Comic Finds No Laughs in Obit Confusion

With the death last week of comedian and restaurant owner Joe Restivo, the phone for the other Joe Restivo, an actor-comedian living in Los Angeles, wouldn’t stop ringing.

“My agent said, ‘Oh my God, Joe is dead,’ ” Restivo said Wednesday. “I got a call from Howie Mandel this morning. The guy was crying, he was offering sympathy to my wife.”

Restivo, 54, said the confusion was understandable since he and the late restaurateur share the same name and age. The obituaries also noted that Restivo was a former comedian who had worked as a character actor.

“He stopped acting years ago, but I still work,” Restivo said, adding that he was initially touched to receive calls from friends he hadn’t heard from in years. But then he learned he was replaced in a movie because the film crew thought he was dead.

“By day four or five, it was not funny anymore,” he said.

Restivo, whose role in an upcoming Roger Corman film was restored, said those who were confused probably didn’t read the obituary closely enough.

The late Joe Restivo was a partner in Vitello’s restaurant with his brother, Steve, for nearly three decades. The celebrity hangout in Studio City was thrust into the spotlight May 4, 2001, when Robert Blake’s wife was found shot to death in the actor’s car after the couple had dined together.

Blake said he had left Bonny Lee Bakley in the car while he returned to Vitello’s to retrieve a handgun that had slipped from his waistband. A jury acquitted him of murder, but he was found liable in a later civil trial.