[SPEAKER_06]: Hi everybody, welcome once again to the Stevie B Show. I'm Stevie B and I have a very special guest with me tonight, Mr. Frankie Ambergamo. How you doing Frankie? Not too bad Steve, how's everything? Everything's going fine. I'm going to tell an interesting story before we continue. I had you on my show back in 2012 and we taped the show and it was shown a couple of times and then the studio closed up and The show ended up getting lost, pretty much. We never could get the show back. So after five years later, I wanted to have you back on the show. Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you. Because you've been a good friend of mine for so long. Thank you very much for having me. We're going to do the show again. Now, Frankie, you... You have an interesting story. You used to work as a mailman, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I was a supervisor in the postal service. I started off as a craft employee, you know, car carrier. And after about 88 years, I went into, I was a union rep for about four years. Then I went into management after about my first 10 years of postal service. and after the ten years i went to management and i became a supervisor and i was a manager uh... i was a supervisor at the cf at the forwarding unit where they forward the mail yeah into south post atlantics gmf boston and then i went to harvard square as a manager and central square and then i went to belmont and a few other places and i did my last seven years in the malden post office wow wow i was a supervisor then i retired now how did you get uh... you have an interesting story of how you got into show business yeah you uh...
[SPEAKER_06]: What is, you have a friend named Emeril Lagasse?
[SPEAKER_03]: Emeril Lagasse, Emeril, yeah. What happened was, back in 2004, I submitted a recipe, my meatballs and gravy. We call it gravy, some people call it sauce. I call it sauce, my family is sauce. We talked about that before, that could be a whole show. Yeah, that could be a whole show, it's gravy, it's sauce. So anyway, make a long story short, I submitted a recipe to Emeril, he was having an Emeril's Italian contest. So there was 1,500 contestants.
[SPEAKER_06]: 1500 contestants?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so I sent my recipe in out of my cookbook. As you know, I wrote a cookbook.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I got your cookbook.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so I sent that in, and then I was at work at the time at the post office. I got a call from one of the producers. They said, gee, we've got your recipe and everything for the contest, and you're in the top 100. Wow. So I didn't think nothing of it. A week later, the guy called me again. He said, you're in the top 25, and we'll get back to you. The third call came in. I was the top winner. You were the top? I was the top winner. So they said, we're going to come to Boston. And so they came, they met me in the North End at the Abruzzi Meat Market, where I was buying the ingredients to make the meatballs. Yeah. You know, the fresh hamburger. And so after that, we did that with some walking and talking through the North End. And then we went back to my house in Medford, and I made it live in front of all the whole crew was there. Wow. The Food Network crew. And we stayed about eight hours there. So we're having meatballs and some pasta and a little wine and stuff like that. So we had a good time. A week after that, they flew me and my wife over to the Food Network studio in New York City. And I was on the Emeril Hive show with Emeril Agassi. Oh, wow. And what he did is he picked four winners and he recreates the whole four recipes. And then he called me up to the stove. He says, want to smell the sauce? Come on up. How am I doing? Then after that happened, after that show, I got calls from Boston Casting. They said, we're doing a movie, doing some movies in Boston. We'd like you to come up for an audition. We think you'd be a good fit for this movie. It's with Danny Aiello. It was called Stips.
[SPEAKER_06]: We did that. I think that's when I met you, I think, Stips.
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly. That's where I met you and your father.
[SPEAKER_06]: My father. They use my father more than they use me. He's got the Italian features and I don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's a nice guy, your father. Nice man. So after that happened, the first movie was Stiffs, then the second movie was The Game Plan, then Pink Panther 2, Mulk, all those. And after about the sixth or seventh movie, I started getting waivers and I joined SAG. And now up to 2018, I've been in 52 movies.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's including some independent films and a few other movies. Mostly big major films, you know? I believe it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, we're going to take a look at the footage of you on the Emeril Lagasse show. Yeah. So, we're going to see Frankie with... Bam! Okay? Let's take a look at that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hi, Emeril. I'm Frankie Bergamo from Boston's North End, and I'm going to show you how to make Frankie's gravy. One of my fondest memories was when my mother was frying the meatballs on Sunday mornings. The aroma from the meat that we buy here at Frank's. Morning, Frank. How are you? Morning, good morning. How are you? I'm going to make a gravy today. I just need two pounds of hamburger, all beef. The Italians that live in the South Shore call it sauce. Are you ready for the sauce? Most of the Italian people that live in Boston, not then, would call it gravy. I don't know how that happened, but that's the way it is.
