John Turturro Movies and Career Information

John Michael Turturro (born February 28, 1957) is an American actor, writer, and director best known for his performances in Barton Fink (1991), Quiz Show (1994), The Big Lebowski (1998), and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). He has appeared in over sixty movies, and has worked frequently with the Coen brothers, Adam Sandler and Spike Lee. He is well known for his ability to change both his demeanor and physique. Turturro was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Katherine, an amateur jazz singer who worked in a Navy yard during World War II, and Nicholas Turturro, a carpenter and construction worker who fought as a Navy serviceman in D-Day. Turturro's mother was Sicilian and his father emigrated from Giovinazzo, Bari, Italy at the age of six. Turturro was raised a Catholic 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 first appeared on film working as an extra in Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed Raging Bull (1980). Turturro created the title role of John Patrick Shanley's Danny and the Deep Blue Sea at the