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Turtle (Jerry Ferrara)

Gender: Male
Occupation: Crowd Filler / Talent Manager
* First appeared on July 18, 2004.

Turtle is a childhood friend of Vince's from Queens. He is the only one of the main characters who is not directly involved with the acting business. Turtle is Vincent's driver and takes care of issues around the house. He brings street smarts and an urban flavor to the group and is a frequent user of marijuana and supplier to the rest of the group. Usually, he and Drama stick together and do their own things while E and Vincent are doing business. Turtle seems to be the guy to find the good in all bad situations and bring a relative calm to the group. Turtle's importance is at times overlooked as his insight and personal connections sometimes solve difficult issues. His working status prevents him from being more appealing to women, which the guys joke about on many occasions, particularly Drama, who isn't any more appealing than Turtle. He is mainly seen wearing jerseys of athletes such as Allan Houston and Alex Rodriguez, and an omnipresent baseball cap, usually the New York Yankees. Despite his parasitic relationship with Vince, his loyalty and friendship temper his baser qualities, like working with Eric to protect Vince from a vindictive internet journalist.

Turtle has a Rottweiler named Arnold.

Turtle loves expensive cars, persuading Vince to lease a Rolls Royce Phantom in Season 1, and driving throughout the series, a Hummer H2 that was given to Dom as a severance package in Season 3, and a Cadillac Escalade ESV.

In season two, a CD is left in Eric's Maserati by two friends as a means of getting their rap demo tape into the hands of a music producer who has the exact same car. When the car is picked up from the impound lot, the tape is played and all agree that it is good. Loving the music, Turtle gets a track into Queens Boulevard and agrees to manage the promising musician played by real life rapper Saigon. He doesn't get a formal office until season four in Eric Murphy's "The Murphy Group" corporation. Saigon received a great deal of interest from several record companies after Vince arranged for Saigon's music to be played by Big Boy on popular L.A. radio station, Power 106. After Turtle obtained representation for Saigon from Ari, Turtle lost his client when Saigon informed him that a former manager had returned and muscled Turtle out of the picture. Despite his troubles with Saigon, Turtle received a moderate settlement of $40,000 from Saigon. His activities after this episode in terms of producing considerably disappear. Turtle is friends with Kanye West.

At the end of Season 3, Turtle is dating Kelly, the daughter of a body shop manager. In Season 4, Turtle invests $20,000 in his Cousin Ronnie's scheme to buy a dying Sandy Koufax's jersey, hoping that he will profit after Koufax dies. However, Turtle learns by the auctioneers that Koufax is actually alive and well, thereby squandering the rest of Turtle's Saigon money and a large sum of Drama's money.

In Aquamom, Turtle's mother asked, "Who's that animal," in reference to the dates that he and Drama were planning to take to the premiere. In Episode #2.11 Blue Balls Lagoon, it is revealed that Turtle is Sicilian-American.

It is also admitted that because of him, Vincent got to L.A., as Turtle used to be a bookie while in high school. He paid for the entire ride to L.A. and food when they arrived with fifteen thousand dollars. He shares with Jamie-Lynn his desires to open up a restaurant one day.

Real Name

Nobody has called Turtle by his real name since he was 5; not even his mother.

Throughout the first 5 seasons, the audience is told his name only once. In Episode 11 of Season 5, he tells actress Jamie Lynn Sigler, with whom he is starting a relationship, that his name is Sal.

The name "Salvatore Assante" appears on the Nike Air Force Ones that Fukiyama custom made for Turtle in season 3, this may be a clue as to what Turtle's real name is.

Jerry Ferrara asked that Turtle's real name be "Sal" in tribute to a friend of his who died at a young age.

Inspiration

The Turtle character was based on Mark Wahlberg's real-life assistant, 39-year-old Donnie "Donkey" Carroll. Donkey carried Wahlberg's bags for more than 14 years while trying to launch a career as a rap musician under the name Murda One. Donkey died suddenly on December 18, 2005 of an asthma attack. Donkey and Wahlberg had a dispute earlier in 2005 because Carroll claimed Wahlberg never paid him for appropriating his life story for Entourage. He said all the other real-life characters had been taken care of but that he'd been cut out.