The immigration authorities were prepared to send him back, but he found an Italian family to act as his sponsor.

He settled in New York City where he delivered groceries, sold sandwiches and pizzas and performed other menial tasks to get by.

He eventually ended up working as a pants presser at a well known club where he was befriended by actor/producer Raymond Hitchcock.

Armetta appeared in several films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer including Romance (1930) starring Greta Garbo, What!

(1933) with Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante, Everybody Sing (1938) featuring Judy Garland, Allan Jones, and Fanny Brice, The Big Store (1941) opposite the Marx Brothers, and a much thinner Armetta was briefly glimpsed in one of his last appearances in the MGM Technicolor musical Anchors Aweigh (1945) with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly.