- Born
- Died
- Height1.75 m
- Joe Sirola has starred in numerous TV shows - everything from his own series such as "The Montefuscos," and "Wolf," to "Get Smart, " "Man from U.N.C.L.E.," and "The Magician"; and films - with Rock Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida in "Strange Bedfellows"; with Clint Eastwood in "Hang 'Em High" and in such others as George Stevens' "The Greatest Story Ever Told," "Super Cops," and "Hail to the Chief;" and on Broadway in Molly Brown; Pal Joey and Golden Rainbow among others. The Wall Street Journal named him "King of the Voiceovers," having recorded 10,000+ commercials, and he has been called "The Green Thumb of the Upper East Side" for his amazing rooftop garden. His one-man piece, Shakespeare's Ages of Man, where Joe performs eighteen of the bard's great characters, is continually successful around the country. And, in the last few year's Joe has returned to Broadway... this time as a Tony Award-winning producer. Among his NY producing credits are Cagney: The Musical; the Tony-winning Best Musical A Gentleman's Guide To Love And Murder; The Trip To Bountiful; The Motherf**ker with the Hat; Love Letters (Revival); Ghetto Klown; Rogers And Hammerstein's Cinderella; Stick Fly and Time Stands Still. And that's Joe Sirola - a man of many talents and the happy ability to pursue them all successfully.- IMDb mini biography by: Gary Springer
- SpouseClaire Gozzo(?? - 2019) (his death, 1 child)
- ParentsAna Sirola
- RelativesVera Sirola(Sibling)
- Red rose worn on his lapel buttonhole
- 3 piece suit.
- Was once a case worker for the New York City Department of Welfare before becoming perhaps the most successful "voice-over" actor in the history of the profession. His voice has been heard in scores of adverts since the 1960's and one cannot listen to a radio or watch a television in a major market without hearing his distinctive voice.
- Attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and earned a scholarship to Columbia University.He graduated in 1951, and, after a 15-month stint serving in the Korean War, Sirola was working as a sales promotion manager at Kimberly-Clark. At the age of 28, he took acting classes at Hunter College.
- A son of Croatian immigrants, his father was a carpenter and his mother ran a boarding house.
- Was Yugoslavian-American and spoke the language.
- Sirola turned to producing Broadway and off-Broadway productions in recent years. He won a Tony Award as one of the producers of "A Genteman's Guide to Love and Murder". He is also among the producers of the acclaimed off-Broadway production of "Cagney: The Musical" starring Robert Creighton as James Cagney. Producing "Cagney" was personally meaningful to Sirola, since he co-starred with James Cagney in his last filmed appearance, the 1984 television movie "Terrible Joe Moran".
- Commenting on his greatest success doing voice-overs for commercials: "I used the mic as a person; I spoke to the audience rather than at them. I went from $3,200 a year to a million a year for 20 years."
- Commenting on similarities (other than a penchant for gardening) with fellow actor James Cagney, whose last film also featured Mr. Sirola (and whom the latter admired to the extent of investing in the Off-Broadway musical, "Cagney"): "He had red hair, I had red hair... He went to Stuyvesant High School, I went to Stuyvesant High School. He was in the Players club, I am in the Players club. He was in the Friars Club, I am in the Friars Club."
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