Word: cassisi
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Dates: during 1976-1976
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...upwards of 10,000 kids to fill Bugsy's 200 parts. Children were pulled out of schoolrooms, selected from auditions and video-taped screen tests. They were cast within comfortable proximity of their own personalities. Scott Baio, from Brooklyn, made a handsome, steady Bugsy. The expansive John Cassisi, a neighbor of Baio's from Bensonhurst, was chosen for Fat Sam after Director Parker spotted him in his seventh-grade class at P.S. 201. " 'You,' he says, 'I wanna talk to you,' " is the way Cassisi remembers it. "I thought he was the new dean...
There were only fitful flights of mischief (Baio and Cassisi broke a fire-alarm box that had steel emergency doors slamming shut all over their hotel). The kids responded to Parker as if he were a benevolent older brother but stood just a little in awe of Jodie Foster. At 13, and after ten full-fledged roles in features as diverse as Tom Sawyer and Taxi Driver, Foster (TIME, Feb. 23) was the savviest pro around and regarded herself as such. "I never think of myself as a child actress," Foster says. "Only as an actress...
...went flying. Knocked over about five garbage cans and some ashtrays. Everybody came running, and she was standing there laughing." During shooting of the film's last scene, the pie throwing ran amuck and the kids let fly at everyone. The two hardest-hit were Jodie and John Cassisi, whose impersonation of the blustering, bossy Fat Sam had taken strong root...
Sweet Tooth. The kids went back home at the end of filming with little re-entry problem. They were celebrities among their friends-"I never get tired of people asking me questions," Cassisi claims-and had departed with other dividends besides their salary (an average of $250 weekly for the leads, although all-pro Foster collected more). Scott Baio once saw Glenda Jackson and actually met Richard Chamberlain. "These England people, they were very gentle," John's mother Mafalda Cassisi remembers fondly. Jenkins, who is back now riding his skateboard down Harlem streets, recalls touring Buckingham Palace and learning...
Most, too, acquired a sweet tooth for stardom. Although Florrie Dugger insists that she wants to go into nursing, John Cassisi says that while acting, he was "in euphoria. You know, I'm only 14, and I think I own the picture." He is already talking about turning pro, and so is his pal Scott, who is also keeping a veterinarian career in mind in case things do not work out. This slightly skeptical and eminently practical attitude probably has its origins in Scott's first taste of traditional show biz heartbreak. "You know," he says, "I wanted...