Anthony Martignetti, who found television immortality as a 12-year-old Italian immigrant when he sprinted through Boston’s North End in an enduring television commercial for Prince spaghetti, playing a boy who is beckoned by his mother’s cry, “Anthony! Anthony!,” died on Sunday at his home in West Roxbury, Mass. He said Mr. Martignetti had been awaiting treatment for severe sleep apnea. In 1969, Anthony and several fellow preadolescents were approached in Boston’s Little Italy by three men looking for Commercial Street. They turned out to be scouts for an advertising agency seeking a realistic location to film a pasta commercial and credible nonprofessionals to act in it.

Source: New York Times August 26, 2020 21:11 UTC