Biography

Frankie "Joseph" Tartaglia was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Joseph "Brown" Tartaglia and Connie Tartaglia in 1977. He is the younger of two boys; his older brother is named Joseph "Frank" Tartaglia. He started his show business career at age 7 when he attended Bob Antonelli's school of dance and learned how to lip-sync. When he was 11, he won HBO's Young Young Comedians Contest in Philadelphia and traveled to New York for the first time to perform at Caroline's Comedy Club. When he was 14 he went to Hollywood for the first time where he won the first prize of $10,000 on an episode of America's Funniest People for singing a comedy song he wrote about hot-dogs. At 16 he moved to New York to help a friend make a public access show called SQUiRT TV which they sold to MTV. He wrote and co-hosted the show for a season in 1995. He also wrote for an MTV game show called Idiot Savants the same year. He created, produced and starred in two public access shows; Freaktown In Philly, which was hosted from a car, and Payback Time in New York which featured an ensemble cast of young men searching for the cause of the apocalypse. In 1997 at age 20, he and his brother made a film called Punctuality which he co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in. In 1998 he attended SVA for film and painting. In 1999 he completed 4 levels of improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater. That year he also started working as a producer at a company called ALLTRUE where he produced and starred in hidden camera pranks and produced a video series and a British television show. In 2001 he worked as an assistant editor on the groundbreaking documentary Supersize Me starring Morgan Spurlock, and briefly wrote for MTV's Total Request Live. From 2002-2004 he worked as a producer on several shows including The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan, Ambush Makeover, and The Good Guys, a reality TV pilot about a Hoboken mafia family for Lion TV. In 2005 he started a theater for the performing arts in Philadelphia where he was the owner and creative director. While at the theater, he was the lead singer of a rock band called The Discount Heroes, a cast member of sketch comedy group called The Sixth Borough, a member of the Comedy Improv Group Ninjas, and the founder of another improv group called Bullet Proof Giraffe. In 2014 he moved to Hollywood where he worked as an associate producer for Rogue Atlas Productions, and Super Jacket Productions. He currently develops TV shows for Dromebox.com, including Rick Shapiro News. He is currently a student at the UCB Theater West and is writing screenplays.
- IMDb mini biography by: Sarah Balducci