Biography for
Vincent Gallo More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

11 April 1961, Buffalo, New York, USA

Nickname

Vinnie
Vince

Height

5' 11" (1.80 m)

Mini Biography

Vincent Gallo, a man of many talents, was born in Buffalo, New York. He is a middle child, who was born in April 1961. Both his parents had emigrated from Sicily. He has said that "only real Italians are from Buffalo."

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. A bohemian dresser, he is also good friends with producer Rick Rubin, John Frusciante, and Johnny Ramone, among others. His father however, kicked him out at the young age of 16, he 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, co-founding under the name, Prince Vince. He first began painting, then racing motorcycles, and finally became an actor. His most notable work is Buffalo '66 (1998), a sort of biographical movie he wrote himself, and the score, and of course, directed it. He's been in a band with Lukas Haas, called Bunny. Even though they are no longer together, he put out his own CD under Warp simply titled "When".

He's modeled also, most notable was for Calvin Klein. He 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. A man who hates many, Vincent Gallo has an underground cult. Of late he has been working on his second directorial feature, The Brown Bunny (2003). He recently released "Recordings of Music for a Film", which is some of his older music work remastered. A lover of the finer things in life, he adores women, but can't seem to find the one he's looking for, and he will ever be known as the man of many talents.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous

Spouse

?	(1984 - ?) (annulled)

Trivia

Known for his outspoken views and the outspoken way of speaking them out.

Announced engagement to New York writer Bethany Ritz. [April 1999]

Attended Sweet Home Central Schools, New York. [1979]

He writes for a magazine called Sound Practices.

Has over 5700 videotapes.

Called off engagement to writer Bethany Ritz. [April 2000]

Is a big music enthusiast. Is often quoted as saying he owns over 15,000 albums.

Was in an experimental noise band called Gray with New York artist Jean Michel Basquiat in the early 1980s. They played at all the most popular punk rock/new wave clubs in the city, including Max's Kansas City, CBGB's, and one (now famous) night at the Mudd Club. They broke up soon after and Basquiat became famous.

Childhood idol: Chris Squire, bass player of Yes.

Released an album (titled "When") on the Warp label in 2001. He composed, performed and produced all the music on the record.

Parents emigrated from Sicily.

Co-founded the NYC Breakers.

Son of Janet Gallo and Vincent Gallo Sr.

Was a hip-hop breakdancer in the early '80s as evidenced in the DVD "Graffiti Rock".

Was engaged to Italian actress Asia Argento in 1998.

Italian-American.

Divides his time between Los Angeles and NYC.

During his late teens he fled to Europe alone and ended up spending a year traveling around France, Spain, Great Britain, Portugal, Sweden, Russia, Denmark and Italy.

The Italian rock band Timoria named the song "Vincent Gallo Blues" after him.

Surprisingly chose not to direct his third film "April" (2006). Instead, he gave the job to filmmaker Sage Stallone after viewing the short film "Vic" which is known to be one of his favorites.

Very good friend of Lukas Haas and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Close friends with Tobey Maguire.

Personal Quotes

"I stopped painting in 1990 at the peak of my success just to deny people my beautiful paintings. And I did it out of spite."

"I don't trust or love anyone. Because people are so creepy. Creepy creepy creeps. Creeping around. Creeping here and creeping there. Creeping everywhere. Crippity crappity creepies."

"I'm the happiest the saddest guy in the world can be."

"I came to New York to be a legend, and within five minutes of realizing I was an interesting kid and other people thought so, I had given myself a nervous breakdown. I was 26 years old before I knew what it was like to have an ordinary day."

"I'm not a very popular person. I was pushed to show the unfinished version of Brown Bunny in Cannes, against my judgement. And even though a lot of negative reaction to the film came from not setting up the presentation very well, I still felt responsible and disturbed. But Europeans are animals. Who cares?."

There's nothing self-gratifying about knowing you've played a performance where people may easily dislike the character and associate it with you. There's nothing fun about having people suspicious about why you're making work. I'm clearly not networking or making a bid for popularity. I'm following another motivation, and it's not as a provocateur. It's because I'm blinded, like an idiot, by wanting to preserve and express an insight that I have, or an aesthetic that I believe in. I forget that people react to me personally as the representative of that. Did you see a credit for hair and makeup? How can I be a narcissist? I've never even had hair and makeup done for me on a film. I don't even know what I look like as I'm filming. - on being called a narcissist.

