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Calogero, where did we fail you?
http://www.newsday.com/news/printed...yc-nynews-print
December 11, 2005
Actor Lillo Brancato Jr.'s own Bronx tale certainly was not what his movie father Lorenzo Anello would have wanted for him.
Brancato, 29, one of two men from Yonkers allegedly involved in the fatal shooting of a city police officer yesterday, made his professional acting debut as Robert De Niro's son in the film "A Bronx Tale."
In the 1993 movie, De Niro stars as Anello, a blue-collar father aiming to keep his son from a life of crime and befriending a Mafia kingpin. Having earned the role of 17-year-old Calogero Anello, thanks to his audition impersonations of De Niro's earlier film roles, Brancato's character pursues the Mafia lifestyle until his mobster mentor is killed.
But in real life, Brancato - who later played a young gangster killed on the television series "The Sopranos" - seemed to be living a sad tale.
"He's not the same person he was in the 'Bronx Tale,'" said Paula Izurieta, 25, who lives on Resby Way in Yonkers, across from Steven Armento, who police said was with Brancato during the shooting.
Police said Brancato and Armento, 48, were coming out of a house on Arnow Place in the working-class Pelham section of the Bronx when confronted by Officer Daniel Enchautegui, 28, who lived in an apartment next door to the house and who believed a burglary was going on there.
One of the men allegedly fired at Enchautegui, mortally wounding the officer in the chest, police said. Enchautegui fired back several shots, wounding both suspects, before succumbing to his injury. Brancato and Armento were both in serious condition at Jacobi Medical Center and facing multiple felony charges, police said.
Frank Capra, the actor who played Calogero at age 9 in "A Bronx Tale," once lived with his family in the same house in which Enchautegui was renting an apartment. Capra's family moved away in 1999, but his autographed portrait adorns a wall in a nearby barber shop.
Brancato, a native of Colombia, has two prior arrests, both in Yonkers, police said, one for criminal mischief in 1994 and the other in June after he was allegedly found with four bags of heroin.
Armento has a criminal record dating back to 1976, including on charges involving drugs, criminal trespass, burglary, grand larceny and criminal possession of a weapon, police said. He has served three stints in prison for charges involving drugs, weapons possession or burglary. He was most recently released in 1999 after serving 2 years for criminal possession of stolen property, according to police.
Izurieta said Brancato had dated one of Armento's daughters until recently, but that the two men were still hanging out as friends even after the breakup.
"I always see them together," Izurieta said.
A couple blocks away on Rushby Way, Brancato lives with his adoptive parents, who brought him to the United States when he was 4 months old, as well as a younger brother.
His father, Lillo Brancato Sr., is a contractor who has built several homes in two neighboring cul-de-sacs at the end of Rushby Way, a neighbor said. His brother, Vincent Brancato, had a small part in "A Bronx Tale" as one of the boys who jumped on the back of the bus driven by De Niro, according to a film biography.
Relatives and friends at the Brancato house declined to comment.
Ken Nowak, 41, who lives in the Brancatos' neighborhood, described Lillo Brancato Jr. as a "really nice guy" for an actor with modest success.
"For a guy who worked with De Niro, he was pretty down to earth, didn't seem arrogant or cocky at all," Nowak said. "Never seemed like a troublemaker."
Herbert Lowe is a staff writer and Sarah Garland is a freelance writer. Staff writers Luis Perez and David Lepeska also contributed to this story.
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