Joe Marinelli, the veteran character actor who amused and attracted admirers as the cross-dressing mobster Bunny Tagliatti on the NBC soap opera Santa Barbara, has died. He was 68.
Marinelli died Sunday, his wife of nearly 34 years, musician Jean Marinelli, told The Hollywood Reporter.
After playing Bernardo “Bunny” Tagliatti from 1988-90, Marinelli portrayed bank robber Pauly Hardman on the CBS daytime drama Guiding Light in 1993 and another crook, Joseph Sorel, on the ABC soap General Hospital from 1999-2001.
More recently, he recurred as UBA director Donny Spagnoli on the first three seasons of the Apple TV+ drama The Morning Show.
Marinelli, who studied acting at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, also showed up in the 2004 films Sideways and One Last Ride and guest-starred on lots of TV series, from Hunter, ER, The King of Queens, NYPD Blue and The West Wing to The Practice, House, Castle, Desperate Housewives and Ray Donovan.
During his stint on Santa Barbara, Bunny fell hard for Gina DeMott Capwell (Robin Mattson), had a fierce rivalry with Mason Capwell/Sonny Sprocket (Lane Davies and Terry Lester), bought a nightclub he called Bunny’s Lair and came oh so close to marrying Vanessa DeFranco (Denise Gentile).
In a 2013 interview, Marinelli said he put a lot of himself into his most famous role.
“Bunny allowed me to bring so many things: my sense of humor, my love of creating different characters — in this case male and female — and a strong moral code,” he said. “I, like a lot of people, can get my feelings hurt, and when Bunny got hurt, he would turn to his female ego.”
Born on Jan. 21, 1957, in Meriden, Connecticut, Joseph Anthony Marinelli and his family moved to Southern California in 1961. He attended Arcadia High School, Reno (Nevada) High School and Loyola Marymount University before heading to RADA in London.
Back in the U.S., Marinelli continued to study acting with actress Jean Muir and casting director (and Audition author) Michael Shurtleff and did lots of local theater in Los Angeles while making ends meet as a carpenter.
Starting in 1984, he landed episodes of Cagney & Lacey, Paper Dolls, Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law, where he was spotted by Jill Farren Phelps, executive producer of Santa Barbara, who hired him to play Bunny. (Phelps’ brother was Marinelli’s boss as a carpenter.)
“I wondered what I would learn playing a transvestite,” he said. “One thing I learned is that pants are a lot more comfortable than nylons. I also learned that other people thought I was very courageous.
“While getting my makeup put on one day, a woman’s voice whispered in my ear, ‘You must be very comfortable in your sexuality.’ When I turned, they were gone. However, that stuck with me.”
He left Santa Barbara when his contract was not renewed, but he said, “That was like a gift, because casting directors around town had me in nonstop. I would walk in a room and people would start laughing and tell me their wife or husband loved Bunny. I didn’t stop working for a long time, and Lorimar and Warner Bros., in particular, were actively trying to get me my own show. The next 10 years were absolute bliss.”
In addition to his wife, who has played the French horn at the Hollywood Bowl and for the FX show Better Things, survivors include his sons, Vincent and David.
On Facebook, Leigh McCloskey (Ethan Asher on Santa Barbara) paid tribute to his co-star.
“A sweeter man or a dearer friend you could not find than Joe Marinelli,” he wrote. “I knew Joe was sick and so admired his indefatigable spirit throughout what sounded like a very difficult, if not impossible, ordeal.
“Joe was a champion. He was a great acting partner, teacher, philosophical friend, passionate believer in people, and a storyteller extraordinaire that with laughter and depth revealed the human spirit so beautifully and in so many different ways.”