[SPEAKER_04]: So we got Frankie Imbrogamo, his lovely wife. Welcome.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Good to have you. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Welcome. So I'm gonna try to make Frankie's gravy now. And I've got the ground meat. So every Sunday you make this?
[SPEAKER_03]: Every Sunday.
[SPEAKER_04]: Good, every Sunday I'll start coming over. You're welcome.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anytime.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, now what we're gonna do, folks, is we're gonna mix all these ingredients together. And then you gotta have a lot of sauce and a lot of gravy, and you gotta have a lot of cheese to go on top, right? Great, great job. Super job. Hey, folks, we're gonna dish this up to the audience here. When we come back, you'll meet the next winner. Stick around.
[SPEAKER_06]: of a You said you've been in 52 movies. Have you met many famous people?
[SPEAKER_03]: I've met Adam Sandler, the whole group of grown-ups. I stayed with them for three or four days, working in grown-ups one. And then I met Adam Sandler, then I met Wilson McCarthy, Sandra Bullock. All the people like that. All the big movies, I've been fortunate. I've got some good scenes with them, you know? Like The Proposal. R.I.P.D. I was with...
[SPEAKER_06]: I did R.I.P.D. at Fenway Park, I remember that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I was in what they called the bullpen at that time. I was a police officer, a 1970s police officer, and they had by decades how many police officers they had in each decade. I was with Jeff Bridges. Ryan Reynolds. I love Jeff Bridges. They give me a whole month. I worked there for a whole month.
[SPEAKER_06]: I remember one story. Jeff Bridges, he always went during the set, during breaks in the set, he would always go up to the young ladies and say, how are you doing girls? How are you doing? Funny guy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, nice guy. Yes, I met a lot of Danny Aiello stiffs. I met The Rock. Yeah, I met... I met Kevin Hart recently. We did Central Intelligence up in Somerville at Tavern on the Hill, that bar. So I met him in there. I just recently met Will Ferrell and a couple of the ones in Daddy's Home, too. I think it was... Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg was there. I was talking to him for a while.
[SPEAKER_06]: I have an interesting story about Will Ferrell. When we did Daddy's Home 2 at Logan Airport, I was in this. There was an extra there, his name was Billy. He had Down syndrome and Will Ferrell came up to him between takes, had his picture taken with him. Will Ferrell was a nice guy. Very good guy. Listen, we're going to take a look at your demo. We're going to look at some of the things you've been in and then we'll talk more with you, okay?
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure, I appreciate it. Jesus Christ, Lord. This guy comes in here every friggin' day and gets into my meatballs.
[SPEAKER_02]: How come he never pays? Who is he?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a new kind of Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. Oh yeah? Yeah! Yankees-Red Sox scratch games from the Connecticut Lottery.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey Frankie, I ordered the chicken parm with extra cheese.
[SPEAKER_03]: Annie, today's your lucky day, because I've got a deal for you. How about if I give you this sandwich, filled with lovin' from the oven, and you agree to go out with me?
[SPEAKER_01]: How about this, Frankie? I'll agree to pay you double for the sandwich, and you'll agree to leave me the frig alone! Mr. Trombone, where are you on family values?
[SPEAKER_02]: Peace Forum. Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_06]: Man, you've been in a lot of things, Frankie. That's amazing. Who would have thought that you were a mailman at one time and now you're a big movie star? Look at this. He's even on the cover of this magazine right here. Imagine Magazine. You appeared in Patriots Day, Manchester by the Sea, Ghostbusters. I've been in 17 movies myself but you've been in 52. Wow.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a lot. Sometimes what happens is they start calling you. You might do like 10 movies in a year. One year I did 13 movies.
