(1984) joseph daniel sorrano jr is born on june 24 to joseph and christina sorrano in new jersey. his arrival is a joyous one. he is the only child to survive labor, his birth following his mother's sixth consecutive miscarriage. his family is italian. loud, stoutly catholic and loving in scarily intense ways. when he is born, most of his relatives are well into their twenties and thirties. he is the youngest of all his extended family and is doted upon. see: spoiled.
(1989) joey jr starts school at st joseph elementary. on the first day, he accidentally calls the teacher "mom" and cries the rest of the afternoon. he is a sensitive kid and he is bullied in class for his small stature. he pretends to love baseball so his dad will play catch with him, but joe is always busy and signs him up to little league instead. his nanny encourages him to pursue sport to help him fit in at school but he refuses to go to team try outs. he likes ping pong and swimming, but joe tells him those aren't sports for men, so he stops talking about them and reluctantly joins the little league team. joey jr grows tired of baseball by middle school. easily bored, he tries his hand at every extracurricular sport and activity available to him at school but nothing sticks.
(1993) his parents have money and lots of it. busy running their separate business empires, joey jr is raised by nannies. the only thing that can keep joey quiet for an extended period of time is jurassic park. in a dark room with a popcorn kernel lodged against a wiggly tooth, he falls completely and utterly in love with dinosaurs and decides that he wants to be a paleontologist. he hides his mother's things in the dirt then forgets where he buried them and gets into a lot of trouble when she can't find her expensive china. his favorite christmas present that year is a velociraptor plushie that he sleeps with every night. he makes loud boasts about unearthing an undiscovered species, but it falls on deaf ears. his father makes it clear that his future lies with the family business.
(1999) he is running through the house and knocks over an antique clock and it breaks. he freaks out and manages to put it back together without anybody finding out, accounting for every nut, bolt and screw. he's proud of his achievement but doesn't tell a soul, knowing how angry joe would be that he was running upstairs. joey jr is bright and does well at school. he is still small and easy prey to bullies. usually he runs away in time, but he comes home one evening with a black eye and the next day, he finds out that the bully's father has gone missing. he turns up a few days later, shaken up but otherwise unharmed. joey jr assumes it's a coincidence.
(2001) joseph's business contunues to do well and one night, a group of men joey jr is told to address as his "uncles" visit the house. the next morning, joseph is on a plane to italy and joey and christina are packing up their things and moving to boston. every night his mother clutches a rosary and prays for joe's safe return. she picks her son up every day in a car with bulletproof windows, but he doesn't ask why. when the school year begins, he has a massive growth spurt, going from 5"1 to 6"4. it brings him attention from the ladies and he laps it up, learning how to charm the opposite sex a little too well.
(2002) his father returns from italy and tells joey jr that he is proud of him when he learns he is the talk of the neighborhood. it's the first time he's heard the words, but joey doesn't know if he likes the reason why. he continues to do well at school. although his dreams of becoming a paleontoligist have taken a backseat, as he grows more suspicious of his father's business ventures, he decides that whatever he does, it will be in pursuit of an honest line of work.
(2002) following graduation from his all-boys high school, joey jr and his girlfriend have a pregnancy scare. it scares him into celibacy and he attends mass with his grandparents every sunday in new jersey for the entire summer to say thanks to the powers that be. he can barely stay awake through the service, but it's worth it when his nonna sends him home with a belly full of home-made gnocchi. she is the first person he tells when he is accepted to duke university to study medicine. she tells him she's been praying for this his entire life, starts to cry and hugs him so hard he nearly passes out.
(2003) he accepts the offer to study and moves out of the family home. joe isn't happy, but christina manages to convince him. on his own in north carolina, joey jr's surprised to find that he's homesick, but the college experience is too good to pass up and he finds his place as the jokester. he finds the coursework easy and becomes lazy. but when he receives the call that his grandmother is in the hospital after suffering a heart attack, it snaps him back to reality, lighting a fire under his ass. he graduates with honors and when she recovers, she talks his ear off for three hours. in the fall, he calls to tell her he's decided that he's going to learn how to fix the human heart. at his graduation, she tells him that he's already fixed hers and he can't wipe the smile off his face when he walks onto the stage to receive his degree.
(2005) joey jr moves back to boston. a week after his arrival, his father is found dead in a garage in new jersey. there is no mention of foul play which gives the family some reprieve. after the funeral, they are visited by joey's "uncles" and the secrets of the family business are revealed to him. he breathes a sigh of relief when they explain that although joe's dealings were shady, he held no ties to the mob. they mention horses and greyhounds and poker and joey feels his eyes glazing over until they explain that joe had been trying to go straight for him. they offer their condolensces and the next day, they escort him to the family lawyer to settle his father's estate. joey is wide eyed at the number that stares back at him at the top of the bank statement and feels his stomach lurch. he becomes a millionaire overnight.
(2016) to his grandmother's joy, he is partway through a cardiology fellowship at massachusetts general. joey's not exactly in love with the hours, the exams or the early starts, but they've become a necessary evil and distract him from his insane fortune. he breaks up his day by mercilessly flirting with women that pay him any attention. he's nicknamed "dr romeo" and plays up to the running joke that he's most likely to give his female patients a stroke before they ever make it out of the ICU. he loves his job.
