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Name: Vincent Gallo
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Date of Birth:
April 11, 1962
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Place of Birth:
Buffalo, New York
Mini-bio:
Steely-eyed and greasy-haired with an adventurous taste in fashion, Vincent Gallo has certainly achieved some level of name recognition for his arrogant eccentricity. Notorious for talking about himse... read morelf at great length without ever really saying anything of consequence, he's become something of a hipster icon to legions of fans. Though claims about his home life are dubious, he was born in Buffalo, NY, as the middle child of Sicilian immigrants. Playing in garage bands at an early age, he ran away to New York City at 16 and proceeded to seek fame and fortune by hanging out with the right people. Working as a musician under various names and in numerous bands, he showed his paintings in trendy N.Y.C. galleries and made the short film If You Feel Froggy, Jump. Appropriately, his first film appearance was as himself for the New York Beat Movie (1981), starring painter Jean Michel Basquiat and other big-name art scenesters. This was followed by an appearance in the New York underground film The Way It Is (1984), starring a young Steve Buscemi and Rockets Redglare. Gallo started acting as a TV guest star to make money and also fell into modeling for the same reason, becoming a fixture in Calvin Klein advertisements for clothes and fragrances. After playing the lead in the little-seen Doc's Kingdom, he made brief appearances in the films Goodfellas, The House of the Spirits, and The Perez Family. During this time he also started working with French director Claire Denis, who cast him in the short film Keep It for Yourself, the made-for-TV U.S. Go Home, and its follow-up feature Nénette et Boni (1996).Back in the States, he played more significant roles in Arizona Dream, with Johnny Depp, the crime comedy Palookaville, and Abel Ferrara's The Funeral. After starring in Kiefer Sutherland's directorial debut Truth or Consequences, N.M., he released his own independent debut, Buffalo '66. Made with a budget of 1.5 million dollars, Gallo wrote, directed, starred in, and composed the music for this largely autobiographic comedy drama. Certainly not ignored by critics or festivals, Buffalo '66 gained him a solid fan base as well as a boost to his music career. He then formed the short-lived band Bunny with Lukas Haas and released two solo albums on Warp records. Continuing his acting career opposite young attractive actresses, he starred in the crime drama Freeway 2: Confessions of a Trickbaby, with Natasha Lyonne; the Spanish drama Stranded: Náufragos, with Maria de Medeiros; the thriller Hide and Seek, with Jennifer Tilly; and the romantic comedy Get Well Soon, with Courteney Cox. He also reunited with director Denis for a lead role in the strange sex horror film Trouble Every Day, opposite Tricia Vessey. In 2003, he made his second effort as writer/director/star for The Brown Bunny with Chloë Sevigny, which premiered to much derision at the Cannes Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
Vincent Gallo mini-bio: Vincent Gallo was born in Buffalo, New York on April 11, 1962, a middle child. Both his parents had emigrated from Sicily. He has said that "only real Italians are from Buffalo."
After his father kicked him out of the house at the age of 16, Gallo began living in New York City, and from there traveling around most of Europe, only to find himself back in the wild scene of New York under the name, Prince Vince.
He has been in many bands: The Plastics, Pork, Bohack, Gray - in which Jean Michel Basquiat was one of his band members, and good friend. He is also good friends with producer Rick Rubin, John Frusciante, and Johnny Ramone, among others. He first began painting, then racing motorcycles, and finally became an actor. His most notable work is Buffalo '66 (1998), an autobiographical film which he wrote, directed and scored. He's been in a band called "Bunny" with Lukas Haas. Even though they are no longer together, Vincent put out his own CD under Warp Records, titled "When".
Gallo has modeled, most notably for Calvin Klein. Gallo was going to be in a movie about Charles Manson, playing the man himself, but clashed with the people behind it, something he is notorious for doing. In 2002 he released "Recordings of Music for a Film", which is some of his older music work remastered.
A war of words erupted between Gallo and popular critic Roger Ebert in 2003 regarding the latter's negative criticism of The Brown Bunny at the Cannes Film Festival. Ebert wrote that The Brown Bunny was the worst film in the history of Cannes, and Gallo retorted by calling Ebert a "fat pig with the physique of a slave trader." Ebert then responded, paraphrasing a statement once made by Winston Churchill that "although I am fat, one day I will be thin, but Mr. Gallo will still have been the director of The Brown Bunny." Gallo then put a hex on Ebert's colon, cursing the critic with cancer. Roger Ebert then replied that enduring his colonoscopy would be more entertaining than watching The Brown Bunny. Later on, Gallo told Ebert that he had been misquoted, and he had actually wished him cancer of the prostate and not the colon.
