Albert DePrisco is a Massachusetts jeweler and the owner and president of A.M. DePrisco Wellesley, a fine-jewelry business rooted in a family trade that dates to the 1940s. He became more widely known after beginning a relationship with Lisa Niemi, the widow of actor Patrick Swayze, whom he married in 2014.
That marriage explains much of the public interest in DePrisco, but it came decades into an established jewelry career. He had worked in the DePrisco family business since his high-school years and had owned the Wellesley operation since 1995 before his personal life drew national attention.
His jewelry career began in the DePrisco family business
The DePrisco family’s jewelry history predates Albert’s career by more than two decades. Frank and Marie DePrisco founded DePrisco Jewelers in Boston in 1948, creating the business environment in which Albert would later learn the trade.
A 2011 profile in Wellesley Weston Magazine reported that Albert began working in the family business while still in high school. His first paycheck came in 1972, when he worked Saturdays. The family opened a jewelry location in Wellesley in 1978, further establishing its presence outside Boston.
Public records connecting Albert to Wellesley High School’s Class of 1974 also fit that chronology. Beyond that, reliable sources do not establish a college education or formal professional qualifications, so claims about specific degrees or training should be treated cautiously.
The major ownership change came in 1995, when Albert purchased the Wellesley jewelry business from his family. That move gave him an independent professional identity within a larger family associated with the DePrisco name.
Building A.M. DePrisco in Wellesley
Today, A.M. DePrisco Wellesley operates at 571 Washington Street in Wellesley, Massachusetts. The company’s current materials identify Albert as its owner and president and describe him as continuing to work with clients on custom jewelry projects.
The business deals in fine diamonds, estate jewelry, one-of-a-kind pieces and custom design, while also offering services such as repair, restoration and appraisals. A.M. DePrisco says Albert has sourced diamonds and fine gemstones directly from Antwerp since the 1980s, although that detail comes from the company’s own account of his professional history.
His business should not be confused with every jewelry store carrying the DePrisco name. National Jeweler reported in 2018 that A.M. DePrisco was distinct from DePrisco Jewelers operations in Boston and Osterville. That same report covered an A.M. DePrisco expansion to Lake Forest, Illinois, but the location was owned and operated by Jon and Jennifer Smoter rather than by Albert personally.
That distinction matters because online biographies sometimes describe the DePrisco businesses as though they form a single chain under Albert’s ownership. The available evidence does not support that characterization.
How Albert DePrisco met Lisa Niemi
DePrisco’s name entered a much wider public sphere in 2012 because of his relationship with Lisa Niemi.
In October of that year, DePrisco confirmed to The Boston Globe that the two were dating and said they had been introduced by mutual friends several months earlier. Niemi later gave a similar account, saying that longtime friends had brought them together roughly three years after Patrick Swayze’s death in 2009.
Their relationship developed largely outside DePrisco’s existing public identity as a jeweler. Niemi wrote about falling in love again in an April 2014 post on her own website, by which time she referred to DePrisco as her fiancé.
According to contemporary wedding coverage, DePrisco proposed on Christmas Eve in 2013 after the couple had been together for more than a year.
Their 2014 wedding in Palm Beach
Albert DePrisco and Lisa Niemi married on May 25, 2014, in Palm Beach, Florida. Contemporary reports from Us Weekly, CBS News and People placed the ceremony at the Mar-a-Lago Club, with more than 50 family members and friends attending.
The marriage drew considerable attention because Niemi had been married to Patrick Swayze for decades before his death. Her decision to remarry therefore became part of a public discussion about grief, loyalty and finding a new relationship after losing a spouse.
Niemi has addressed that tension herself rather than presenting her second marriage as a replacement for her first. In interviews around the wedding and again in 2024, she described DePrisco as accepting of the fact that her love for Swayze remained part of her life.
That distinction is important. The public record supports Niemi’s description of DePrisco as someone who did not treat her continuing attachment to Swayze as a competition, but it does not justify broader claims that DePrisco “healed” her or helped her “move on.” Those interpretations go beyond what either person has publicly established.
In 2024, Niemi still referred to DePrisco as her husband and said that he had also been through a divorce before they met. Details about his earlier marriage have not been reliably documented in the sources that support his public profile, and there is little reason to speculate about them.
What is reliably known about Albert DePrisco’s age
DePrisco’s exact date of birth is less certain than many online biography pages suggest.
The Boston Globe described him as 57 in October 2012, while People reported that he was 58 when he married Niemi in May 2014. Those contemporary reports point to a birth year around 1955 or 1956.
Some secondary biography sites list August 30, 1955, as his birthday, but that date has not been established by a sufficiently authoritative public record. Other low-quality sources publish conflicting dates, including one that would make him several years younger than the ages reported contemporaneously in 2012 and 2014.
For that reason, an exact birthday or present-day age should not be presented as settled fact without stronger documentation.
Claims about acting and net worth are poorly supported
A number of online profiles describe DePrisco as a former actor, but reliable evidence for an acting career is lacking. Searches for identifiable film or television credits matching the Massachusetts jeweler have not produced a credible professional record.
His documented career is in jewelry, where the available evidence is extensive and consistent. Calling him a former actor would therefore give a weakly supported claim the same weight as a career that is verifiable across company histories, local reporting and trade coverage.
The same caution applies to claims about his net worth. Various websites have assigned multimillion-dollar estimates to DePrisco, sometimes differing by tens of millions of dollars. Those figures are not supported by audited disclosures, reputable financial reporting or a transparent valuation of his business interests.
There is no reliable public basis for stating a precise personal net worth.
His professional role remains active
As of 2026, A.M. DePrisco’s current website still presents Albert as the owner and president of the Wellesley business and describes him as personally involved in custom-design work.
That makes his present relevance straightforward: he is not simply a person who became known through a celebrity marriage. His public record shows a jewelry career extending from high-school work in the 1970s through business ownership beginning in 1995 and continuing decades later.
His marriage to Lisa Niemi brought that career to the attention of readers who otherwise may never have encountered the DePrisco name. But professionally, his story is rooted in a multigenerational Massachusetts jewelry business and in the independent operation he built in Wellesley.
Final thoughts
Albert DePrisco is best understood first as a longtime Massachusetts jeweler and business owner. His relationship with Lisa Niemi explains why his name appears in national entertainment coverage, but it represents only one chapter of a public life that was already well established through decades in the jewelry trade.
The strongest evidence portrays him as a second-generation member of the DePrisco jewelry family who began working in the business as a teenager, took ownership of the Wellesley operation in 1995 and remains identified with A.M. DePrisco today. Claims about an acting career, an exact birthday or a large personal net worth are far less secure and should not be treated as established biography.
