Aida Turturro
Aida Turturro | |
|---|---|
 Turturro in 2012 | |
| Born | September 25, 1962 New York City, U.S. |
| Education | State University of New York at New Paltz (BA) |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1989–present |
| Relatives |
|
Aida Turturro (born September 25, 1962) is an American actress. Her career spans nearly forty years in film, television, and theatre, including recurring roles on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and The Blacklist. She is best known for her portrayal of Janice Soprano on the HBO drama series The Sopranos. She is active as a spokesperson for medical disorders, including diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.
Early life
Turturro was born in New York City on September 25, 1962 to Dorothy and Dominick Turturro.[1] Her parents divorced less than two years later, and Turturro was raised on Manhattan's Lower East Side by her father and her stepmother.
She attended SUNY New Paltz, paying her tuition by cleaning houses.[2]
Career
Turturro made her film debut as Grace in the 1989 comedy film True Love. She played several small roles in the films What About Bob? and Jersey Girl before mkaing her Broadway debut as Eunice Hubbell in the 1992 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin.
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Turturro achieved her breakthrough role as Janice Soprano in The Sopranos. From 2000 to 2007, Turturro appeared in 72 episodes across 6 seasons. She gained critical acclaim for her role in the earned two nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2001 and 2007.[3]
Following the end of The Sopranos, Turturro made her debut in Broadway musicals as Mama Morton, the prison matron in Chicago.[2]
In 2009, Turturro returned to television, appearing in "Bite Me", a sixth-season episode of the NBC series Medium, playing Bobbi Catalano. Turturro also appeared in the eighth-season episode "Car Periscope" of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
In 2012, Turturro appeared in "Day of the Iguana", an episode of Nurse Jackie, which reunited her with her Sopranos co-star Edie Falco. She played Laura Vargas, the titular character's lawyer.
In 2013, Turturro appeared in the fourth-season episode "Drawing Dead" of Blue Bloods. The same year, she guest starred in several episodes of season 14 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as Judge Felicia Catano.[3] As of 2026, she has been brought back in either a guest and recurring capacity for nearly every season.
Turturro appeared as Maura Figgis, sister of gangster Jimmy "The Butcher" Figgis on the Fox police procedural sitcom, Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The following year, Turturro appeared in "Il Mostro" in the 2017 season of Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders.
Personal life
Turturro is the younger cousin of actors John Turturro and Nicholas Turturro.[4]
Turturro has battled several medical disorders and spoken publicly about them. In 2001, she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and became a spokesperson for the long-acting insulin Lantus.[5][2] She has rheumatoid arthritis and worked to raise public awareness of the disorder.[6]
In 2018, Turturro was traveling to visit a friend in New York when she abruptly felt a strong pain in her heart. Despite being on the floor with pain, she denied her friend's request to call an ambulance and walked home. Eventually, she contacted a doctor, who referred her to a cardiologist. In an interview with People, she stated that, she went “to the doctor...and he's like, 'Yeah...you had a heart attack.'" She added that the cardiologist informed her that "88 to 90 percent" of her arteries were blocked. Turturro subsequently underwent a quadruple bypass surgery.[7]
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | True Love | Grace | |
| 1991 | What About Bob? | Prostitute | |
| 1992 | Mac | Wife | |
| Jersey Girl | Angie | ||
| 1993 | Life with Mikey | Officer Moran | |
| Manhattan Murder Mystery | Hotel Day Clerk | ||
| The Saint of Fort Washington | State Employee | ||
| 1994 | Angie | Tina | |
| The Search for One-eye Jimmy | Madame Esther | ||
| Junior | Louise | ||
| 1995 | Denise Calls Up | Linda | |
| Stonewall | Bar Waitress | ||
| Money Train | Woman on Platform | ||
| 1996 | Sleepers | Mrs. Salinas | |
| Tales of Erotica | Kim | ||
| 1997 | Made Men | Angie | |
| Fool's Paradise | Susan | ||
| 1998 | Fallen | Tiffany | |
| Too Tired to Die | Fortune Teller 1 & 2 | ||
| OK Garage | Mary the Bartender | ||
| Woo | Tookie | ||
| Illuminata | Marta | ||
| Jaded | Helen Norwich | ||
| Celebrity | Olga | ||
| Crossfire | Miss Pasquantonio | ||
| 1999 | The 24 Hour Woman | Brenda | |
| 24 Nights | Marie | ||
| Deep Blue Sea | Brenda Kerns | ||
| Mickey Blue Eyes | Italian Waitress | ||
| Freak Weather | Glory | ||
| Bringing Out the Dead | Nurse Crupp | ||
| Play It to the Bone | Mad Greek Waitress | ||
| 2000 | Joe Gould's Secret | Waitress | |
| Home Sweet Hoboken | - | ||
| 2001 | Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles | Jean Ferraro | |
| Sidewalks of New York | Shari | ||
| 2004 | 2BPerfectlyHonest | Emily / Gina | |
| 2005 | Romance & Cigarettes | Rosebud | |
| 2010 | A Little Help | Nancy Feldman | |
| 2011 | Mozzarella Stories | Autilia | |
| 2013 | Fading Gigolo | Driver's Wife | |
