New York TImes
January 23, 2000
Ba-Da-Bing! Thumbs Up for the Pinkie Ring
By ILENE ROSENZWEIG
I'VE been wearing it for 30 years,'' Tony Sirico said. ''It's part of my life.'' Mr. Sirico was discussing his pinkie ring, the same one he wears when playing Paulie Walnuts on ''The Sopranos,'' the HBO mob opera that started its second season last week.
''They say Mafia wear pinkie rings, but men of style wear pinkie rings,'' Mr. Sirico said. ''So long as they're not gaudy and the man has a nice hand -- not too feminine a hand.'' Mr. Sirico, who favors what he called a ''sexy'' black onyx look, said he was unaware that pinkie rings had gone out of style.
No matter. They aren't anymore. Out of style, that is. Rapt ''Sopranos'' fans revel in the show's anti-''Godfather'' suburban New Jersey ambience: the women with their acrylic nails and bad aerobics outfits, the leather- and marble-appointed living rooms. But far from mocking this tackiness, the show, and its authentic-seeming wise guys, like Paulie Walnuts, have rendered it cool, pinkie rings and all.
At the other end of the classiness spectrum, pinkie rings play a pivotal part in the film ''The Talented Mr. Ripley,'' as tokens of the high-born lineage to which Matt Damon's Tom Ripley so desperately aspires.
Lately, high fashion has rehabilitated once-declasse items, from ruffled tuxedo shirts to tube tops. But it has ignored the pinkie ring. ''Generally, a pinkie ring has a touch of vulgarity,'' said John Fairchild, the former chairman of Women's Wear Daily and an arbiter of all things chic. Long dismissed as a symbol of bad taste, the pinkie ring, with its associations to cheese balls and Joe Pesci, seemed too felonious to overlook. Like celebrating a bad toupee.
Which is all right with me. If loving pinkie rings is a crime, then I'm happy to plead guilty. Maybe because I grew up on Long Island at a time when boys picked you up for the prom wearing tuxedos and sneakers, I've always yearned for the opposite: guys with polish and panache, a kind of macho dandy. You can smell him coming, an intoxicating cocktail of fresh shirt, cologne and a hair shine -- confident enough in his masculinity to indulge his feminine side.
Mr. Sirico spoke by telephone, during an afternoon of watching the horses on television and ''making sauce'' in his Brooklyn apartment, where he lives with his mother.
The pinkie ring expresses a masculine elegance that transcends race, creed and culture. The Duke of Windsor wore one, and Prince Charles does. Signet rings, as aristocrats know, were originally used to stamp initials or family crests into sealing wax, and worn on the pinkie, an easy finger to extend. Hip-hop princes like Sean Combs have also adopted pinkie rings. The rapper Jay-Z posed for an album cover with his Bentley and a diamond-encrusted pinkie.
''Conscious or unconscious, ironic or unironic, they're trying to impersonate a member of WASP society, impersonating British upper class,'' said Toby Young, an English writer living in New York, whose pinkie bears his family crest, a moorhen.
Old-time-comedy royalty favored them, too. The televised Dean Martin roasts of the 1970's, tapes of which are now sold through infomercials, were a pinkie ring bonanza. From George Burns to Milton Berle, Jack Benny to Jackie Gleason, Bob Newhart to Bob Hope, these legends fired off zingers with pinkies flashing.
When I called Alan King, the Friars Club member and longtime roaster, he said, ''Well, we were all a bunch of wise guys.'' Back in the pinkie heyday, he recalled, the cat's-eye and star sapphires were the hip stones to get. ''Everyone looked to see the best star -- who had the best one,'' he said. ''It was very affected.''
Frank Sinatra wore a signet ring with a family crest on his right hand, dressing up an otherwise inelegant mitt. ''My knuckles are like broken bananas,'' he once said. He refused the gift of an ID bracelet from his family, saying he wore only the ring, and besides, ''I know who I am.''
To me, the pinkie ring conveys that kind of bravado. Which is why I think it's an injustice that women don't wear them, too.
Women need pinkie rings. Fendi baguettes and pashmina scarves can hardly be talismans of inner strength when their trendiness is so fleeting. High heels are a more consistent power statement, but they hurt too much. What object of style can offer unquestionable self-assurance that won't be gone next season? Maybe a diamond engagement ring, the only flaw being that it is given by a man. A pinkie ring, on the other hand, can be inherited, a coming-of-age hand-me-down. It can also be bought with your own earnings, say, after a good day at the track.
To put my money where my pinkie is, I visited Bobby Satin, a jeweler in Chinatown. Mr. Satin has been in the business for 40 years, long enough to have seen the pinkie's fortunes come and go. In the 1950's and 60's, the rings were big, he told me, pulling out a tray of vintage ones: understated sapphires, gold horse heads set in diamond horseshoes.
Pinkie rings are often thought to bring luck, and they are rubbed and turned by some gamblers like worry beads. Almost sheepishly, Mr. Satin conceded that he used to wear one himself, gold with green jade -- a good luck stone in Chinatown. He took his off 20 years ago, around the time he had one made for his son, who was college-bound. His son gave it back, saying he'd never wear it.
Why did they go out of style? Hippies. Grunge. Long hair became the new expression of sensitized masculinity. On ''The Sopranos,'' Christopher, Tony Soprano's hot-headed nephew, from the next generation, does not wear a pinkie ring.
''Rebellion, I guess,'' Michael Imperioli, who plays Christopher, said at the premiere party last week at Roseland Ballroom.
Pinkie rings have always been about impersonating style heroes, from American blue bloods emulating British aristocrats to working stiffs -- gangsters, car dealers, show biz characters -- striving toward classiness. Tacky or not, it is still a fundamental of American style: self-invention.
Maybe these days, when wearing rings in your navels and eyebrows is common, the most rebellious thing a girl can do is to stake a claim to a pinkie ring, joining those few fabulous female pinkie wearers like Lil' Kim and Angie Dickenson, a k a ''Police Woman,'' who was sensational on a Dean Martin roast in a strapless spangled gown and an arsenal of diamonds on her left pinkie.
So I picked out a gold pinkie ring with a diamond-chip horseshoe for good luck, like the one Big Pussy Bompensero wears on ''The Sopranos.'' You're supposed to wear it facing up, with the ends of the horseshoe pointing to the nail, so that the luck won't run out. (So said Joe Mantegna, playing a snazzy numbers runner in Barry Levinson's film ''Liberty Heights.'') The ring's previous owner had a pinkie twice as big as mine, so Mr. Satin sized it down. Suddenly feeling large, I bought another one, for my best pallie, just like the friendship pinkie rings Frank once bought for himself and Dean.
On second look, I started to worry that there was a pinkie love handle poking over the edge of the band. In the ring, my finger looked fat. I didn't think I could pull it off. Mr. Satin shook his head, assuring me that it was swollen only from trying rings on and suggesting I switch hands. I did and then remembered something said to me at the Soprano's premiere party by Chuck Zito, who plays a Mafia gangster on HBO's prison drama, ''Oz.'' ''The bigger and hairier the hand, the better it looks,'' said Mr. Zito, whose pinkie ring is a diamond-studded boxing glove from his father.
So my pinkie's slightly pudgy. You got a problem with that?
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