Chazz Palminteri
(Director)

Chazz Palminteri is best known for his performance in A Bronx Tale, a script he wrote and performed on stage in Los Angeles. When he moved the show to New York, it played for four sold-out months and earned him nominations from the New York Outer Critics Circle for both acting and writing. While in New York, he adapted the show as a screenplay that was chosen by Robert DeNiro for his directorial debut, with Palminteri as the star. His second play, Faithful, won him the Los Angeles Dramalogue Award for acting.

As an actor, Palminteri was nominated for an Academy Award® for his portrayal of a gangster with an unexpected flair for drama in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway. He also won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor and earned Screen Actors Guild and American Comedy Award nominations. His other film acting credits include Faithful (which he also adapted from his play), The Usual Suspects, Jade, The Perez Family, Mulholland Falls, Diabolique, Analyze This and, most recently, Down to Earth, with Chris Rock and Eugene Levy.

On television, Palminteri portrayed Mob Boss Paul Castellano in TNT's Boss of Bosses, and, in the cable film Excellent Cadavers, he starred as famed Sicilian prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, who pursued the Mafia and was ultimately assassinated. Palminteri's first foray as a director came on an episode of the critically acclaimed cable series Oz.

In 1996, Palminteri received the Leadership in Entertainment Award from the Coalition of Italo-American Association Inc. and was honored by President Bill Clinton with a Special Achievement Award for the Performing Arts from the National Italian American Foundation in Washington, D.C. In addition, Palminteri was recently named the National Spokesperson for the Cooley's Anemia Foundation, leading the fight against Thalassemia.