[SPEAKER_06]: Boston right now is like, because of the tax breaks, a lot of production companies come here. It's been on a lull right now because of the, lately. Okay, we did Stiffs, I remember that. Yeah, Danny Aiello was a nice guy. I went up to him and I said, Danny, I'm a big fan, my favorite movie with you is 29th Street.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I love that, that's one of my favorite movies. That's one of my favorites, me and my brother.
[SPEAKER_06]: If you guys ever see a Danny Aiello movie, rent 29th Street. Excellent, excellent movie. Maybe it's on Netflix, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anthony Rapalio, he was good too, he played a good part.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, you recently were in a movie that you actually starred in. What's it called? DJ Stand the Man.
[SPEAKER_03]: DJ Stand the Man. And I play a photographer, one of the lead roles. And the story is written by Matt Fisher. He directed it and wrote it. Did a great job on the story. The story goes about this DJ. He's a washed-up DJ.
[SPEAKER_06]: Are you the DJ?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I'm not the DJ. I'm the photographer. I'm the photographer that works with the DJ. It's about the wedding business. It's about a washed-up DJ. 30 years ago, he was a rock star DJ. And now he gets small gigs and small money, small weddings. But in his mind he still thinks he's like the best. He's very bitter and he starts trouble with people. People like the mother and father of weddings. He fights with his staff like myself. It's a good story behind it and it's a good movie. We had the premiere about a year and a half ago in the Arlington region. We had about 400 people, 500 people. And then we had an after party at Bocelli's in Medford. We had a couple hundred people downstairs in the back there. They took care of us, it was a good after party. And then recently, after that we had a screening in Belmont. That was about six, maybe eight months ago. And then recently, now last week, we just had a, two weeks ago, we had it at the Capitol Theater, the screening.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, wow.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a smaller theater, because for people who didn't see it, like, so he wanted to get a smaller venue, a smaller, there was only about 100 seats, but it was good, there was like half of it, it was good, it was a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was a lot of fun? Yeah. So who else stars in the movie?
[SPEAKER_03]: Chase Carson plays the DJ. He's actually a real DJ. He's on WMFO, Tufts University. He's got his own show on Friday nights at 10 o'clock. It's called The Time Tunnel. So he's a real DJ. But anyway, who else is in it? There's Eddie Nason, there's Tyra Pell, Alex Hawke.
[SPEAKER_06]: I know Alex. I know Alex. We did Arsenic and Old Lace back with the Mystic Players. It was one of the last shows we did with the Mystic Players back in 2006. Alex is a good guy.
[SPEAKER_03]: You might know Heidi Rhodes is in it too. She was in the movie Kahn. She was with Bob DiCicco and the other guys, yeah. She's been around. She lives in California now, but she did a good job. So we had a lot of fun doing that. He's gonna put it out in festivals and he does other movies. He's been doing some other movies too. Matt Fisher, you know him? No, that one's... Yeah, so we might be doing another movie pretty soon.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, are they holding auditions or anything?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I don't know what he's doing yet. He said he's going to get back to me and see, but he's definitely going to do some movies. But he didn't hold any of this shit. I'll let you know if you're interested.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, definitely. Listen, we're going to show a clip from DJ Stan the Man. Okay. And we're going to take a look at it and enjoy. DJ Stan the Man.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have to hit me. And you don't have to be a ... but you are constantly. I'm just telling you. You don't have to hit me. You ... my face. It's just a black eye. I looked in the mirror, you f***ed my face, people gonna notice. Tell them you walked into something. Who am I, Tina Turner? Tina Turner? Rihanna, is that better? Oh yeah, that's good. There's nothing funny about abuse. I can have you arrested, you know. It's just a black eye. Yeah, Calvin, it's just a black eye. I mean, come on, look at Stan. He's got two of them. There you go. If anybody says anything, just say, hey, you should see the other guy. That's not fucking funny. I need my eyes, both of them, to take pictures. You don't need both your eyes. You close one when you look through the hole.
[SPEAKER_05]: Close the black one.
[SPEAKER_02]: You think it's that easy?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, I do. Oh wow.
