Tommy DeVito, a son of New Jersey who became a founding member and lead guitarist for Frankie Valli’s beloved doo wop quartet, the Four Seasons, has died. He was 92.
DeVito died Monday night in Nevada, and a funeral service for the baritone singer will be planned in New Jersey, Alfredo Nittoli, a friend, wrote on Facebook.
Earlier this month, DeVito was hospitalized after contracting coronavirus.
In a statement, Valli and Bob Gaudio, another original member of the Four Seasons, expressed “great sadness” over the death of their bandmate.
“We send our love to his family during this most difficult time,” Valli and Gaudio said in the joint statement. “He will be missed by all who loved him.”
Valli, Gaudio and DeVito were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 along with Nick Massi, the band’s bass guitarist who died of cancer in 2000, for their inventive style and string of rollicking hits that included “Sherry,” “Let’s Hang on” and “Working My Way Back to You.”
The group’s rise from humble origins in the Garden State and period of radio dominance in the 1960s were immortalized years later in the Broadway hit “Jersey Boys.”
In the musical, the character based on DeVito explained: “If you’re from my neighborhood, you got three ways out: You could join the army. You could get mobbed up. Or — you could become a star.”
DeVito’s character causes trouble at times for the band in “Jersey Boys,” piling up gambling debts. The real-life DeVito said the narrative was about 75% true, and he told NJ Advance Media in 2005, “It’s a good story. Who am I to spoil it?”
Born Gaetano DeVito in Belleville, N.J., in 1928, he was the son of Italian immigrants and the youngest of nine children. He grew up poor and often got into trouble.
“When I was a kid, I was locked up. I was in six or seven jails. I went to prison one time. But my teenage years were a son of a b—h. I was a hell raiser,” DeVito once told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “I was a menace to everybody.”
But he found purpose in music, and taught himself to play guitar.
DeVito left the group in 1970. He said he worked as a cleaner, and he told the Review-Journal in 2009 that he once stunned a client when he informed her of his past.
“I will always remember him for his great voice and for the character that he was,” actor Joe Pesci, DeVito’s lifelong friend, said in a statement. “My heartfelt condolences go out to his family and loyal fans. I will never forget him.”