(1989) joey jr starts school at st joseph elementary. on the first day, he accidentally calls the teacher "mom" and cries the rest of the afternoon. he is a sensitive kid and he is bullied in class for his small stature. he pretends to love baseball so his dad will play catch with him, but joe is always busy and signs him up to little league instead. his nanny encourages him to pursue sport to help him fit in at school but he refuses to go to team try outs. he likes ping pong and swimming, but joe tells him those aren't sports for men, so he stops talking about them and reluctantly joins the little league team. joey jr grows tired of baseball by middle school. easily bored, he tries his hand at every extracurricular sport and activity available to him at school but nothing sticks.
(1993) his parents have money and lots of it. busy running their separate business empires, joey jr is raised by nannies. the only thing that can keep joey quiet for an extended period of time is jurassic park. in a dark room with a popcorn kernel lodged against a wiggly tooth, he falls completely and utterly in love with dinosaurs and decides that he wants to be a paleontologist. he hides his mother's things in the dirt then forgets where he buried them and gets into a lot of trouble when she can't find her expensive china. his favorite christmas present that year is a velociraptor plushie that he sleeps with every night. he makes loud boasts about unearthing an undiscovered species, but it falls on deaf ears. his father makes it clear that his future lies with the family business.
(1999) he is running through the house and knocks over an antique clock and it breaks. he freaks out and manages to put it back together without anybody finding out, accounting for every nut, bolt and screw. he's proud of his achievement but doesn't tell a soul, knowing how angry joe would be that he was running upstairs. joey jr is bright and does well at school. he is still small and easy prey to bullies. usually he runs away in time, but he comes home one evening with a black eye and the next day, he finds out that the bully's father has gone missing. he turns up a few days later, shaken up but otherwise unharmed. joey jr assumes it's a coincidence.
(2001) joseph's business contunues to do well and one night, a group of men joey jr is told to address as his "uncles" visit the house. the next morning, joseph is on a plane to italy and joey and christina are packing up their things and moving to boston. every night his mother clutches a rosary and prays for joe's safe return. she picks her son up every day in a car with bulletproof windows, but he doesn't ask why. when the school year begins, he has a massive growth spurt, going from 5"1 to 6"4. it brings him attention from the ladies and he laps it up, learning how to charm the opposite sex a little too well.
(2002) his father returns from italy and tells joey jr that he is proud of him when he learns he is the talk of the neighborhood. it's the first time he's heard the words, but joey doesn't know if he likes the reason why. he continues to do well at school. although his dreams of becoming a paleontoligist have taken a backseat, as he grows more suspicious of his father's business ventures, he decides that whatever he does, it will be in pursuit of an honest line of work.
(2002) following graduation from his all-boys high school, joey jr and his girlfriend have a pregnancy scare. it scares him into celibacy and he attends mass with his grandparents every sunday in new jersey for the entire summer to say thanks to the powers that be. he can barely stay awake through the service, but it's worth it when his nonna sends him home with a belly full of home-made gnocchi. she is the first person he tells when he is accepted to duke university to study medicine. she tells him she's been praying for this his entire life, starts to cry and hugs him so hard he nearly passes out.
(2003) he accepts the offer to study and moves out of the family home. joe isn't happy, but christina manages to convince him. on his own in north carolina, joey jr's surprised to find that he's homesick, but the college experience is too good to pass up and he finds his place as the jokester. he finds the coursework easy and becomes lazy. but when he receives the call that his grandmother is in the hospital after suffering a heart attack, it snaps him back to reality, lighting a fire under his ass. he graduates with honors and when she recovers, she talks his ear off for three hours. in the fall, he calls to tell her he's decided that he's going to learn how to fix the human heart. at his graduation, she tells him that he's already fixed hers and he can't wipe the smile off his face when he walks onto the stage to receive his degree.
(2005) joey jr moves back to boston. a week after his arrival, his father is found dead in a garage in new jersey. there is no mention of foul play which gives the family some reprieve. after the funeral, they are visited by joey's "uncles" and the secrets of the family business are revealed to him. he breathes a sigh of relief when they explain that although joe's dealings were shady, he held no ties to the mob. they mention horses and greyhounds and poker and joey feels his eyes glazing over until they explain that joe had been trying to go straight for him. they offer their condolensces and the next day, they escort him to the family lawyer to settle his father's estate. joey is wide eyed at the number that stares back at him at the top of the bank statement and feels his stomach lurch. he becomes a millionaire overnight.
(2016) to his grandmother's joy, he is partway through a cardiology fellowship at massachusetts general. joey's not exactly in love with the hours, the exams or the early starts, but they've become a necessary evil and distract him from his insane fortune. he breaks up his day by mercilessly flirting with women that pay him any attention. he's nicknamed "dr romeo" and plays up to the running joke that he's most likely to give his female patients a stroke before they ever make it out of the ICU. he loves his job.