Porky's Actor Tony Ganios Dead at 64

Tony Ganios, who played Anthony “Meat” Tuperello in the Porky’s sex comedy franchise, has died. He was 64.

Ganios’ fiancée, Amanda Serrano-Ganios, announced his death on X, formerly known as Twitter. He died on Sunday morning after a long surgery for a spinal infection. 

"The last words we said to each other were 'I love you,'" Serrano-Ganios wrote. "Love is an understatement. You are everything to me. My heart, my soul and my best friend. #I love you #tonyganios."

“It's just unreal to me right now. It was so fast,” Serrano-Ganios wrote on X Tuesday. “He hadn't felt well and hid it from me for days. When he finally told me, and was taken to the hospital, his spinal cord was severely infected. They did surgery, next morning, his heart stopped. I'm crushed.”

"I'm just completely empty inside now. He was my best friend, my soul mate. I just love him so much," Serrano-Ganios told PEOPLE.

Ganios made his film debut in Philip Kaufman’s 1979 coming-of-age movie The Wanderers, playing tough guy Perry LaGuardia. The movie also starred Ken Wahl, who worked with Ganios again in the 1991 movie The Taking of Beverly Hills and the 1987-1990 crime series Wiseguy.

“Rest In Peace, Buddy ..... I love you,” Wahl wrote on X Monday.

In 1981, Ganios starred in three films, the most popular being Porky’s. He became a centerpiece of the teen sex comedy franchise, appearing as Anthony “Meat” Tuperello in the 1983 sequel Porky’s II: The Next Day and Porky’s Revenge in 1985.

Ganios also starred alongside John Belushi in the 1981 comedy Continental Divide and his final Hollywood film was 1993’s Rising Sun, directed by Kaufman. He played a killer who is stabbed in the eye with an icicle by Bruce Willis’ John McClane in 1990’s Die Hard 2.

His television credits include five episodes of Wiseguy, an episode of Scarecrow and Mrs. King in 1987 and an episode of The Equalizer in 1988.

Gianos was scheduled to appear at the Cult Classics Convention in Bastrop, Texas, alongside fellow Porky’s stars Roger Wilson, Dan Monahan, Cyril O’Reilly and Mark Herrier in March.

In a 2015 interview with Cult Faction, Gianos described the group as a “big, dysfunctional family” that has been together through the ups and downs of life.

“We’re like a big, dysfunctional family that for over thirty years has seen each other through marriages, childbirth, divorces, lawsuits, and the tragic loss of one of our own,” the Brooklyn-born actor said. “Sometimes we feel like strangling one another, but when the chips are down we have always rallied for our mutual aid and defense.”

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