Julio Vincent Gambuto grew up in Rossville and is a graduate of Staten Island Academy and Harvard University. After getting is B.A. in English, he moved on to get his M.F.A in Film and TV at University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.

The son of a bus-driver slash bread-baker, “Julie”, grew up in a large Italian family on Staten Island. His aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered often around Mom’s seafoam-green formica kitchen table for “cake and coffee” — always an Entenmann’s crumb cake — to tell stories, argue about the Mets, and bitch about the neighbors.