Feb 14, 2001 By ERIC MINK - NY Daily News TV Critic
With anticipation building for the March 4 launch of the third season of "The Sopranos," creator/executive producer David Chase told a group of invited guests at the Museum of Modern Art Monday night that the show's fourth season - scheduled to air in 2002 - would be his last.
Last March, Chase extended his deal with HBO to continue direct supervision of the acclaimed mob-family drama through a fourth season. Published accounts estimated Chase's compensation at $10 million for seasons three and four combined. As part of the deal, HBO's parent company, now AOL-Time Warner, agreed to finance and distribute "If I Fell," a feature film about the music business that Chase would write and direct. An HBO spokeswoman who was present at Monday's museum gathering said that Chase's comments simply "echoed previous reports." Chase's desire to write, film and edit a movie would be difficult to pursue so long as he stayed with "The Sopranos" full-time. The show's production schedule has typically started in August and concluded in mid-to-late spring, although actual filming ends somewhat earlier. Chase's departure from the show would not necessarily mean the end of the series. Rights to "The Sopranos" are jointly owned by HBO and Brad Grey Productions, which could decide to continue production after Chase leaves. The series' late start this year - previous seasons have premiered in January - is reportedly due to Chase taking the time to lay out the broad story lines for both seasons three and four. But the notoriously closemouthed Chase did let one plot detail slip: He reportedly told the museum crowd that he didn't think the show's lead character, Tony Soprano, played by James Gandolfini, should die at the end of the fourth season. 

February 7, 2001: By ASHANTI M. ALVAREZ and JUSTO BAUTISTA
Staff Writers - Bergen Record
PATERSON -- Arson investigators were looking into a fire Tuesday that left one firefighter injured and a downtown restaurant heavily damaged. Firefighters battled smoke, flames, snow, and ice Monday night as they tried to extinguish a fire at the Meson Galicia restaurant at 58-60 Ellison St. Battalion Fire Chief Joseph Guerrieri suffered a possible broken nose when a ceiling fell on him, Deputy Chief James Tasca said Monday. Guerrieri, head of the ambulance division, was treated at the scene.

Meson Galicia is adjacent to Paterson's historic district and near the Passaic County Government complex. It specializes in Spanish and Italian cuisines. "It's been in the city for quite some time," said Deputy Fire Chief Joseph Pellegrino. Only a few months after its April 1999 opening, a film crew from the HBO drama "The Sopranos" used Meson Galicia as a location for the North Jersey-based series. The restaurant's real name appeared in the TV show, a distinction from other locations whose names are scrapped for fictitious businesses. 

1-14-2001 The School of Visual Arts in New York City recently invited its alumni and friends to a dinner that will honor Federico Castelluccio. It reads, "Please join fellow grads and the SVA family in Little Italy for the Honorary Alumni Award Celebration honoring 1986 Illustration graduate, artist, and actor Federico Castelluccio (a.k.a. Furio).

You can check out the actual invitation via this link. To preserve its visual quality I did not use heavy jpeg compression when creating the image. It may take a few additional moments to load. Note the "bullet holes" in the invitation! 

By PAULO LIMA, Staff Writer - The Bergen Record

A typical injury for most Satin Dolls customers might be a sore neck from craning to observe the entertainers. But a New Milford man is suing the popular Lodi go-go bar made famous by "The Sopranos," contending he hurt his neck and back in the rush to escape a fire there in 1999.

In his suit, Gary Aschenbrand, 46, contends that the Route 17 business was negligent for not providing enough emergency lighting to safely guide customers to exits.

"It's an arson and he was there as a business invitee," said Aschenbrand's attorney, Gary A. Werner of Hackensack. "Plus, they didn't have enough emergency lighting."

Aschenbrand was inside the bar about 5 p.m. May 22, 1999, when a fire erupted, sending more than 60 patrons and dancers scrambling from the building.

"As I made a turn around the bar, I ran into a stool and got my legs all tangled up and went down because I couldn't see," Aschenbrand said Thursday. "That's where I stayed for about 30 seconds while I was getting trampled on by who-knows-how-many people."

