Joe Viterelli

Viterelli was born on March 10, 1937, in New York City and grew up in a tough neighborhood on Manhattan's Lower East Side. He played classical guitar but did not tell his friends about it. "They woulda thought I was a sissy", he said. "I used to save my hard-robbed money and sneak off to Carnegie Hall and Broadway theaters." ==Early career==

While in his 20s, he inherited four music schools in Queens that had been started by his family. "I actually taught classical guitar. But things went wrong. Then I opened a few bars. I drove a truck. I owned a cleaning service. I even had a job drilling holes in bowling balls to feed my five kids." Viterelli moved to Los Angeles in the late 1970s. While living in Malibu, Viterelli became friends with director Leo Penn, who saw the screen possibilities in Viterelli's tough-guy visage. ==Acting==

"(Leo Penn) asked me to be in some movies and TV, but I always declined," said Viterelli. "I said, 'For half my life, I've been keeping a low profile and now you want to put my mug on a 40-foot screen?'" He also appeared in Eraser (1996). Jelly In 1999, he played Jelly, the menacing yet lovable henchman–confidant to Robert De Niro's anxiety-prone mob boss, in Analyze This (1999), costarring Billy Crystal as De Niro's reluctant psychiatrist. When he described Viterelli's Jelly character patiently padding about "trying to deal with the disturbing news that his boss is cracking up and seeing a shrink," critic Roger Ebert wrote, "He lends a subtle dimension to the movie; he gives [De Niro's mob boss] a context, and someone who understands him. The comedy here isn't all on the surface, and Viterelli is one reason why." The sequel, Analyze That, in which Viterelli reprised his role, was his final film. In a Larry King Live interview, Viterelli said that De Niro was the "(e)asiest man to work with in the world," and that Crystal was "the funniest guy I ever met in my life." Staples commercial Viterelli can be seen in a Staples television commercial in which he provides mob-style "muscle" for an office worker who is having a problem dealing with a manager who demands doughnuts and pastry bribes in exchange for dispensing office supplies. The humorous spot, which debuted during Super Bowl XXXVIII, was Viterelli's only commercial. ==Personal life==

"Ninety percent of my fan mail is from kids 6 through 19," he told the New York Daily News in 2000. "They send me graduation pictures and report cards. Look at me, I'm a role model." Viterelli never had an agent or a manager. ==Death==

Viterelli died on January 28, 2004, aged 66, of complications from heart surgery at Valley Hospital in Las Vegas. He is survived by his wife, Catherine, and five children, including his son, the film composer Joseph Vitarelli, who spells his last name differently. One of his children is a lawyer. ==Filmography==