| 2014 | Rob the Mob | Anna | |
| 2018 | Making a Killing | Connie | |
| Head Full of Honey | Margaret | ||
| 2020 | Corners | Joan | Short |
| 2022 | Call Jane | Sister Mike | |
| 2026 | The Only Living Pickpocket in New York | Bonnie |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Law & Order | Carmen | Episode: "Happily Ever After" |
| 1993 | TriBeCa | Manicurist | Episode: "The Hopeless Romantic" |
| 1994 | Law & Order | Cocktail Waitress | Episode: "Blue Bamboo" |
| 1995 | The Wright Verdicts | Lydia | Main cast |
| New York News | Gina | Episode: "A Question of Truth" | |
| 1996 | Law & Order | Receptionist | Episode: "I.D." |
| Mr. & Mrs. Smith | Rox | Recurring cast | |
| 1997 | The Practice | Caren Payne | Episode: "Race with the Devil" |
| 1998 | As the World Turns | Fran | Episode: "May 1, 1998" |
| 2000–07 | The Sopranos | Janice Soprano | Main cast (season 2-6) |
| 2004 | Wild Card | Maddy | Episode: "Premonition Mission" |
| 2005 | TV Land's Top Ten | Herself | Episode: "Sexiest Men" |
| 2008 | ER | Sheryl Hawkins | Recurring cast (season 14) |
| 2010 | Celebrity Ghost Stories | Herself | Episode: "Sugar Ray Leonard/Aida Tuturro/Johnathon Schaech/Sharon Angela" |
| Mercy | Evelyn | Episode: "That Crazy Bitch Was Right" | |
| 2011 | Curb Your Enthusiasm | Gabby | Episode: "Car Periscope" |
| 2012 | Pyramid | Herself/Celebrity Contestant | Recurring Contestant |
| Nurse Jackie | Laura Vargas | Episode: "Day of the Iguana" | |
| 2013 | Blue Bloods | Miss Dominga | Episode: "Drawing Dead" |
| 2013–25 | Law & Order: Special Victims Unit | Judge Felicia Catano | Guest (season 14 & 17 & 22-23 & 27), recurring cast (season 15-16 & 20-21 & 24) |
| 2015 | Extra Virgin | Herself | Episode: "A Day with the Girls" |
| 2016 | Unforgettable | Carrie's Psychic | Episode: "The Return of Eddie" |
| Brooklyn Nine-Nine | Maura Figgis | Recurring cast (season 3) | |
| The Night Of | Rehab Worker | Episode: "The Art of War" | |
| 2017 | Grey's Anatomy | Lynne Gagliano | Episode: "It Only Gets Much Worse" |
| Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders | Carmela Tafani | Episode: "Il Mostro" | |
| 2017–23 | The Blacklist | Heddie Hawkins | Recurring cast (season 5 & 7-9), guest (season 6 & 10) |
| 2020 | Power Book II: Ghost | Judge Janine Galanti | Episode: "The Stranger" |
| 2021 | What We Do in the Shadows | Gail | Episode: "Gail" |
| 2022 | New Amsterdam | Callie Cruz | Episode: "Give Me a Sign" |
| Just One Kiss | Sofia Romano | TV movie | |
| 2025 | Good American Family | Myra Grant | Episode: "Right There in Black and White" |
References
- ↑ "On This Day". The Toronto Sun. September 25, 2003. p. 76. Retrieved July 6, 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
September 25, 1962 – Aida Turturro, who plays Tony Soprano's big sister Janice on HBO's The Sopranos, is born in New York, N.Y.
- 1 2 3 Finn, Robin (December 7, 2007). "A Former Soprano Makes Her Singing Debut". The New York Times. p. B-4. ProQuest 433747314.
[T]hings are doornail dead in Aida Turturro's empty dressing room at the Ambassador Theater, where she is, at a robust 45, one shaky week into her Broadway musical debut as the prison matron Mama Morton in Chicago [...] [S]he made her non-singing Broadway debut as the upstairs neighbor Eunice Hubbell in the 1992 run of 'A Streetcar Named Desire,' starring Alec Baldwin and Jessica Lange. Back then, Ms. Turturro had a day job in addition to acting: 'When I made my Broadway debut, I was still cleaning houses, something I'd done since I went out on my own at 15,' she says. [...] She last had Labradors while growing up in a mixed neighborhood on the Lower East Side. Her parents divorced when she was a toddler, and she was raised by her father, Dominick, an artist, and her stepmother. She put herself through college, SUNY at New Paltz, by cleaning houses. [...] Ms. Turturro, a diabetic, takes insulin to help control her disease; she is also, after reacting to the diagnosis seven year ago with denial, a spokeswoman for Lantus, a diabetes medication. She credits a Chinese herbalist and a diet clear of sugar and gluten with helping her 'get healthy and feel good about myself and where I am in life.'
- 1 2 "Sopranos Star Aida Turturro on Law & Order: SVU Role". NBC. Retrieved 2025-12-04.
- ↑ O'Connor, John (April 7, 1995). "TV WEEKEND; An Upright, Ethical and Kind Lawyer. Really". The New York Times. p. D-21. ProQuest 430138799.
Assisting Charles at the office and at its billiards table are Sandy, the investigator, a former New York policewoman with a gambling obsession, and Lydia, a full-bodied Girl Friday who makes sure that Charles's life isn't as discombobulated as it would appear. Once again, the casting is strong. Sandy is played by Margaret Colin ('Foley Square' and 'Chicago Hope'). Lydia is portrayed by Aida Turturro. (Yes, it is the same acting family; her cousins are John of 'Quiz Show' and Nicholas of 'N.Y.P.D. Blue.')
- ↑ "Dangerous Diabetes: Affliction of the Stars". abcnews.go.com. December 21, 2007.
- ↑ ""Sopranos" Star Aida Turturro Brings Rheumatoid Arthritis Awareness Campaign to Philadelphia". Market Wire. 2005. Archived from the original on October 12, 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-18 – via Find Articles.
- ↑ "The Sopranos' Aida Turturro Suffered a Heart Attack Without Realizing It, Says 'I Should've Died Then, but I Didn't'". People. 2005. Retrieved 2007-12-18.