Route 17 remained closed for about two hours while about 150 firefighters from Lodi and surrounding towns fought the blaze. The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office arson squad determined the fire had been intentionally set, although nobody has yet been charged with the crime.

Aschenbrand said the spill left him with fractured vertebrae in his back and neck, which he said has rendered him unable to work. The fall also aggravated neck and back injuries he said he suffered in a 1996 car accident.

The go-go bar is regularly used to film scenes for the popular HBO television series "The Sopranos." The bar's name in the program is Club Bada Bing.

The club was crowded with patrons the day of the fire because it was a Saturday afternoon and management was holding a special event, Aschenbrand said.

"They called it a gala affair because it was their anniversary or something,"he said. "I was driving down Route 17, saw the neon lights, and I wanted to go in.

"If my girlfriend found out, it might create some problems," he said. "But at this point, I'm so hurt that I don't care." 

The Associated Press
NEWARK -- The award-winning HBO series "The Sopranos" could soon have a new home in New Jersey.

In the few days since Essex County officials barred the series from filming scenes on county-owned property, three other counties have said they would welcome the show.

The invitations were made after Essex County Executive James W. Treffinger and Sheriff Armando Fontoura rejected HBO's application for a permit to shoot three days and nights of gunfight scenes in the South Mountain Reservation.

The decision was partly made out of safety concerns, but due in large measure to displeasure with the show's portrayal of Italian-Americans. These concerns, though, have not deterred officials in Passaic, Union, and Middlesex counties from expressing an interest in the show.

Joseph DiVincenzo, president of the Essex Board of Freeholders, said the issue will be discussed when the panel meets today.

DiVincenzo said Monday that he supports the ban, but would like the county to adopt a detailed policy on film shoots that will balance the concerns of anti-defamation activists with First Amendment considerations.

HBO and the New Jersey Film Commission declined to comment on the matter. 

From The Bergen Record

Tony Soprano muscled in on our turf Monday night.

Usually, a television writer has to do as much digging as a federal agent to learn the whereabouts of the Mafia boss, but on Monday evening, the elusive Mr. S. came to us.

Well, actually, he came to Solari's restaurant, just half a block from The Record on River Street in Hackensack. But Tony's associates -- the folks who make the hit HBO drama "The Sopranos" -- did park some of their trucks in The Record's lot.

Not that anyone was willing to spill his guts to the hometown newspaper. In fact, co-producer Henry Bronchtein got a bit testy when a Record photographer tried to get a commemorative shot for today's paper.

Given the code of silence that "Sopranos" creator David Chase enforces, it was difficult to learn much about the context of the scene being filmed.

It involved James Gandolfini's Tony and Federico Castelluccio's Furio (the show's Italian-import enforcer) coming out of Solari's wearing overcoats and Santa Claus hats -- and looking quite tipsy.

The two then piled into a livery cab in the Solari's parking lot, as a small group of onlookers watched from across the street.

We also know that "The Sopranos" had spent most of the day filming in Lodi, at Satin Dolls, which of course doubles for the show's famed Bada Bing club. After sundown, Gandolfini, the Park Ridge native who won an Emmy for playing Tony this fall, and Castelluccio, the Italian-born, Paterson-bred artist/actor who plays Furio, stole into Solari's, which is located in the shadow of the Bergen County Courthouse (and just up the street from the county jail).

Regardless of what it was all about, the folks at Solari's, a 60-year-old Hackensack institution, were elated.

"I've worked here 28 years, and this is the first time I saw something like this happen," waiter Dimitri Noceski said.

"It's a thrill, an absolute thrill. A monumental night for Solari's," owner Marco Solari added. He explained that representatives of "The Sopranos" just showed up one day, started taking pictures of his restaurant, and asked if he'd be willing to let them film a scene there.

As luck would have it, he's a "Sopranos" fan.

And why did "The Sopranos" pick Solari's?

"Because of the proximity to Satin Dolls, and also, it had a very kind of a classic New Jersey restaurant exterior," location manager Mark Kamine said Monday.