"Early in elementary school I had a very small moment where I had a different face - a little nose, straight, blond hair. I had a lot of response, from older women and little girls. But at some point when I transformed into a less [attractive] person, I decided to push away my feelings, to protect myself in order to avoid rejection."

"I don't drink any coffee or take any drugs and I don't smoke cigarettes and I don't eat sugar and I don't take any medicine at all. I eat a lot of fish, vegetables, and I stay away from starches. I'm not so sure my eating behavior is responsible. I look like someone who takes drugs, so I refuse to take even aspirin in order to contradict my appearance. But I like the color brown. Oh, and I don't eat dairy. And I sure do like the color brown.  And pink.  Pink and brown. If I had to choose, pink would lose."

"I never wanted to be an actor. I never want to be an actor. I want to be a movie star. The whole idea of having to act is too gruesome. It's too ambitious for me."

"I told you, I'm an extremist. Even in art, if my work wasn't 50 times more interesting than me and my petty life, it would be useless."

"I'm not an artist, I'm a hustler. As a hustler I've done many things. You should really believe it when I tell you that, 'cause I'm not being sarcastic. I'm a total hustler. What that means is I've hustled to make a buck and I've hustled to change the world and I've hustled to take revenge - but it's always hustling. I've never had a career or a single goal. I've never been formally educated. To get things together, to make a living, I constantly have to hustle."

"I'm so in love with the United States. Not as a patriot. I'm in love with America like it's my first girlfriend. The geography, the people, the smell, the touch, the taste, the gas stations. I'm madly in love with America. Madly in love. And I was the guy that people used to say, "He's so European." I mean, I never felt like that. I don't relate to those monkeys. I just can't relate to them. I'm a super American--Captain America."

"Well, if you want to be an actor, move to a major city, either in L.A. or N.Y. and every day do as many things as you possibly can to reach that goal. But make sure that goal is set so high, that if you reach one-tenth of the goal, you've gone a long ways. Fantasize and believe that you could star in a 100 Oscar-winning movies, and just work for that every day. Let's face it, most people want to be actors because they want unconditional love and power and money and to be able to act out a character fantasy that involves themselves.  So if one is truly honest about themselves in that way, then you're on the right path.  If not, the process becomes convoluted.  You have to go out grab it, and demand  it. That's my advice. " - His advice to struggling actors.

"I did my first job as an actor and my first role was in 1978 in Rome. I did a play with an Italian actor named Victor Cavallo who worked with Bernardo Bertolucci. After that I was very much a part of the New York performance art and underground theater and movie scene, so it's been quite awhile. But always very peripheral."

"The good thing about bicycling is that, since I'm a public figure, I don't have to interact with people. If I walk from here to West Broadway, 50 people will stop me. On my bike, I can just wave. More public figures should ride bikes. It's a good way to deal with people."

"My parents took an interest in nothing, at home no books, no records. My mother and my father are the emblem of indifference, dryness and bad taste. My father is also terribly stingy, in life as well as in feelings: I have never seen him filling up the bathtub. To save, he used to put the water 4 inches from the bottom. At home everything was ugly, casual, lacking in love, from furniture to clothes, to behaviors..."

"I became an actor, because of Danny Bonaduce on the "Partridge Family". He's tremendous, so funny and brilliant, and we seemed around the same age, I felt I should be on a show with him. We could have done a good spin-off, "the Danny Bonaduce, Vinnie Gallo show", da-da-da-da- da di da da."

"I feel very happy that Bush is our president. One way that you can tell we have a good president, is by how much the French dislike him. The more the French hate him, the better he must be. And they hate this one."

I sold The Brown Bunny camera package because I had organized it so methodically, so precisely, that I couldn't let anyone touch it, scratch it, or break it up. I just had to get it out of my life. The package was sold to Sage Stallone who's one of my favorite people in this whole world, one of the smartest, young, goofy kids I've ever known in my whole life. So it went to like my hero.

Salary

Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby (1999)	$150,000
Truth or Consequences, N.M. (1997)	$100,000
The Funeral (1996)	$20,000
Palookaville (1995)	$10,000
Arizona Dream (1993)	$30,000

Where Are They Now

(March 2002) working on second directorial movie "The Brown Bunny". Lives in N.Y.C and L.A .

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