Bullets Over Broadway." "A Bronx Tale." "The Usual Suspects." "Mulholland Falls."
In that room, a space that could swallow his old fifth-floor Bronx walk-up, he feels grateful. When he stops to think about it.
jill.rosen@baltsun.com
Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts
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