Tony Ganios, best known for playing Anthony ‘Meat’ Tuperello in Porky’s, is dead at the age of 64. According to the actor’s fiancée Amanda, Tony was admitted to a hospital in New York on Saturday with a severe spinal cord infection but passed away of heart failure following surgery on Sunday.
“The last words we said to each other were, ‘I love you,’” Amanda wrote on X. “Love is an understatement. You are everything to me. My heart, my soul and my best friend.“
He made his feature-film debut in Philip Kaufman’s coming-of-age comedy-drama The Wanderers, which followed a group of Italian-American teenagers and their power struggles against rival gangs in the Bronx in 1963. The film was a success upon release, but its popularity grew over the decades as it developed a passionate following, even leading Warner Bros. to re-release the movie in 1996.
Ganios made a name for himself with Porky’s, one of the most influential teen sex comedies of the ’80s. He would reprise his role of Anthony ‘Meat’ Tuperello in the two sequels, Porky’s II: The Next Day and Porky’s Revenge. The success of the film came as a surprise to Gianos. “As ridiculous as this seems, it was difficult for me to shake the gnawing suspicion that our inveterate pranksters had somehow rigged the trade papers to reflect the film’s incredible box office figures,” Gianos said in a 2015 interview. “But this feeling quickly faded as excited fans began to waylay us on the street, shouting out our character names and reciting lines from the movie. It was a bit overwhelming, but I would be lying if I said we didn’t get a kick out of all the acclaim. It felt great to know we touched so many lives, and were part of something that made so many people happy.“
He also made appearances in movies such as Back Roads, Continental Divide, Body Rock, and The Taking of Beverly Hills. He also made a memorable appearance in Die Hard 2 as Baker, one of Colonel Stuart’s mercenaries. After running into John McClane, he was killed with an icicle through the eye. Ganios made his final big-screen appearance in 1993 with a small role in Rising Sun, a buddy cop crime thriller starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes. On the small screen, Gianos popped up in Scarecrow and Mrs. King, The Equalizer, The Ring of the Musketeers, and five episodes of Wiseguys.
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