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John Michael Turturro (born February 28, 1957) is an Emmy Award-winning American actor noted for his performances in To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), The Color of Money (1986), Five Corners (1987), Do The Right Thing (1989), Barton Fink (1991), Men of Respect (1991), The Big Lebowski (1998), Monday Night Mayhem (1999) and Secret Window (2004). He has appeared in over sixty movies, and is well known for his ability to change both his demeanor and physique.
Turturro was born in Brooklyn, New York to Katherine, an amateur jazz singer who worked in a Navy yard during World War II, and Nicholas Turturro, a carpenter and construction worker who immigrated from Italy at the age of six and fought as a Navy serviceman in D-Day.[1][2] He was raised in the Catholic religion[3] and moved to the Rosedale section of Queens, New York with his family when he was six. He majored in drama at the State University of New York at New Paltz, and completed his MFA at the Yale School of Drama. He worked as an extra in Raging Bull (1980).
Turturro created the title role of John Patrick Shanley's Danny and the Deep Blue Sea at the Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in 1983. He repeated it the following year off-Broadway and won an Obie Award. Spike Lee liked Turturro's performance in Five Corners so much that he chose to cast him in Do the Right Thing, in which he played the explosive racist Pino. This movie initiated a long-standing collaboration between the famous director and John Turturro.
A versatile actor comfortable with both comedy and drama, Turturro also had an extended collaboration with the Coen Brothers, appearing in their films Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), The Big Lebowski (1998) and most recently, O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). He also appeared as a severely disturbed patient of Jack Nicholson's in the comedy Anger Management and played Johnny Depp's antagonist in Secret Window. Turturro is also an occasional guest star on Monk as Adrian's eccentric brother, Ambrose Monk. Before becoming a household name, Turturro made a cameo in the Woody Allen film Hannah and Her Sisters. One of his comedy performances has attracted a cult following: his breezy take on Groucho Marx in the neglected 1992 comedy Brain Donors, an update of A Night at the Opera starring Turturro as an ambulance-chasing lawyer.
He won an Emmy award for his portrayal of Adrian Monk's brother Ambrose Monk in the USA Network series Monk. He has also been nominated and won many awards from many film organizations such as SAG, Cannes Film Festival, Golden Globes, and others.[4] Despite his many acclaimed performances, Turturro has never been nominated for an Academy Award.
Turturro was the producer, director and actor of the film Illuminata (1999), which also starred his wife Katherine Borowitz. He also wrote and directed the film Romance and Cigarettes (2005). He recently appeared in Robert DeNiro's The Good Shepherd as the right hand man of C.I.A. man Edward Wilson (Matt Damon).
John's brothers are actor Nicholas Turturro, and school teacher Ralph Turturro. Actress Aida Turturro is John Turturro's cousin. He has two children, Amedeo Turturro and Diego Turturro born in July 1990 and December 2000, respectively. Turturro is Catholic and his wife is Jewish.[2]