The background actors began showing up at Solari's around 4:30 Monday afternoon.

Most had come directly from Satin Dolls -- including Lillian Baerga and Jenny Lee Stern, who play bartenders; Rocco Fazzolari, a union official (Local 122, United Industrial and Service Employees Union), who does acting on the side and had served as the stand-in for Castelluccio earlier in the day; and Vinny De Vingo, who occasionally works as the stand-in for Tony Sirico's Paulie Walnuts character.

"The Sopranos" returns for its third season in early March. There's no word yet on the air date for this episode, but Solari says he plans to throw a party that night. But it will have to be somewhere other than his restaurant. Solari's doesn't get HBO. 

By WAYNE PARRY, The Associated Press

Tony Soprano got whacked in his own back yard.

Two of Essex County's top officials have banned the award-winning HBO series "The Sopranos" from filming scenes on county-owned property, partly out of safety concerns, but due in large measure to displeasure with the show's portrayal of Italian-Americans.

When HBO applied for a permit to shoot three days and nights of gunfight scenes in the South Mountain Reservation, County Executive James W. Treffinger and Sheriff Armando Fontoura found it an offer they could easily refuse.

"I have no intention of granting a permit for our taxpayer-owned facilities for a profit-making enterprise which depicts an ethnic group in stereotypical fashion," Treffinger said Saturday. "While everyone in America has a First Amendment right to put forth any work, no matter how obnoxious some people may find it, that does not entail the automatic right to use public property to perpetuate harmful stereotypes."

Treffinger, who is half-Italian, and Fontoura, who is Portuguese but grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Newark, cited safety reasons in denying the permit. They noted that a deer hunt is going on nearby and said they worried that noise from the actors could disturb neighboring residents.

But they also admit they don't like how the show, about a fictional mob family in New Jersey, portrays Italian-Americans.

"The county executive and I have concerns over what the show is about, how it portrays an ethnic group in such bad light," Fontoura said. "Most of my friends are Italian. That's not the Italian-Americans I know."

Fontoura said he travels all around the country. When he introduces himself as the sheriff of Essex County, invariably the reaction is, "Oh, that's where the Sopranos are from!"

"I get that all the time," Fontoura said. "I'm constantly having to defend my county and state. I don't think the show is good for Essex County. It's not accurate. That's not what we're all about."

And so far as applying for permission to film here in the future is concerned -- forget about it. Treffinger says he'll never approve a permit for the show to use county-owned property.

Essex County is a favorite location for the show; Tony Soprano, the fictional mob boss who's the star of the show, lives in North Caldwell, which also is creator David Chase's hometown.
HBO spokeswoman Tobe Becker said Essex officials cited the deer hunt in denying the filming permit, but never mentioned an objection to the show's content.

The show is beginning to see a backlash among civic and government groups. The organizers of this year's New York City Columbus Day parade refused to permit "Sopranos"-related floats. And William Paterson University withdrew permission to let the show film on campus after a professor protested.

This isn't the first time Essex County has gotten involved in a flap over the content of a program being filmed there. In 1990, it sued state Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Wilentz after he prohibited the filming of "Bonfire of the Vanities" at the Essex County Courthouse.

Wilentz said the film could hurt minorities' confidence in the legal system, and prohibited all filming in state courthouses. The county sued, and recovered $250,000 in fees it said it lost from the canceled filming. 

A "SOPRANOS" actor may have aided an international con man accused of stealing $1 million from wealthy victims in the Hamptons by passing himself off as a Rockefeller last summer, The Post has learned. It's just one strand of a network of bizarre connections between the Emmy-winning HBO series and the criminal underworld.

John Cenatiempo, 39, a bit actor, stuntman and technical adviser on "The Sopranos," "Fifteen Minutes," "True Romance," "Carlito's Way" and other movie and TV dramas, is a friend of the man arrested under the name Christopher Rocancourt, a smooth-talking grifter who allegedly posed as a member of the wealthy Rockefeller clan.

Rocancourt allegedly went on the lam in August after posting $45,000 bail. He is now being sought by the NYPD, LAPD, Suffolk County authorities, the U.S. Marshals Service and the FBI.