[SPEAKER_06]: Wow. So how long is the movie going to be before it comes to DVD?
[SPEAKER_03]: He said the end of April he's doing a box set because last year he got the five main characters and we did a documentary on how DJ became, how the people got together. So he did a little documentary. Everybody did 30 minutes each segment. So he put it together and made a documentary. And now he's going to have a box set with the DJ movie and the documentary. So it'll probably be on iTunes or it'll be on Amazon. It'll be coming out, I think, at the end of April. Wow. I'll let you know. I'll put it on Facebook. You'll see it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, definitely. I'll definitely want to see it. Yeah, I want to see the movie now.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll get you a copy anyways.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, definitely. Now, do you have any, like, since you've been in so many movies, is there, like, any good stories you can tell about, you know, certain actors or certain things that have happened, or directors, or is that confidential?
[SPEAKER_03]: American Hustle, I did American Hustle. I was the waiter. I saw you in that. I served the food to Jennifer Lawrence and Christian Bale. That particular movie, we had a lot of fun. It was done in Worcester in a restaurant. And so I had a lot of fun doing that. I met David O. Russell. I actually made some eggplant parmesan for all of them.
[SPEAKER_06]: You made eggplant parmesan for David O. Russell?
[SPEAKER_03]: David Russell, yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: I made three trays.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, Angela Perry is a good friend of mine.
[SPEAKER_06]: Angela.
[SPEAKER_03]: So Angela asked me. So I did it. They were very great, very nice people. I had a lot of fun with them. We went to Angela's house and we had a good time. I can tell you a funny, I'll tell you a story that's, I was in my car. I just got done with the Proposal movie. That's the Sandra Bullock movie. Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. This is at the time... What was her name? His wife that he married there.
[SPEAKER_06]: Ryan Reynolds? Yeah. Scarlett Johansson.
[SPEAKER_03]: Scarlett Johansson, right. So Scarlett Johansson... I'm in my car, it's in the car and it's raining and I can't see and she's knocking on the window. She comes out, Scarlett Johansson. She goes, do you know where Ryan Reynolds is? I said, yeah, his bus, his trailer's right there, I'll show you. So I got out of the car and it was raining, I had an umbrella and we walked over to the trailer. She just flew in from California, she had like two dozens of roses, it was his birthday. So she flew all the way from California and she wanted to give him roses. So I sent her the trailer. But the roses weren't for you? That was a good story, exactly. I was shocked when I saw her. I said, Scarlett Johansson was knocking on the window. And I said, gee, that's Scarlett Johansson. And I was in a private lot. The movie was probably roped off. But then I just walked her over to the trailer. And she said, well, thank you very much. But it was an interesting story that someone would do something like that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Any other story you want to say?
[SPEAKER_03]: Melissa McCarthy, I've talked to her, she's very nice. I had a long talk with her, and we talked about food. And she wanted some, and I gave her a list of restaurants.
[SPEAKER_06]: When you're Italian, that's when you talk about food.
[SPEAKER_03]: She knew I was from the North End originally, so I gave her some, I made a list of North End restaurants that she visited. So she was very, she was nice. And Sandra Bullock. Most of them are very nice people.
[SPEAKER_06]: I haven't had... Was there like one star that was really, as you say, like a jerk or anything? You don't want to say that sometimes?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, it's okay. I really didn't find it much. I know there's a few, but nothing to me.
[SPEAKER_06]: I, the first movie I did was Celtic Pride, which was 1994. That's a long time ago, yeah. It was one of the last things done at the old Boston Garden. Yeah, right, right, right. And, you know, I was, you know, and I remember these extras, the crowd, right? Matt, no, Damon Wayans was shooting, he was playing Louis Scott, and they were, They looked at, he was shooting baskets, and the kid said, we love you, Damon. And he turns around, and I love you, too. Well, I can tell you a funny story. Most of the time, you're not supposed to talk to them because they're working.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, they say that, but that's not really true. I'm glad you brought that up. They say, as long as you don't initiate the conversation with the actors. Like Adam Sandler, I was walking and he called me over. He goes, come on, we're going to go upstairs and play basketball at the YMCA with grown-ups. I was in three or four days, so one of the days we had a film at the YMCA in the South End. So on the break, there was Chris Rock, David Spain, and myself. We played basketball upstairs. So he called me over. I didn't ask him if I wanted to go play basketball with him, but we did on the break. It was about an hour.
