The Joe Spinell Story2001

[on Joe Spinell's last days]

William Lustig:
I hadn't seen Joe for some time when, out of the blue, I called him up at his apartment a day or two after he arrived back from Mobile, Alabama after filming a movie down there and asked if he would like to have dinner with me at the Mayfair Hotel on Central Park West for old time sake. He showed up at the hotel restaurant very well dressed in a suit and tie... but he did not look at all well. He was with this woman... a kinda elderly woman from his neighborhood in Sunnyside, Queens. While we were talking over dinner, Joe asked the woman to sing and she began to sing some Italian folk song and Joe rested his head against her shoulder and began to cry. Now I'm looking at this and thinking to myself, "oh my God, this is awful". I realized that Joe was a man who could never get over the loss of his mother... ever. Just after I had seen Joe, I flew to Los Angeles where I began work on a movie called Relentless. The very last time I ever spoke to Joe was a day or two later when I called him again where I told him more about the movie I was making and I invited him to come to Los Angeles. I would fly him out, put him up in a hotel for a week so he could act in a scene in the movie and for the first time ever... Joe turned me down. He said, "I can't do it, Bill. I just can't. I lost my false teeth a few days ago. I don't look good. I'm sorry". He hung up a minute later and that was that.