Military service Young served a tour of duty in the
United States Marine Corps from 1957 to 1959; while in the Marine Corps, he boxed regularly, winning 32 of 34 boxing bouts.
Acting Young made his name playing rough-edged working class Italian-American characters, the best-known example being his signature role as Rocky Balboa's friend (and future brother-in-law) Paulie in
Rocky (1976), for which he received an Oscar nomination for
Best Supporting Actor. He is one of four actors (the other three being
Sylvester Stallone,
Stu Nahan, and
Tony Burton) who have appeared in all of the first six
Rocky films (although
Talia Shire, who appears in the first five films, makes a flashback appearance in
the sixth). Young did not reprise his role in the 2015 film
Creed; the character was described as having died in 2012. Young appeared in such films as
Chinatown,
Convoy,
Back to School,
The Pope of Greenwich Village,
Once Upon a Time in America,
Last Exit to Brooklyn,
Downtown: A Street Tale, and
Amityville II: The Possession. Television appearances for Young included
The Rockford Files,
Baretta,
Law & Order,
Walker, Texas Ranger,
All in the Family,
M*A*S*H, and
Miami Vice. He made an appearance on
The Sopranos ("
Another Toothpick") as
Bobby Baccalieri's father, who is dying of cancer and comes out of retirement to execute a hit on his godson, Salvatore "Mustang Sally" Intile, as punishment for Intile having brutally beaten a family friend simply for chatting with Intile's girlfriend. In 1986, Young appeared alongside
Robert De Niro and
Ralph Macchio in a Broadway production of
Reinaldo Povod's play
Cuba and His Teddy Bear. In a nod to his having served in the U.S. Marine Corps, he played a retired
drill instructor in the short-lived 1987
ABC series
Roomies, in which his character decides to go to college after his retirement.
Painting and writing Young was also a painter; his art has been displayed in galleries throughout the world. As an artist, he collaborated with the writer
Gabriele Tinti, for whom he designed the cover for the poetry collection
All Over, as well as contributing the illustrations for the art book
A Man. Some of Young's actual paintings were shown in a scene in
Rocky Balboa when Paulie gets fired from the meatpacking plant. Young was also a published author whose works included two filmed screenplays and a 400-page
historical novel called
Endings. He wrote two stage plays:
SOS and
A Letter to Alicia and the New York City Government from a Man With a Bullet in His Head. ==Personal life==