I Only Know Who I Am When I Am Somebody Else by Danny Aiello

Author:Danny Aiello [Aiello, Danny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, Movie Star, Actor, Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781476751924
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2014-10-14T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Sergio, Woody, and Madonna

Robert De Niro suggested me for a part in a film he was starring in, director Sergio Leone’s gangster epic, Once Upon a Time in America. I had a small, barely-there role as a police official, but it was worth it just to work with Sergio.

While on set in Italy, and later on when I joined him to publicize the film in Cannes, I soon learned the director was treated like a national treasure. It was unbelievable—everywhere he went, he had a convoy of police cars and motorcycles leading him to his destination. Bystanders shouted out his name as he passed, sirens blasting. I called him “the Italian Santa Claus.”

Sergio was crazy like a fox. He understood English well enough, but he allowed everyone to believe that he didn’t comprehend a word of it. So he knew everything that was going on around him. When I worked with him on Once Upon a Time in America, he asked me to suggest a name for my character.

“Let’s call him Chief Aiello,” I said. I thought, What the fuck, no one knows me from Adam, I might as well use my own name.

While I was in Italy filming scenes with Sergio, I noticed a young actor in the cast who looked familiar to me. His name was James Hayden. I recalled that while I was doing Knockout on Broadway, Jimmy would stop by and watch me working out with the heavy bag onstage at the Helen Hayes Theatre. Back then, he had been pretty green, just a great-looking kid studying to become an actor.

That had been three years earlier, and now he was cast as Patsy Goldberg, one of the young lead roles in Sergio’s film. I didn’t see him much while on set. We didn’t have any scenes together but connected briefly over the days when he visited me during my run in Knockout. I liked what I saw of his work, and it appeared he had a great future ahead of him.

But Jimmy’s story turned tragic. Frankie Gio, a friend of mine from New York, played a heavy in the movie and told me he had to slap the shit out of some kid in the film because the guy was constantly stoned and causing problems on the set. As I listened to Frankie, I realized he was talking about none other than the boy wonder, James Hayden.

Frankie was the wrong guy to get tough with. He was a professional boxer who could hit like a sonofabitch. Frankie also told me that while he was in the process of “correcting” Jimmy’s degenerate behavior, the star of the film yelled out some advice.

“Don’t hit him in the face,” Robert De Niro said. “We’ve got a scene to do, so don’t hit him in the face.” Frankie hit him everywhere else.

I never saw Jimmy Hayden again after Italy, not alive, anyway. Sitting home watching television one night in 1983, I saw him being carried out of a New York apartment building in a body bag.

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