[From "With All Due Respect"
Steve Nathan]

Once upon a time in 1963, there lived a plethora of stars including Sarah Vaughn, Dizzy Gillespie, Jerry Vale, Tony Bennett, Lesley Gore, and Van McCoy (you know, the guy who wrote "The Hustle") on one particular block in the affluent suburban town of Englewood, New Jersey. All of these celebrities had one thing in common: their paperboy was a skinny ten-year-old kid that lived on the same block. That kid was Vince Curatola, who many decades later became just as successful as the people he delivered the news to. Today, you know this former paperboy as Johnny Sack on the recently concluded phenomenal hit series The Sopranos.

Curatola came from a hardworking, middle-class family. Running an honest business, his father was able to build the family its dream house in 1953, the year Vince was born. Describing himself as a very quiet kid that did well when he wanted to do well, Vince takes a moment to light up the Montecristo White Toro that was sitting on the table next to his cup of espresso. "I was always dreaming up stories—telling my teachers things I saw last night while I was asleep. You know, crazy shit like that," he tells me.

As Vince took another nice slow puff of his Montecristo, he mused that he's been smoking cigars for only one year, though, at that time, he was a cigarette smoker, and had been for most of his adult life. "During The Sopranos, I was always filmed with a cigarette in my hand. On the last season of the show, I had already quit but, for each scene, I still had to have a cigarette in my mouth."

But, when Vince Curatola pursues something, he goes full tilt. In such a short time, what had been a hobby has become a full-blown fascination. He's since amassed a huge collection of humidors and has sampled an impressive multitude of cigar styles—CAO, La Gloria Cubana, Punch, to rattle off a few. "But I really love the Montecristo White. That is my go to cigar," he says, "But still being a newcomer, I am always open to suggestions."