Law-enforcement sources told The Post that Cenatiempo played what may have been a decisive role in springing Rocancourt from custody. They also believe he may have had contact with the fugitive since he's been on the run.

The French-born con suspect was arrested by East Hampton police Aug. 2 and charged with skipping out on hotel bills at the Pink House in Amagansett and the Mill Garth Inn.

The tangled saga of his alleged grifting activities was still unfolding, and detectives still had only a vague idea of his true identity when he made bail and was freed.

He had been using the names Christopher Rockefeller, Rocancourt, Lanancourt and other identities. Cenatiempo, acting on his friend's instructions, fetched from the alleged con man's TriBeCa loft a passport with what was then purported to be the suspect's true identity: Fabien Ortuno.

It was under that name that he was released on $45,000 bail after the passport had been surrendered to East Hampton police. But Ortuno was just another false identity - another con. The suspect has not been seen since.

"The passport was the key. It made everyone feel a little more confident that we had his real identity and that he was less likely to flee," a source in the Suffolk County District Attorney's office told The Post. "Without the passport, he would probably not have made bail."

CENATIEMPO is also a friend of mob attorney Bruce Cutler, who happens to be Rocancourt's lawyer and has represented John
Gotti.

"I know Johnny in another context altogether from my representation of Mr. Ortuno. I know him from my appearance on 'Fifteen Minutes,'" said Cutler, who has a cameo in the upcoming Robert De Niro movie.

"He is a great guy. A wonderful guy. He's a good friend. John is a very talented actor, writer, technical adviser. He has been in a lot of movies. He does everything," Cutler said.

Asked how Cenatiempo could have fetched a passport for his friend without realizing it was in a false name, Cutler said: "Well, the authorities say his name isn't Ortuno. That's what they say. I don't know."

The con man and Cenatiempo are believed to have met in Los Angeles when Rocancourt was working scams in Hollywood.

In February, Rocancourt hosted a party for Cenatiempo at the Duane Street restaurant City Hall. Several members of the "Sopranos" cast and crew attended.

Rocancourt allegedly skipped on the bill for the party, which totaled tens of thousands of dollars.

Over the summer, Rocancourt is alleged to have stolen $900,000 in a series of scams aimed at wealthy Hamptons summer residents, including several stock schemes and real-estate cons.

In his entourage was his exotic Filipina wife, Pia Reyes, a former Playboy centerfold, their 3-year-old son, Zeus, an attractive blond companion named Laurent and a personal assistant, Dante Daniello. Pia and Laurent left for France with the child after Rocancourt's arrest. Daniello was arrested and is awaiting trial for grand larceny and other alleged crimes.

"We know that Mr. Cenatiempo knows Mr. Rocancourt and visited him in the Hamptons during the period he was victimizing people," said a source familiar with the investigation. "But we have no evidence that he is involved in any criminal activity."

The same source told The Post they suspect Cenatiempo was involved in setting up two contacts with the fugitive for reporters from The New York Times.

One was a short message, published in a Times story, claiming he's in Venezuela. The other was a lengthy telephone interview in which he claimed to be in another English-speaking country.

Cenatiempo has been involved in numerous movies, several with a mob theme. He has played wiseguys in "The Sopranos," NBC's "Witness to the Mob" and in the movies "The Last Boy Scout" and "Enemy of the State."

It's a world he's likely intimately familiar with.

His brother, Chris Cenatiempo, is regarded by federal investigators as an associate of members of the Genovese crime family. In particular, he's an associate of Joseph G. Denti Jr., a soldier in the clan and son of one of the family's most colorful figures.

JOE DENTI SR. was a Bronx loan shark in the '70s who befriended a number of struggling actors, including Joe Pesci, with whom he forged a close friendship.

In the early '90s, Denti moved to Beverly Hills, rented a $9,000-a-month mansion from Charo and financed a movie-production company.

He made murky business arrangements with United Artists that netted $17.5 million, and produced a movie, "Opposite Corners," that sank faster than a chocolate soufflé.

