NEW YORK – It’s a first for “The Sopranos” – a gay mobster. On last Sunday night’s episode, capo Vito Spatafore was caught in a compromising position with a male security guard – definitely not the kind of behavior that would go over well with the oglers at the Bada-Bing.

“It adds a lot of depth to the character,” actor Joseph Gannascoli, who plays the newly outed mobster, told the New York Daily News.

In the real mob, being gay can add real depth – about 6 feet underground.

Vincent (Vinny Ocean) Palermo, former boss of New Jersey’s DeCalvacante family, said to be the model for “The Sopranos,” testified last week there is one way to handle gay gangsters: Kill them.

“What’s the rule … about this?” federal prosecutor John Hillebrecht asked the mob turncoat on Wednesday.

“You die,” Palermo replied.

That was the punishment meted out to DeCalvacante wiseguy John D’Amato in 1992, whom Palermo ordered whacked after being told his underling had rendezvoused with another man at a swingers club.

Over lunch at a Brooklyn restaurant, Gannascoli took pains to point out he is not gay – adding just as quickly, “Not that there is anything wrong with it.”

“My problem is, I love women,” he said.

Gannascoli did say he relished the challenge of playing a homosexual. “It was my idea many years ago to have my character be gay, having read and known about gay wiseguys,” he said. “I want to be effeminate but knockaround.”

Still, Tony Sirico, who plays Paulie Walnuts on the show, grabbed Gannascoli by the arm last week and asked: “You okay with this? You want me to have a talk with (the show’s creator) David Chase?”

Gannascoli knows he’s in for a little ribbing or worse.

“I’m going to have to deal with a lot of grief in the neighborhood. I’m a little worried about how my family is going to react,” Gannascoli said.

, just as his elderly father walked by a window of Paneantico, a bistro on Bay Ridge’s bustling Third Avenue.

“But I wanted to really act,” he added. “I don’t want to just play mob guys for the rest of my career.”

Gannascoli refused to reveal whether Vito will face repercussions, saying only, “In the mob, it’s about money.”

—

(c) 2004, New York Daily News.

Visit the Daily News online at http://www.nydailynews.com/

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

—–

PHOTO (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099):

ENTER TV-SOPRANOS

AP-NY-05-06-04 0950EDT

Copy the Story Link