The Sopranos: How Old is Silvio Dante?

We all know Silvio Dante. He’s the owner of the Bada Bing strip club and the long time friend and consigliere to Tony Soprano. He’s one of the most recognizable parts of the Sopranos, and his imitation of Michael Corleone in Godfather 3 is more iconic than the original movie itself.

However there is an ongoing question in the Sopranos community about Silvio. How old is he?

When I was writing my video about rewatching the Many Saints of Newark, I had a section where I talked about the inconsistencies of Silvio’s age. I remembered that when I first watched the film, I noticed that the movie got Silvio’s age wrong, portraying him as much older than Tony when they are supposed to be contemporaries.

However as I started researching, I realized that the issue was much more complicated that I first thought, and I decided to break this off into its own video. Now I know I’m not the first person to cover this issue, and people have been discussing it for a long time. But I figured it would still be interesting to give my own spin on the issue, as I think it highlights how ideas can spread within a community and become the truth, even when there is evidence against it. So in this video, we’ll be examining the discrepancy over Silvio’s age in the Sopranos community.

After doing a bit of research on the Sopranos subreddit and in Youtube comments, I’ve come to the conclusion that most fans think that Silvio is around the same age as Tony. I think this is primarily due to the fact that Ralph says that they were all in a crew together when they were younger.

I also just assumed they were the same age because of this fact, but upon further examination, this might not mean that they were the same age. For one thing, it’s possible Ralph is not entirely telling the truth in this situation. He might be putting on a show for Jackie Junior, exaggerating his relationship with Tony and Jackie Senior. Afterall, Silvio himself states that he was not a part of Tony and Jackie’s robbery of Feech La Manna’s card game.

But even if we accept that they were all in a crew together, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they were the same age. Afterall Paulie was a subordinate member of Tony’s crew, even though he is much older than him. Big Pussy as well, despite being described as Tony’s best friend, is stated to have been older than him.

There is actually a lot of evidence to suggest that Silvio is older than Tony as well. One is the fact that the actor Steven Van Zandt is actually about 11 years older than James Gandolfini. Though of course the actors age and the characters age do not have to match up, after all James was only about 5 years older than Christopher’s actor Michael Imperioli in real life.

But there are several lines of dialogue that suggest that Silvio is older. In Season 4, Tony tells Christopher that Silvio is no spring chicken, meaning young.

This doesn’t make sense for Tony to say if they were the same age. Later in the season, Tony also calls Silvio an old man.

In Season 5, Silvio says that he’s known Tony since he was a kid.

Now the fact that he didn’t say “since we were kids”, can be interpreted to mean that Silvio is older than Tony and watched him grow up. Also in the Pilot, Silvio doesn’t know who Artie Bucco is, which would also make sense if he is older. Tony and Artie are canonically schoolmates.

All of this leads me to believe that Silvio is supposed to be older than Tony. It’s just the way that some of the information was presented early on led people to think that they were the same age, and that idea just stuck with the community.

However there is another detail that does make it seem like they are the same age. In “The Happy Wanderer”, Tony talks about how he and Silvio used to peek into the game through the door because they weren’t allowed inside.

How Tony describes it, it comes off as very childish, implying that they were both very young. I mean I find it hard to imagine a grown man doing this. This is a detail that I think got confused in the timeline. And it’s interesting that both the episode “The Happy Wanderer” where this is mentioned and “Amour Fou” where Silvio is stated to have been a part of Tony’s crew were written by Frank Renzuli. It’s possible that he misinterpreted Silvio’s age and wrote in those contradictory details.

But aside from this one reference, the majority of the evidence still stacks up for me in favor of Silvio being older than Tony. Even stuff like Paulie saying that he goes back in the family before Silvio doesn’t contradict this idea, as Silvio might have joined after Paulie but before Tony.

Now I heard some people say that Silvio’s age is mentioned in the book: The Sopranos, A Family History. It’s written by Allan Rucker, who would write other supplemental Sopranos material like the cookbook, and even the story for Sopranos Road to Respect. The book is officially licensed by David Chase and HBO, so it should be considered canon to the show unless contradicted by other sources.

However I actually own multiple copies of this book, which were updated over the course of the show. And I’ve not been able to find a direct mention of Silvio’s age. Maybe I’m just missing it, so if you know which page the reference is on feel free to let me know in the comments.

But even if the book did give Silvio’s age, we would have to accept that the Many Saints retconned his age, as it’s not the only detail from the book that was changed. The book lists Silvio’s father as Joseph “Beppy” Dante, which I think was just a lazy invention by the writer, as it’s copying the other Joseph Bebby’s we know from the show. Either way though the movie states that Silvio’s father’s name was Calagero “Butch” Dante.

So even if this book did give Silvio’s age, we’d have to accept that the Many Saints overrides the canon of the information. Which brings me to a larger point.

When David Chase was creating the series, Silvio wasn’t part of the original vision. He actually approached Little Steven Van Sandt for the role of Tony just because he was a fan of Springsteen and Steven’s look. However Little Steven wasn’t comfortable taking a role from a legitimate actor, so instead the character of Silvio Dante was created specifically for him. Little Steven actually came up with the character’s name and background, based off a movie idea he had had.

Given the character’s unique origin, it’s no wonder that some details like the character’s age wouldn’t be presented 100% consistently. It’s possible that one single writer made a mistake when writing Silvio’s backstory, and that one mistake ended up coloring the community's perception about the character. Again there is no one definitive answer, but for what it’s worth I’ve come to believe that Silvio was indeed always meant to be older than Tony. The Many Saints certainly got many details from the show wrong, but this wasn’t necessarily one of them.