Anthony Martignetti, North End’s Prince Spaghetti Boy, Dies at 63

Anthony Martignetti, who played the ‘Prince Spaghetti Boy’ in the famed 1960s pasta commercial that put the North End on the map, died unexpectedly on Aug. 23. 

Martignetti, a former resident of the North End who gained fame as the boy running home for a Wednesday Prince Spaghetti night in the famed commercial, was 63 years old. 

Martignetti was only 12 years old when he starred in the 1969 commercial by chance. Martignetti once told the Boston Globe he was asked for directions to Commercial Street by a crew scouting for the commercial’s North End location and was picked for the part. 

The commercial, that arguably every longtime North End resident remembers, shows Martignetti’s actor mother Mary Fiumara shouting ‘Anthony! Anthony!’ out of a second-story window in the North End. 

Hearing his mother’s call Martignetti, who had emigrated with his family from Italy just three years earlier, runs from Haymarket through the streets of the North End, past a bocce game and finally home for his favorite Prince Pasta. 

At the time the commercial was made Prince Pasta was manufactured in the North End at 92 Prince Street. The company gained national fame with the slogan, “Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day!” and subsequent commercial starring Martignetti. 

Later in life Martignetti became an Associate Court Officer at Dedham District Court and moved to West Roxbury. He was the beloved husband of Ruth E. (Ubri) Martignetti. Loving father of Anthony Martignetti of New Jersey. Beloved son of Raffaele and Carmela (D’Alelio) Martignetti of West Roxbury. Devoted brother of Angelo Martignetti of Lynn, Andy Martignetti and his wife Suzy of Dedham, Michelle Knorring and her husband Peter of Buzzards Bay. Also survived by many aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins.

“I always understood that it was larger than me, that I had a responsibility to preserve what that commercial meant to people,” Martignetti said to the Boston Globe during the 50th anniversary of the commercial’s airing. “I knew that if I got into trouble, little Anthony from the spaghetti commercial would be all over the paper.”