On this date in 1960, actor Stanley Tucci Jr. was born in Peekskill, N.Y., to Joan (née Tropiano) and Stanley Tucci Sr. His mother, a secretary and writer, and his father, a high school art teacher, were both born to Italian immigrants. He grew up attending Catholic services in Katonah, where they were “dutiful, rather than devout” worshippers.
He made his First Communion and was confirmed in the church but said he never really connected to religion: “I just couldn’t get my head around it. It just was so completely detached from my everyday life.” He was fascinated by Native American traditions, which made far more sense to him than the pageantry of the church. (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 23, 2024)
The drama bug bit Tucci early, and after high school he enrolled as a theater major at the State University of New York-Purchase. He worked on Broadway and as a model and made his film debut in John Huston’s “Prizzi’s Honor” in 1985. He had minor and supporting roles in “Monkey Shines” (1988), “Slaves of New York” (1989), the comedy “Fear, Anxiety & Depression” (1989) and played mobster Lucky Luciano in “Billy Bathgate” (1991).
Another role was the dogcatcher Vernon in the family comedy “Beethoven” in 1992. “Because of that movie, I’m a hero to kids,” he told People magazine in 1996. “They all recognize me.” Follow-up roles included “The Pelican Brief” (1993) and the rom-com “It Could Happen to You” (1994).
It was “Big Night” in 1996 that first brought him widespread critical acclaim. He co-directed and co-wrote the script with Campbell Scott and co-starred with Tony Shalhoub in the film about Italian immigrant brothers Primo and Secondo, who open a restaurant on the Jersey shore.
“Big Night” established Tucci’s culinary chops and his heritage, which he expanded on in Nora Ephron‘s biographical comedy “Julie & Julia” (2009), in which he plays Julia Child‘s husband. Tucci had watched Child’s show as a child while his mother cooked traditional Italian dishes.
He later hosted a six-part series on CNN called “Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy,” each episode exploring a different region’s cuisine. He has written two cookbooks and in 2021 published a memoir titled “Taste: My Life Through Food.” While dubious about religion, he said he see how food and faith can both connect the generations. “I’m not a religious person, but if there is one thing that’s holy, it would be food.” (NPR “Fresh Air,” Oct. 5, 2021)
After roles in “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006), “The Lovely Bones” (2009) and three “Hunger Games” films (2012-15), Tucci played attorney Mitchell Garabedian in “Spotlight,” which won the 2015 Best Picture Oscar for its depiction of clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.
Tucci’s latest role as of this writing was his appearance in 2024’s “Conclave” with John Lithgow and Ralph Fiennes portraying cardinals electing a new pope. Isabella Rossellini plays a nun who is their head caterer.
In 2024 he admitted missing some aspects of religion: “Partly the ceremony, partly the gathering together of people. But you can get that all from cooking, right? You can do it around the table, guilt-free.” (The Independent, Nov. 23, 2024)
Tucci married Kathryn Spath, a social worker, in 1995. They had three children: Camilla and twins Nicolo and Isabel and raised Kathryn’s two children from a previous marriage. After she died of breast cancer in 2009, he married Felicity Blunt — the sister of actress Emily Blunt — in a 2012 civil ceremony. Together they have a son, Matteo Oliver, and daughter, Emilia Giovanna.
In his 2021 memoir “Taste,” Tucci told how he lost that sense in 2018 due to oropharyngeal cancer but later recovered most of it. “Until I began to fathom my deep emotional connections with food, I had always thought that the ceremonial eating of the communion wafer, a symbol for the body of Christ, was a strange, almost barbaric, pagan ritual. However, now it may well be the only aspect of Catholicism that makes any sense to me at all. If you love someone, you just want them inside of you. (I know what you’re thinking, but let it go.)”
He mused about religion’s appeal to many people: “[W]e create these ideas of God, or gods, because the world is chaos. It’s to dispel our fears. We have no control over our lives and that causes anxiety. Fear of death is the most potent; we’ve created all these constructs to make ourselves feel better about when we or a loved one dies.” (The Guardian, Nov. 22, 2024)
PHOTO: Tucci at the UK Premiere of “The Little Mermaid” in London; Shutterstock/Fred Duval photo.
