Tony Rosato (born December 26, 1954) is an Italian-Canadian actor who has appeared in television and movies in both Canada and the United States.
Rosato was born in Naples, Italy, and raised in Halifax, Ottawa, and Toronto. He planned to study chiropractic medicine, but dropped out of the University of Toronto after he began doing improv comedy at The Second City. Rosato first gained attention when he and Robin Duke joined the cast of the first incarnation of SCTV in its final season during the fall of 1980. His most well-known character on the program was a notoriously drunk TV chef named Marcello Sebastiano.
After SCTV, Rosato moved with Duke to the cast of Saturday Night Live for the 1981-1982 season. The show was in a state of turmoil at the time, and Rosato's contract was not renewed.
Rosato next emerged on the Canadian police drama Night Heat, playing Arthur 'Whitey' Morelli." This role lasted from 1985 through 1989. In autumn of 1990, Rosato portrayed Nintendo's character Luigi on DiC's television show The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 (loosely based around the videogame of the same title). He continued his role as Luigi in 1991 for the Super Mario World cartoon. He continued to appear in television and film regularly throughout the 1990s.
He did a small voicing part in Resident Evil 3 as a man named Dario Rosso.
On May 5, 2005, Tony Rosato was arrested and charged with criminal harassment of his wife Leah, who asserted that Rosato's deteriorating mental health had caused her to fear for her safety and that of the couple's infant daughter. The charge was laid after Rosato complained repeatedly to Toronto and Kingston, Ontario police that his wife, who had recently left him, and daughter had been abducted and replaced by impostors, a belief characteristic of Capgras delusion, a delusional misidentification syndrome with which the Crown's expert psychiatrist has diagnosed Rosato, according to Rosato's eighth lawyer, Daniel Brodsky. It was alleged that the harassment occurred from December 28, 2003 and escalated until April 21, 2005. In spite of the diagnosis Rosato, who denied he was mentally ill and refused to plead insanity, was held for over two years without bail at a maximum-security detention centre. Daniel Brodsky, who calls his client's two-year detention awaiting trial "shocking," asserted that Rosato "spent more time in custody on a harassment charge" than anyone ever convicted of the offence in Canada, estimating that "on average, someone convicted of criminal harassment spends one day in jail and two years on probation". The trial finally commenced on August 7, 2007, in Kingston and it ended on September 5, 2007. In the end the prosecution downgraded the charge to summary (misdemeanour) from indictable (felony). Rosato was spared a criminal conviction and a hospital residence order was issued for a maximum of three years, although he can be out much sooner.
Celebrities impersonated by Rosato on SCTV include: Lou Costello (whom he also impersonated when he was a castmember on Saturday Night Live), William Conrad, Danny Thomas, Woodstock co-organizer Chip Monk, SNL castmember John Belushi, Tony Orlando and Ella Fitzgerald. His characters on SNL, despite his short tenure, were memorable as well, and included Ed Asner (in character as Lou Grant), Captain Kangaroo, and U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese.
