After over three decades in show business, Mario Cantone has achieved an idyllic amount of fame. His face and his imitable voice are instantly familiar — especially if you’re from New York City, where he resides — yet he’s able to move around, for the most part, without bother. “I don’t want anyone taking pictures of what I’m doing with whoever,” he explains. “But I get recognized all the time and I’m very approachable. It’s a comfortable level.” Fans who stop him might be doing so for any number of reasons: his stand-up comedy, Broadway work, regular appearances on ABC’s “The View” and, of course, his hilariously endearing role as Anthony Marentino on “Sex and The City” and its recent spinoff series, “And Just Like That.”
The character of Anthony, who was introduced in season three of “Sex and the City” as Charlotte York’s wedding planner, wasn’t originally intended to be a series regular. In fact, he was only supposed to have one scene. But the response to Cantone’s caustic, comical portrayal was overwhelming. Cantone recounts how show creator Michael Patrick King, who wrote the part specifically for him, approached him after Cantone’s first episode had aired, saying, “‘Do you know how many letters we got?’’ I said, ‘No, I had no idea, but am I coming back?’ And he said, ‘Yes!’”
Growing up in Stoneham, Mass. (“Home of Nancy Kerrigan, who put it on the map before I did,” he quips), the performing bug bit Cantone, now 63, early on. As a kid, he put on shows like “The Jungle Book” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” in his garage before graduating to 16-millimeter films. “I did ‘The Poseidon Adventure’ in my backyard,” he laughs. “You know, putting a miniature boat in the pool and throwing a bucket of water over it. ‘Quick, it’s a tidal wave!’”
In high school he did theater and started writing his own material, and, after graduating from Emerson College, eventually ended up in New York, where he began doing stand-up at comedy clubs like The Improv and the music club Greene Street. “That was my favorite because I loved following a singer,” he recalls. “I’ve always loved music — which is why I incorporate a lot of music in my act.”
Photo By Craig Blankenhorn
He landed the children’s show “Steampipe Alley” in the late 1980s, which let him showcase his high-energy charisma to a nationwide audience. “It was a crazy weird, wonderful thing,” he says. The show ran through 1993. Not long after, Broadway came calling. He replaced Nathan Lane in “Love, Valor Compassion,” which won the Tony for Best Play. He also performed his fair share of Shakespeare, including 1995’s “The Tempest.”
“‘The Tempest,’ you know, that role was not funny,’” he deadpans. “These are 400-year-old jokes, I told them, ‘you make them funny.’”
He also starred alongside Allison Janney in “The Taming of the Shrew,” which was directed by Mel Shapiro. “And Joe Mantello directed three out of the five Broadway shows I’ve done,” he adds. “I got to work with the greats in the theater. I’m a lucky boy.” Additionally, he’s starred in a number of one-man shows.
When the daytime talk show “The View” launched in 1997, comedian Joy Behar, an original panelist and longtime friend, enlisted Cantone for her recurring segment “Joy’s Comedy Corner.” It marked the first of over 150 guest appearances he’s made on the show since, to the extent that Behar once dubbed him “the sixth Beatle of ‘The View.’” In addition to frequent co-hosting, some of his most infamous bits included the skewering of Hollywood award shows and a devious impression of the short-lived former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci. For the show’s 25th anniversary, producers put together a celebratory montage of highlights from his numerous visits over the years.
In addition to Behar, Cantone says venerable series creator Barbara Walters, who passed away last December at the age of 93, also championed him. Says Cantone, “Barbara was extremely good to me. She was tough, but she liked me a lot. I could say stuff and get away with it because Barbara thought it was funny. It was a big deal for me, that show.”
Photo By Craig Blankenhorn
Even bigger was his 2000 “Sex and the City” debut. In response to his character’s instant popularity, a storyline was written in which Cantone’s Marentino became romantically involved with Stanford Blatch, played by the late Willie Garson. Their characters evolved as a couple in the show’s remaining seasons and in the 2008 “Sex and the City” movie. They tied the knot in the 2010 “Sex and The City 2” movie sequel in an extravagant opening scene in which their wedding was officiated by Liza Minnelli.
Both Cantone and Garson rejoined the show’s 2021 reboot, “And Just Like That.” Tragically, however, Garson died of pancreatic cancer before the filming had wrapped. “God rest his soul,” says Cantone. “I miss him terribly.”
“We were supposed to have this crazy funny storyline, but that unfortunately didn’t happen.” Instead, Garson’s character was delicately written off the show.
Photos from the set of the upcoming second season, airing this summer, have been teased on social media for months, but Cantone says his character’s storyline, which sounds quite juicy, hasn’t leaked yet. “I have some glorious stuff,” he promises. “I’m in every episode, but in the last five, it really kicks in and I get this great storyline. There’s a lot of real estate on the show, a lot of people, a lot of great characters. So the fact that I get this great storyline and it ends on a bang is a big deal. It will be a huge surprise and really fun.”
Will Anthony find love once more? Cantone will only divulge that, in preparation for filming, he started working out again. “It was to get in shape for Anthony,” he confirms. “You’ll see it progress as the season goes along.”
And in the words of Carrie Bradshaw, we just have to wonder if a third season is likely. “I hope so,” he says. “I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”
In the meantime, he also has a ball working with Turner Classic Movies. “I wormed my way into that company,” he ribs. A social media exchange with host Ben Mankiewicz led to Cantone introducing several films at the Turner Classic Movie Festival in 2019. From there, in addition to becoming a regular at the annual festival, he began co-hosting with Mankiewicz and curating movie lineups around holidays like Halloween and Mother’s Day. “I just love that station,” he says. “I live for this shit. I do it pretty much for the love of it.”
When he’s not working, Cantone and his husband, Jerry Dixon, who’s also a multi-hyphenate talent of stage and screen, spend time in Northern California and Prides Crossing, Mass., near where he grew up. This summer, he’s heading overseas. “I’m going to do some traveling. By the time people are reading this I may be in Italy. I’m going to go to Rome, Ischia and Naples. I’m excited.”
