Salvatore Coco rose to fame in the late 1990s when he starred in Heartbreak High from 1994 to 1997 as the popular and charismatic Costa ‘Con’ Bordino.
But the 49-year-old actor has recently fallen off the map following a decline in on-screen jobs, despite previous roles in Underbelly and Home and Away.
According to his IMDBthe singer had regular annual work from his heyday until 2019, when scripts started to slow down and he was seen asking for jobs on live TV.
That year, he starred in the failed reboot of the late ’90s Australian hit TV show SeaChange, which attempted a lackluster revival nearly two decades after its finale.
Salvatore landed a role in the two-part spin-off Underbelly Informer 3838 in 2020, and the following year he appeared in another miniseries titled Australian Gangster.
Salvatore Coco, 49, rose to fame in the late 1990s when he starred in Heartbreak High as the popular and charismatic Costa ‘Con’ Bordino. Pictured during the show with Ada Nicodemou
His last TV appearance was in 2022, when he returned to Home and Away for the third time to reprise his role as Dimitri Poulos.
Salvatore is now considered a part-time actor and appears to make a living as a professional master of ceremonies, mainly at weddings.
During a rare TV interview in 2019, Salvatore took advantage of the fame by interrupting the presenters and asking for work from the presenter.
He spoke to hosts Kylie Gillies and Larry Emdur on The Morning Show about how his life has changed since his days as a teen heartthrob in the 1990s.
Salvatore saw an opportunity to promote his business and subsequently began advertising his services to viewers’ homes.
The actor recently disappeared from the map when his on-screen work slowed down in 2019 when he appeared on The Morning Show to bring his emcee work to live TV
He asked the hosts, “Can I have a piece of plug?” before revealing where potential customers can find him online.
In that same interview, Salvatore also expressed interest in participating in a Heartbreak High reboot, but was unsure of who could possibly “make it happen.”
“If there is someone willing to do it and finance it, let’s do it,” he added.
He suggested that a good way to bring back the cast would be to make a new series where the old characters have children of their own who go to Hartley High.
Salvatore added that he had even spoken to Heartbreak High star Scott Major about the proposed storyline.
After a few small jobs in television, including a third return to Home and Away, Salvatore appears to be making a living as a professional Master of Ceremonies.
“I had a conversation with Scott Major and I thought, ‘We’ve got to do it, we’ve got to do it,’” he said.
Heartbreak High was originally a teen soap opera set in Sydney that aired on Channel 10 and the ABC between 1994 and 1999.
It has since been rebooted for Netflix as an Australian comedy-drama series.
While it appears that Salvatore has not been asked to join the Heartbreak High reboot, the actor has been very vocal about his love for the franchise.
Salvatore recently made two posts about the original series he starred in, one of which included fan mail he received from China for his role in the series.
Salvatore previously said he would like to join a Heartbreak High reboot, but was not asked to join the recent Netflix revival. Pictured with Scott Major and Tai Nguyen
Just a few days later, he posted another tribute to Heartbreak High in celebration of the show’s 30th anniversary, which coincided with his 49th birthday.
“An Italian boy from the Inner West got a role in a TV series he knew little about and it turned out to be one of the biggest shows on television in the 1990s,” he wrote.
’30 years later, Heartbreak High still makes audiences want to come home and sit in front of the television and lose themselves in characters and real-life journeys.
“I think this show will continue to do this for another 30 years, if not longer.”
In 2022, Salvatore went to work on the reboot, which gave the new Netflix series his approval when it appeared on television. TV black box podcast.
Despite not appearing in the reboot, Salvatore has been very vocal about his love for the Heartbreak High franchise and gave the revamped series his seal of approval.
The Two Hands actor firmly said he thought the new series was ‘amazing’ and also rejected claims that the show was too ‘woke’.
He said: ‘I thought it was fantastic. There were concerns that it would be too “woke” and overbearing with LGBT views.
“But no, it touched on the topics and wasn’t in your face. It was very subtle.’
Salvatore said that while Netflix could never fully reproduce the popular ’90s series, he was a fan of “the approach they took with the reboot.”
He concluded by saying: ‘It’s a new, fresh look at things with new people, I really like it.’