When Denti died of a heart attack in 1996, Pesci, Cher, De Niro and Cathy Moriarty were among the Hollywood figures at his Bronx funeral.

Neither John nor Chris Cenatiempo responded to repeated calls for comment.

Cenatiempo is not the only "Sopranos" actor to come to the attention of authorities over real-life crime links.

Mob busters have a 1990 surveillance photo of David Proval, who plays Richie Aprile on the HBO hit, with reputed Gambino soldier Vinnie Artuso on Arthur Avenue in The Bronx.

Tony Sirico, who plays Paulie Walnuts, has admitted having a rap sheet.

And last April 12, Thomas Bifalco, who has played small roles on the show, was sentenced to up to six years behind bars for ripping off investors for $300,000 in a stock scam.

An HBO spokeswoman insists the show's gritty realism comes only from the imagination of creator David Chase. But mob insiders say some of the characters and incidents seem taken straight from little-known mob lore.

A one-armed wiseguy from Queens who was mentioned in one episode apparently was a reference to Queens-based Gambino soldier Ronald "Ronnie One Arm" Trucchio. Paulie Walnuts suns himself outside a social club right on the sidewalk, as does Gotti's brother Richard.

And Junior Soprano, played by Dominic Chianese, meets with underlings at his doctor's office.

Insiders say that's a reference to John Gotti's son, John A. "Junior" Gotti, now serving five years for racketeering. 

Friday, November 3, 2000
By CHRISTOPHER MUMMA
Staff Writer - Bergen Record

OK, let's get something straight.
"The Sopranos" is a highly popular television show about a clan of fictional and dysfunctional
North Jersey gangsters. Danny Provenzano is the real thing, authorities say, an associate of the North Jersey-based Genovese crime family and a nephew of the infamous former Teamster leader Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano. He is accused of once ordering that an employee's thumb be broken with a hammer.

So what were Provenzano and Vincent Pastore -- better known to "Sopranos" fans as the very
dead "Big Pussy" Bompensiero -- doing in the kitchen of the South City Grill in Rochelle Park on
a recent Monday night? Rehearsing, actually. And doing their best to further blur the lines that separate fantasy from reality with Provenzano's latest movie, "This Thing of Ours." The movie is being shot in a variety of North Jersey locales, from a watch warehouse in South Hackensack to the Hoboken Social Club to both South City Grill locations, in Rochelle Park and Mountain Lakes. It's about a group of high-tech mobsters who jam a satellite and make off with $2 billion. But it has plenty of old-school stabbings, shootings, and garrotings. It is also clearly Provenzano's most ambitious movie. After spending years making straight-to- video classics such as "Vampire Vixens from Venus" and "The Regenerated Man," the Upper Saddle River resident is looking more like the Hollywood player he intends to become.

"This Thing of Ours" features Pastore, Danny Aiello, Chuck Zito (from the HBO series "Oz"),
longtime mob character actor Frank Vincent, and comedian Pat Cooper. Joe Perry of Aerosmith
is writing a musical score for the film, which Provenzano co-wrote. Provenzano is directing,
producing, and acting in the movie. Last month, Provenzano spent a week in Toronto, shooting scenes for action star Steven Seagal's latest movie, "Exit Wounds." "I play a crook," Provenzano said, laughing. "Can you believe it?"

As he faces the prospect of a trial on a 44-count state racketeering indictment, Provenzano, 37, is
enjoying the company of actors who have made careers out of playing gangsters. He is going to
the fights with the likes of Pastore and Steven Tyler, the Aerosmith lead singer.

Seagal recently flew to New Jersey on the spur of the moment to join Provenzano, Pastore, and
the rest of the crew in Mountain Lakes. Patrons stopped and stared at the sight of the two stars.
Waiters placed quiet calls to friends, urging them to stop by. "Danny is a good friend," said Seagal. "He's been making low-budget films. I'm trying to get him involved in some bigger-budget projects."

