Frankie Valli is 91 and We Can’t Take Our Eyes Off His Best TV Roles
You know Frankie Valli as the falsetto-voiced singer of pop hits like “Sherry,” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” and “Walk Like a Man,” but did you know the Four Seasons frontman — who turns 91 on May 3 — also has acting roles on his résumé?
“I’ve always had aspirations for acting, and I came to a point in my life where there was a choice,” Valli said on the Talking Sopranos podcast in 2021.
The choice, Valli explained, was between acting, where he’d need to impress directors and casting agents, and music, where he’d only need a group of fellow artists. “So my choices were, did I want to work all the time or take an occasional shot? Now, I always wanted to take an occasional shot, but I also needed money to support a family.”
Even so, Valli found time for screen roles amid his singing engagements. Here’s a chronology of his TV parts.
Miami Vice
In his first TV acting role, Valli played mob boss and hotelier Frank Doss in Miami Vice’s 1985 episode “Buddies” — as seen in the clip above (also featuring a young Nathan Lane).
Valli’s casting was one of many musician cameos on the NBC show, as casting director Bonnie Timmermann told Emmy Magazine in 2014. “We brought in musicians like Glenn Frey, Leonard Cohen, James Brown, Little Richard, Miles Davis, Phil Collins, Willie Nelson, Ted Nugent, Frankie Valli,” Timmerman said. “I called James Brown in prison. He said, ‘Listen, ma’am, I happen to be in prison now. But as soon as I get out, I’ll call you.’ And he did.”
Throb
Though Throb might be lost to the television annals, Valli’s filmography shows he guest-starred on the short-lived syndicated sitcom. In the show, Diana Canova played a single-mom who gets a new job at Throb Records, Jonathan Prince played her energetic new boss, and Valli played himself in the 1987 episode “Future Shock.” Other musical guest stars included Donny Osmond, The Byrds, and, yes, James Brown.
Full House
Valli played himself in “D.J.’s Choice,” a 1995 episode of the ABC sitcom Full House. That episode had rich kid Nelson (Jason Marsden) hoping to woo D.J. Tanner (Candace Cameron Bure) by enlisting Valli to serenade her. The singer steps out from behind a wall and starts singing “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”… to Lori Loughlin’s Becky Katsopolis in a case of mistaken identity. Nelson steers him straight, though, and D.J. is ultimately impressed by the gesture. “Say yes to Nelson,” Valli tells her. “He’s a nice guy, and he pays in cash.”
Witness to the Mob
Valli portrayed real-life Gambino crime family underboss Frank LoCascio in the 1998 NBC movie Witness to the Mob, a biopic of mobster Sammy Gravano. New York critic John Leonard didn’t think highly of Witness to the Mob but wrote, “On the plus side, we get to see Frankie Valli, very late of the Four Seasons, impersonate a Gotti apparatchik.”
Coincidentally, the production also featured Micheal Imperioli, Tony Sirico, Frank Vincent, Kathrine Narducci, and Vincent Pastore, all of whom joined Valli in…
The Sopranos
In the mid-2000s, Valli recurred in the fifth and sixth seasons of the HBO drama The Sopranos, playing Rusty Millio, a Lupertazzi crime family capo who — spoiler alert — meets a bloody end.
“Doing The Sopranos, for me, was really a highlight in my life,” Valli said on the Talking Sopranos podcast. “I grew up in a neighborhood where there was so much organized crime, and I knew everybody because I’ve worked in all the little saloons, and most of those guys own those places …. And through the years, people thought I was connected, and I was with this family or that family, and I was with no family. I had guys that liked me, but I always kept a distance.”
Hawaii Five-0
Valli’s most recent TV role came in 2014, when he guest-starred on the CBS reboot Hawaii Five-0. In the episode “Ka Hana Malu,” Alex O’Loughlin’s Steve McGarrett is surprised to learn that his aunt Deb, played by TV legend Carol Burnett, is engaged to Valli’s Leonard Cassano, whom Steve is meeting for the first time. Steve is suspicious of Leonard’s history as a mob lawyer, but he comes to realize that if Deb trusts the guy, he should, too.
Remind