LARRY STORCH AND TONY SIRICO
I can still hear Forrest Tucker, playing the manipulative Sergeant Morgan O’Rourke, bellowing, “Agarn!”
As in Corporal Randolph Agarn, his bumbling second-in-command on F Troop.
The satirical American TV Western about US soldiers and Native Americans in the 1860s Wild West, aired on ABC for only two seasons.
It debuted in the United States on September 14, 1965, and wrapped on April 6, 1967, with a total of just 65 episodes.
The first season of 34 episodes was shot in black-and-white; the second and final season was presented in living color.
In spite of its short run, the series–which relied heavily on character-based humor, verbal and visual gags, slapstick, and physical and burlesque comedy–made an indelible imprint on the hearts and minds of its viewers.
I was one of them.
It played fast and loose with it all: historical events, people and comedic effect, spotlighting the culture of the 60s.
The character of Paulie Walnuts–on the hit HBO series “The Sopranos” — with that perfectly coiffed hair replete with silver wings, was no less powerful.
Larry Storch–Agarn, and Tony Sirico–Paulie Gualtieri died this week.
Storch was 99.
Sirico was 79.
Paulie Walnuts–Sirico’s character’s nickname because he once hijacked a truck full of nuts (he was expecting television sets) — was one of mob boss Tony Soprano’s most loyal, ultrasensitive and reckless men.
He was the kind of fellow who might willingly participate in an intervention for a drug addict and, when it was his turn to speak, punch the guy in the face.
He favored track suits, hookers and watching TV, seated in a plastic-covered chair.
Paulie was a bit of a germaphobe; he also had a deep hatred for cats.
Felines.
Not women.
Very peculiar dude.
And he didn’t like getting stuck with a $900 restaurant check–who would?
But he could lustily appreciate sucking the life out of a packet of ketchup on a cold night in the Pine Barrens, when there was nothing else to eat.
A whack-job who did plenty of whacking.
To wit:
When “The Sopranos” cast appeared in a group shot in 2001 on the cover of Rolling Stone, it was Paulie who posed–standing with a baseball bat–casually slung over his right shoulder.
Perfect.
As was Sirico’s hair and mug.
Much like Storch’s comic idiocy.
Which served him beautifully as a nightclub performer and as a character actor on the stage, as well as on big and small screens.
But F Troop was it.
His signature.
O’Rourke was the brains of the operation.
And of their on-screen partnership.
But Agarn’s finely-honed timing was nearly everything.
Along with his mimicry skills and gift for impersonations, which completed the package most admirably.
In various F Troop episodes, he not only played Agarn, but also a host of Agarn relatives who, somehow, showed up at the fort.
From distant locales.
“I had cousins who came from Moscow, Mexico, Montreal,” Storch recalled in a 2009 interview.
The ‘3 Ms’…so far apart, geographically.
And Storch had a secret.
Or two.
Before he and his wife Norma Greve were married in 1961, Greve had a biracial daughter with a Black performer named Jimmy Cross, born in 1954.
Mother and daughter left Mr. Cross but the child, June Cross, was darkly-enough complected, that she could not pass as White.
She and her mother found themselves directly in the crosshairs of racism.
Woeful.
When June was 4, Norma asked friends, a middle-aged Black couple in Atlantic City, NJ., to raise her.
Later, when the Storches were married and living in Hollywood, June would come to visit.
They explained to friends that she was an abused child of former neighbors, and that they had adopted her.
But she lived most of the year with Black friends.
“In those days, people were encrusted in prejudice,” Storch explained to People Magazine in 1996.
“We saw no reason to rock the boat.”
June Cross later became a television producer and then a professor at Columbia University.
In 1996 she told her story in “Secret Daughter,” a documentary broadcast on PBS, which won an Emmy Award.
Storch and Greve’s personal story offered another wrinkle, as well.
In 1948, years before they were married, they had a daughter whom they put up for adoption.
After Ms. Cross’ documentary aired, the Storches and that daughter, Candace Herman, were reunited.
Sirico grew up in Bensonhurst, “where there were a lot of mob-type people,” he said in 2001 during an interview with Cigar Aficionado.
“I watched them all the time, watched the way they walked, the cars they drove, the way they approached each other.
There was an air about them that was very intriguing, especially to a kid.”
He was drawn in.
Hook, line and sinker.
Armed robbery, extortion, coercion, and felony weapons possession charges followed.
So did convictions.
It was while serving 20 months of a four-year sentence at maximum-security Sing-Sing, that Sirico saw a troupe of actors, all ex-cons, ply their craft.
They were there to perform for the inmates.
And it changed the direction of his life.
His focus, too.
“When I watched them, I said to myself, ‘I can do that,’” he told the Daily News of New York in 1999.
In the 1970s he achieved modest success, and with more than a decade of small television and movie roles in his pocket, capped by his part as the flashy mobster Tony Stacks in “Goodfellas” (1990), he was good to go.
When “The Sopranos” debuted in 1999 and became enormously popular, it all kicked in.
Sirico realized he was very famous.
“If I’m with five other Paulies,” he explained to the New York Times in 2007, imagining a highly unlikely scenario, “and somebody yells, ‘Hey Paulie,’ I know it’s for me.”
After CBS selected Storch to host the summer replacement show that filled Jackie Gleason’s Saturday night slot in 1953, he was on his way.
“Car 54, Where Are You?”
The voice of the TV version of Koko the Clown in scores of cartoon shorts.
And one of the voices in the 1963 cartoon series “Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales,” with his pal, Don Adams.
Then came F Troop.
Sirico reflected.
“I was this 30-year-old ex-con villain sitting in a class filled with fresh-faced, serious drama students,” he recalled in the Daily News interview.
The teacher “leaned over to me after I did a scene and whispered, ‘Tony, leave the gun home.’
After so many years of packing a gun, I didn’t even realize I had it with me.”
For his part, Storch–even late in life–liked standing on his head, when he wasn’t playing the saxophone, a life-long hobby, in Central Park.
“It helps your breathing,” he explained in 2002 to a reporter for the Detroit News.
While standing on his head.
“The blood goes to your brain, whatever brain you have.”
A couple of banana heads…
And entertainment icons.
May they rest in peace.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in July 2022.]