"I met Danny a few years ago and we became instant friends," Pastore said. "When I heard about
the film, I called him up and asked if I could be in it."
Patrons of the restaurant, as well as a few local police officers who were there to supervise
shooting scenes, probably didn't recognize Provenzano or another interesting figure at the table:
John "Sonny" Franzese, the 81-year-old reputed capo of the Colombo crime family. Franzese is an
associate producer of "This Thing of Ours" and has a financial stake in the picture. Last year, a state grand jury indicted Provenzano, charging, among other things, that he ordered his associates to beat and gouge the eye of one man and crush the thumb of another with a hammer. They said he also tried to seize control, through threats and intimidation, of a Franklin Lakes insurance company owned by a childhood friend awash in gambling debt.

Provenzano, who is free on $1 million bail while awaiting trial, has long denied that he is associated with organized crime. But that seems slightly less plausible considering the presence of
Franzese, who has long been regarded by mob historians as one of the toughest gangsters to ever
hit the streets and has been in and out of prison for much of the last 30 years.

Franzese was greeted like royalty on his arrival at the Rochelle Park restaurant. He seemed
particularly pleased to see Pastore. Franzese is no stranger to the entertainment industry, authorities say. He once had a piece of Buddah Records -- a home for a time to the Isley Brothers -- and also had a stake in the pioneering porn flick "Deep Throat." Organized-crime investigators say they often see the entertainment industry and the underworld intersect. "There is still a glamorous mystique surrounding La Cosa Nostra," said Robert Buccino, the former deputy chief of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau in the state Division of Criminal Justice. "You will always have people attracted to it -- especially people in the movie industry."

Before retiring in September, Buccino was involved in the Provenzano investigation. He declined
to speak about the charges, except to say that "the indictment speaks for itself." Buccino, though, said the intersection of the two worlds concerns him. "We spent 30 years fighting the mob in New Jersey," the veteran investigator said. "Then along comes something like 'The Sopranos' that wipes a lot of that progress out." For his part, Provenzano seems determined to tinker further with the distinctions between what he says are truth and fiction. "You see this scene where we beat this guy up over $182,000?" Provenzano says, pointing to the script. "Where do you think we got that? I'll tell you -- it's counts 30, 31, and 32 of the indictment."

And consider Pastore, the 54-year-old New Rochelle, N.Y., native who is a member of the so-
called G.A.G. -- the Gangsters Actors Guild. Because they portray unsavory characters, Pastore
and several other "Sopranos" regulars were banned from riding on a Columbus Day parade float
in New York last month. "It's a joke," a grumpy Pastore said. "They don't want to have anything to do with gangsters."

Even fictional ones, apparently. But cut the parade organizers a break -- it's getting harder and
harder to tell the difference. Pastore plays a club owner in the film, a role that isn't much of a stretch for him. He owned a nightclub in New Rochelle before being coaxed into acting late in life by actors Matt and Kevin Dillon, who lived in town. He said any rumored similarities between Provenzano and "Sopranos" characters are probably coincidental. "But you never know," said Pastore. "They've got to get these stories from somewhere. They ain't just pulling them out of a hat." Zito, something of a New York legend for a 1998 brawl with Jean-Claude Van Damme at a strip club, said he is familiar with Provenzano's reputed associations but had no qualms about working with him. Zito is a member of the Hell's Angels, and his move into acting began with a turn as bodyguard to stars such as Sylvester Stallone. "Don't believe everything you read," Zito said as he lounged on a pile of boxes in a South Hackensack watch warehouse. "I know that 99 percent of the stuff they have written about me is b.s." The actors and crew are currently plowing through a 30-day shooting schedule, filming primarily at night. They are hoping to finish production by January. Provenzano says he has lined up distribution for a theatrical release, but he is circumspect about the details.

One thing everybody likes talking about, though, are the scenes involving gunfire. Because the
principals enjoy using the fake guns, those scenes are taking much longer to complete, said Ted
Bohus, Provenzano's longtime collaborator. "Somebody has got to explain to me why these shooting scenes require nine, 10, 11 takes," said Bohus, smiling. 

