Jude Ciccolella

I met Jude Ciccolella, who plays Mike Novik on the TV series 24, while working at the Albany NY County Department of Social Services in the early 70's. We hit off right away. He and I both loved music, literature, drinking, women and humor. Chick, the name he went by in those days, had passion and determination. Like me he was looking for someone and something. We both knew that we hadn't started to find it, but at least we knew that much, sort of. One Friday night we heard a knock on the door of our apartment. I opened the door and Dick walked in quite drunk and reeking of a onion-laced submarine sandwich that he had just devoured. I said Chick come in. Chick is about a foot taller than I and at least 2 feet wider. What could I say? Sorry Chick, no more room at the inn. He could have easily flattoned me into one of those stand up cardboard figures. Besides I liked him. He came into our apartment, uttered a few things and fell on the floor face down. We would have had to call for help to move him. Chick was/is not a featherweight. I got a blanket and covered him up. He was gone before we awoke the next morning. Chick loved Brando. He would always talk about Brando's style of acting. Brando was one of his archetypes. Not long after he told me that he was leaving for acting school. The next and last time that I saw him in person was in NYC in the early 80's. Kathy and I had gone down to the city for a weekend and we were staying near Madison Square Garden. After we checked in we went in search of lunch. Right around the corner from the hotel I spotted Chick on one end of a couch that he was being moving into someone's apartment. I walked up behind him and asked him for a quarter. He did a double take and then we both laughed. He told me that he had got advertisement gigs, living up in Morningside Heights and was still plugging for some acting jobs that he could get his teeth into. Then he started showing up in quite a few TV commercials. I knew then that he was going to make it. He did and I am happy for his success. He went after it, perservered and worked hard. He derserves it.