Tony Rosato

Antonio Rosato was born Dec. 26, 1954 in Naples, Italy, and grew up between several cities in Canada, predominantly Toronto. Rosato attended the University of Toronto with an initial focus on chiropractic medicine; during his time at school, Rosato discovered improvisational comedy by way of the renowned international comedy troupe The Second City. After getting involved with the organization in 1979, Rosato dropped out of school to pursue comedy full-time. He was enlisted to join the ensemble cast of the troupe's affiliated television program SCTV (Global/CBC/Superchannel 1976-1984) in 1980, and moved to New York City to join the cast of Saturday Night Live (NBC 1975-) the following year. During his time on the series, Rosato demonstrated impressions of a wide array of characters, most prominently a lampooning of Ed Asner's "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (CBS 1970-77) character Lou Grant. That said, Rosato's tenure on "Saturday Night Live" lasted only the one season, as he left the program upon the arrival of new showrunner Dick Ebersol. After "Saturday Night Live," Rosato found work in a number of films, television series, and TV movies, notably the crime drama program "Night Heat" (CTV 1985-89). In the 1990s, Rosato began finding work as a voice actor, portraying the famous Nintendo character Luigi in the animated series "The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3" (NBC 1991) and "Super Mario World" (NBC 1991), and playing characters on "The Busy World of Richard Scarry" (Showtime/Nick Jr 1994-97) and "Pelswick" (CBC/Nickelodeon 2000-02), all the while continuing to play small parts in live action productions. In 2003, Rosato married Leah Murray, who accused him of harassment two years later following what would later be recognized as an episode of the mental disorder Capgras delusion. After refusing to plead insanity, Rosato was jailed for two years and then moved to a psychiatric hospital, from which he was discharged in 2009. Following this stint, Rosato returned to acting, appearing in films like "Real Gangsters" (2013), and "The Big Fat Stone" (2014), and "No Deposit" (2015). Rosato died on Jan. 10, 2017 following a heart attack.