Thursday, November 2, 2000
By SCOTT FALLON, The Bergen Record
Staff Writer

WAYNE -- Tony Soprano can get into the top restaurants, go-go bars, and Mafia dens in North Jersey. But even he and his cronies can't get into William Paterson University.

School officials said Wednesday that they have canceled the filming of scenes of the Mafia-based television show "The Sopranos" at the campus library next week strictly because of "scheduling conflicts."

But the decision comes after a few staff members asked school officials to cancel the shooting because they say the show perpetuates negative stereotypes of Italian-Americans.

Even before producers approached the university to film on campus, a campuswide lecture titled "Desperately Seeking Real Italians: An Antidote to 'The Sopranos' " had been scheduled for Friday.

"As a state university, I don't think we should allow a show like this to use our space," said Susanna Tardi, an associate professor of sociology who is giving the lecture. "I objected strongly to it, and last I heard, it was being reconsidered."

Arnold Speert, president of the university, maintained that canceling the event had nothing to do with Tardi's and others' objections. He said the producers wanted to film a segment around 7 p.m. on an undisclosed day next week when the library is usually at its busiest.

"It's just the wrong time to use the library for something like this," said Speert. "It's a time when commuters, professors, and others have to do research. We didn't want to disrupt that."

The show's producers could not be reached for comment, said an HBO spokeswoman. Information regarding how the university would have been compensated for use of its library was unavailable.

Film industry sources said the scene will now be filmed at Baruch College in Manhattan next week.

The critically acclaimed television show has drawn the ire of a number of Italian-American groups in North Jersey and throughout the nation.

Demonstrators have protested in front of HBO headquarters in Manhattan. The cast was banned last month from participating in New York's Columbus Day Parade, after it had been invited to ride on a float.

At the time, a coalition of Italian-American organizations said the show "is guilty of damaging the image and character of an estimated 20 million Italian-Americans by using their religion, customs, and values in a violent and immoral context."

Tardi agrees. She wrote a letter last week to the president of HBO asking for some balance on the show. "I don't think that the average person watching this show is thinking, 'This is how the Italian Mafia is.' They're thinking, 'That's how all those guineas are,' " she said, using a demeaning term that mimics the show's coarse language. "They don't show how there are actually Italian-Americans who don't support the Mafia.

"What average family has their mother putting a contract out on them?" she said of one of the first season's plot points.

The show, whose third season is being filmed, depicts the struggles of Tony Soprano, patriarch of a North Jersey Mafia crew and his own blood family. Though many of the characters are involved in supporting illegal activities, there are some Italian-Americans who are portrayed as legitimate business owners and professionals, such as restaurant owners and psychiatrists.

Many scenes are filmed at North Jersey locales including the Great Falls in Paterson and the Wayne Towne Center mall.

Tardi's lecture, which begins at 7:30 p.m. in the library auditorium, focuses on the history of the media portraying Italian-Americans in a negative light.

When she heard that the show was scheduled to be filmed on campus, she and at least one other staff member complained to university brass.

"We have a mission statement about fostering diversity here," said Tardi, whose grandparents hail from Naples and Sicily. "If they film, we would not be fostering diversity. This distorts what the Italian-American community actually is."

Staff Writer Scott Fallon's e-mail address is fallon@bergen.com 

Oct 3, 2000 - An actor was seriously injured on the set of The Sopranos last week when he was accidentally hit in the eye with a golf club, according to New York Daily News gossip columnist Mitchell Fink. Vinnie Orofino, cast as a character named Bryan Spatafore, was struck by Brian Tarantina, who plays Mustang Sally.

It seems that the two actors were involved in a scene in which Tarantina was supposed to take a swing at Orofino with the club. But Tarantina was supposed to miss him. To make it look as though Tarantina actually struck Orofino, the production crew was to shoot a close-up of a prosthetic head being hit.

Orofino, who also works as a member of the Sopranos production crew, is at home recuperating from the accident. Sources tell Fink it is possible that Orofino may lose sight in his injured eye.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for HBO tells Fink that Orofino will not suffer any permanent damage. "He received medical attention and is expected back at work this week," the rep says.

No word on whether Orofino plans to take legal action against