[SPEAKER_06]: Adam Sandler invited you to play basketball.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. So I was on his team. It was me and Adam Sandler against Chris Rock and David Spain. Adam Sandler was a good shooter, he was making all the baskets.
[SPEAKER_06]: Kevin James was in that movie too, wasn't he?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, he was. He's the guy that wasn't too popular. I don't know why, just a lot of people didn't care for him.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. Frankie, what other projects are you working on now?
[SPEAKER_03]: Pizza makers, we're going to be doing, right now we have to go on a hiatus.
[SPEAKER_06]: I actually had your friend Chris Palermo. The first show I did when we came back, Chris Palermo does that show. He showed a clip of Pizza Makers.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, good.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was funny. You were doing like this funny dance with this meatball. I was just dying laughing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that was funny.
[SPEAKER_06]: That was a good one.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the last episode we did, I think, yeah. He's supposed to be doing a short film.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then he wants to put it out in festivals. So I don't know if he's going to continue with the episode. We did 12 episodes. He may be doing more episodes. He's going to make a decision on that pretty soon, he said. He wants to get, he's on, right now, you know, he's on the radio every day. So he's busy with that right now.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. Now you mentioned your screen actor, Gil, right? Yeah, I'm with the screen actor. Yes. Is it, easier do they do companies production companies like film companies tend to hire more union than non-union do you find that?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like a 50-50 thing. I don't think they hire... Well, it depends on the budget of the people who are running the movie, you know? Because if they can get non-union actors for sharp money, then that's what they do. But most of the big movies, 90% of the big movies, are Screen Actors Guild members. Oh, wow. Well, I always tell people, if you get waivers, you should join SAG, because instead of making 100 bucks a day for a movie, you could make 700 to 800 a day.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, they have residuals too, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because after eight hours you get over, time and a half, and after ten you get double time, and then after like 15 hours, you call golden time, it's like $150 an hour or something like that. Wow. So, I've gone there twice. Once I got it in Ted, the movie, we were at the aquarium. Yeah. And we did overnight, so we took golden time. And then I got it again, one time, again in another movie, I think it was Ghostbusters, we did.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't care what anybody says, I loved the female reboot of Ghostbusters. I thought it was great. It's not the original, nothing can beat the original, but Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, and I think Kay McKinnon stole the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: She's so funny, I like her, she's good. I was talking to her, I met her, she's very nice. Yeah, so most of the big movies, we have the Pizza Makers, the DJ Stan the Man, and the big movies, I'd say recently, I'm in two movies that didn't come out yet. One's called Catcher is a Spy with Paul Giamatti and Paul Rudd. That's coming out, I think, in May. April 6th, this weekend, April 6th is Chappaquiddick is coming out.
[SPEAKER_06]: You did that?
[SPEAKER_03]: I did that, yes. I played part of the Mary Jo Kopechny family. They put us in a 1970s suit and we're at the funeral scene. Not a pallbearer but we had to mingle in with the family and say I'm sorry. Things like that. It's going to be a good movie I think. Jason Clarke's a nice guy. I met him.
[SPEAKER_06]: Jason who?
[SPEAKER_03]: Jason Clarke. He plays Ted Kennedy. He's a good actor.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've definitely got to see that.
[SPEAKER_03]: He looks like him. I think when he was younger.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, Frankie, I gotta tell you, it is a pleasure to have you on.
[SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate you having me. It was very nice of you.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was nice. We had fun. Like I said, I've known you... We go back a long way. We go back a long way, from Stiffs to the old station, all that stuff. Like I said, I wanted to have you back on.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want to appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_06]: And hope we'll see you in a future movie as well. And that's all the time we have, so I want to thank my friend Frankie Ambergamo for coming and hope to see you on the next episode of the Stevie V Show. Until then, so long.