Sophia Petrillo - Early History

Early History

Sophia Grisanti was born in April 1906 in Palermo, Sicily to parents Eleanor and Don. She had a sister Angela, a brother Angelo, and she mentioned another brother, but he was unnamed and only spoken of a few times. It is revealed in the season 2 episode "A Piece of Cake" that her 50th birthday was in April 1956, placing her date of birth in April 1906. However, in another season 2 episode, "And Then There Was One," Sophia claims she had been "walking since 1904." In the first episode of "The Golden Palace" (1992) it is revealed that Sophia was 87. However in several episodes, she is revealed to be between the ages of 80 and 85. In her many flashbacks to life in Sicily, she frequently places herself as being a young woman (having romantic affairs) in dates between 1914 and 1920. These discrepancies may be due to either continuity errors or dramatic license on the part of Sophia.

While in Sicily, as a teenager she was briefly engaged to a young man from her village Augustine Bagatelli, she also claims that she was once engaged to her brother. Later, she became engaged to Giuseppe Mangiacavallo, who jilted her at the altar. She moved to New York after she annulled her arranged first marriage to Guido Spirelli when she was 14. She has no accent left to show that she grew up speaking the Sicilian language. Instead, she sports a thick Brooklyn accent with a fast speaking pace, which often contributed to the humor in her one-liners.

Sophia Spirelli then married Salvatore "Sal" Petrillo (played by Sid Melton in flashback), and had three children with him: Dorothy, a divorced substitute teacher; Phil (an unseen character), a cross-dresser with a wife named Angela, a welder, and several children in a trailer park in Newark, New Jersey who later died during the series; and Gloria (played by Doris Belack and Dena Dietrich), who lived in California and married into money and who later lost the fortune that her husband had left her in an investment scam.