'Marvelous Ms. Maisel’ Addresses Death Of Actor Brian Tarantina

Brian Tarantina as nightclub manager Jackie 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' Amazon

SPOILER ALERT: This story includes details about this week’s Episode 3 Of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Brian Tarantina, the veteran actor who played Jacopo “Jackie” Dellapietra in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and died in late 2019 before filming started on recently launched Season 4, has been gracefully written out of the series.

Tarantina had worked with Maisel creator Amy Sherman. Palladino since Gilmore Girls. His character, nightclub manager Jackie, was Susie’s (Alex Borstein) straight-talking boss who ran the Gaslight, the Greenwich Village club where ‘Midge’ Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) was discovered. He moved into Susie’s small apartment in Season 3 while she and Midge were on tour and his absence in the busy first two episodes of their tumultuous return this month may not have been missed.

But in Episode 3, called Everything Is Bellmore, which dropped Thursday, Jackie has died suddenly of a stroke, leaving Susie bereft. When only four people turn up to the funeral, Susie grabs his picture and crashes a stranger’s adjoining ceremony. “I can’t talk about him to an empty room, that’s not how it should go,” she says in an emotional eulogy, that ends: “I’m really sorry about this lady. I’m sure she was very nice too.”

Tarantina played Bootsy on the Gilmore Girls from 2001- 2002, as well as in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life in 2016. His guest star credits included Law & Order, Blue Bloods, The Black Donnellys, The Sopranos, Heroes, and The Blacklist; and he had roles in the Spike Lee films BlacKkKlansman and Summer of Sam. He was found dead at 60 in his New York City apartment in Nov. of 2019.