His surname is taken from real life DeCavalcante crime family mobster Frank Gualtieri, who served under Vincent Palermo. In the episode "From Where To Eternity", Paulie mentions to his parish priest after visiting a psychic that he had been donating to the parish for 23 years, meaning he had started attending in 1977. He helped pay for refurbishing his church's organ and paid for the new altar boy robes. He tells the priest he will stop contributing financially to the church following his incident with the psychic saying that he should have been protected.