On Friday, October 24th, 2025, I attended the Chill Out Expo in New Jersey. As I walked into the expo area, the first person who caught my eye was Bobby Funaro from The Sopranos. I went straight up to his booth and asked, “How can I get you in my movie?”

He smiled and asked, “What movie?”

I explained — Buddy from Brooklyn — which is based on major real-life events that took place during the Buddy Jacobson era. I think he pretended not to know anything about it at first, just to let me talk for a while. After a few minutes, he said, “I’ve read the Buddy Jacobson book, and I’m also friends with the author, Frank X. Pagano.”

He asked if I was turning the book into a movie. I clarified that I absolutely was not — that I have five or six books of my own, plus information from my mother, who lived in Buddy’s penthouse. I told him this isn’t a horse-training story, but rather a drama with romance and crime elements.

The great synchronicity of this meeting was that I’d been trying to locate Frank for a couple of months!

Bobby then wrote down his phone number, handed it to me, and said, “I’m interested!”