IT AIN'T THE OLIVE GARDEN

What's Italian? The Olive Garden? Chef Boy-r-dee? Everyone loves pizza, pasta and The Godfather. Maybe everyone's part Italian, but there's more to it than that, shidrool.

Here's an interview with professor Fred Gardaphé, director of Italian-American Studies at Stoney Brook. His books include Italian Signs, American Streets: The Evolution of Italian American Narrative; Moustache Pete is Dead!; Leaving Little Italy; and From Wiseguys to Wise Men: The Gangster and Italian American Masculinities.

Here Gardaphè comments on America's favorite Italian-Americans, The Sopranos.

Dr. Gardaphé's website: http://www.italianstudies.org/iam/

RICHARD WIDMARK, 1914-2008

Word just reached us that Richard Widmark passed away. Fans of film noir will remember the actor from roles in Panic in the Streets, Night in the City, Don't Bother to Knock, and Pickup on South Street, shown in the clip below. No role is more memorable, however, than his first as Tommy Udo, the giggling psycho in 1947's Kiss of Death who pushes an old lady in a wheelchair down the stairs to her death. He was a good bad guy.



For a list of my all-time favorite Films Noir, click here.