Danny Aiello may be approaching the century mark in film and television roles, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have a little fun with a side gig.

The actor, who’s been nominated for an Academy Award for Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, and played memorable characters like Mr. Johnny Cammareri, the neighborhood fixer dumped by Cher in Moonstruck, is pretty proud of the fact that he can sing, too.

Aiello, 78, spoke with the Tampa Bay Times about his second career crooning vintage pop standards, which he’ll do Friday at the Bienes Center for the Arts at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, backed by his eight-piece Bronx Wanderers band. Aiello has recorded four CDs, with throaty expression often compared with his idols, Bobby Darin and Tony Bennett.

Not bad for someone who began singing professionally at age 70.

“I was intimidated by singing before that,” Aiello said. “When I play a character as an actor I can hide behind that; blame it on the character if I stink. But singing was always difficult because it’s you, and you’re judged by what you’re doing. I acclimated myself to it, and found out that I’m not too bad. I seemingly get away with it.”

Now Aiello is seeing how much he can get away with, including a concert tour, developing a stage musical about the final years of mobster Al Capone, and the new CD Bridges, recorded in collaboration with rapper Hasan.

The unlikely pairing began after a chance meeting, when Hasan and his entourage recognized Aiello from Do the Right Thing. Hasan proposed a duet, layering his rap flow over a recording of Aiello singing Besame Mucho as a demo. Aiello heard the results for the first time in his favorite place to listen. “So, we’re sitting in my car because my car is my studio,” Aiello recounted. “When I have to listen to music during rehearsal, believe it or not, I sit in my Jaguar to do it. I was taught that by Madonna (his co-star in her Papa Don’t Preach video). She said: ‘You want to hear your music? Go to your car and listen there. Best studio you can be in.’ I’ve been doing that ever since I began recording.”

Aiello is just beginning to take his musical act on the road.

Audiences hear jazzy standards like One for My Baby ( And One More for the Road) and Save the Last Dance For Me, at turns jaunty and confessional, Sinatra style.

They also hear more about Aiello’s movie stardom than he originally planned.

“I tried at first to talk very little [between songs],” Aiello said. “But then I was told people feel something is being stolen from them if you don’t talk a little about your movie career. … Now I come out, very selfish but not at all cocky, and within two songs they know I can sing. So I can talk about stages of my life, what the music meant to me then. It just sort of swings right by with no problem.”

Seats for the 7 p.m. show from $27.99 at ticketweb.com, ticketmaster.com.