Marisa Tomei Talks Life and Love With Don Rickles
The woman with a smile that melted a thousand hearts is at an A-list party in Hollywood. Movie-industry moguls. European princesses. Celebrities galore. And what does she remember most about the evening? Being insulted by a man more than three decades her senior.
Academy Award winner Marisa Tomei, who got started on the soap opera As the World Turns and shot to fame as a cheeky auto mechanic in My Cousin Vinny in 1992, says the maestro of humiliation singled her out during just such a gala some years ago. And it was not just any insult he threw at her. It was the sort of insult that only a family member or close friend could get away with. At that moment, she realized something. She had arrived in Hollywood.
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Still single at 52 (and loving it), Tomei marvels at how long Rickles has been wed to the same woman, shares the best and worst advice her mother ever gave her, and offers to swap stories about the best strip clubs in the old neighborhood. Don tells her who not to marry, what happens when you do ethnic humor, and how they did boy-girl fight scenes in the old days.
And, yes, Tomei’s smile still shines as bright as ever.
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The series was produced by AARP Studios, Winbrook Entertainment and Stamper Lumber Company.