- published: 09 Jun 2015
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Edith "Edie" Falco ( /ˈiːdi ˈfælkoʊ/; born July 5, 1963) is an American television, film and stage actress, known for her roles in Oz as Diane Whittlesey, as Carmela Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos, and as the titular character on the Showtime series Nurse Jackie.
Falco was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Judith Anderson, an actress, and Frank Falco, a jazz drummer. Her father was of Italian descent and her mother's ancestry was Swedish and English. Falco's siblings are Joseph, Paul and Ruth. Her uncle is novelist, playwright and poet Edward Falco, an English professor at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. She was raised in West Islip, on Long Island. Falco graduated from Northport High School in 1981, after playing Eliza Doolittle in a production of My Fair Lady. She attended the Acting Program at SUNY Purchase with fellow actors Stanley Tucci and Ving Rhames; she remains friends with both.
Early in her career, Falco made appearances on television shows like Law & Order and Homicide: Life on the Street. Tom Fontana, executive director of Homicide, cast Falco as Eva Thormann, the wife of an injured police officer, after watching Falco's performance in Laws of Gravity, a 1992 film directed by Nick Gomez. Fontana said of her, "She's an actress who's unadorned by any embroidery. She does everything with such simplicity and honesty, it's breathtaking." A struggling actress at the time, Falco said her salary from these television episodes paid for one month's worth of rent. Fontana cast Falco as a regular character, prison officer Diane Whittlesey, in his HBO series Oz based on her work in the Homicide episodes "Son of a Gun" and "A Shot in the Dark".
Being a star's like being a junkie
You ain't got the needle but you
still have the monkey
Living your life from show to show
If it's day or night you don't even know
Friends ask why you do it
X-friends think that you blew it
They don't think you have a care
They don't know what it's like up there
[Chorus:]
Star crossed, you lose
Star crossed, you chose
Star crossed, make me a star
Star crossed, fall down in a bar
Star crossed [4x]
Have to take drugs to get up or down
No mind control, be pushed around
I can't believe this state I'm in
Could life be clear through a bottle of gin?