{"id":102498,"date":"2022-05-27T12:20:04","date_gmt":"2022-05-27T06:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/from-psychotic-to-sweetheart-versatile-actor-could-do-it-all\/"},"modified":"2022-05-27T12:20:04","modified_gmt":"2022-05-27T06:50:04","slug":"from-psychotic-to-sweetheart-versatile-actor-could-do-it-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/from-psychotic-to-sweetheart-versatile-actor-could-do-it-all\/","title":{"rendered":"From Psychotic to Sweetheart, Versatile Actor Could Do It All"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Some screen actors sneak up on you over the course of multiple memorable supporting roles, while others jar your consciousness like a crack of lightning. The latter was my experience with Ray Liotta, in a movie I walked into not even knowing his character would be part of the plot.<\/p>\n

The film in question was Jonathan Demme\u2019s 1986 \u201cSomething Wild,\u201d which starts as a kooky urban comedy about bad girl (or is she?) Audrey, played by Melanie Griffith, who convinces Jeff Daniels\u2019 upright businessman (or is he?) to go further and further out of his comfort zone. The movie switches from screwball to thriller with the appearance of Liotta as Audrey\u2019s ex Ray, a recently-released convict who will go to any lengths to get her back.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of those performances that benefit from a new face in the role; without the comfort of familiarity, viewers don\u2019t know what he\u2019ll do or how dangerous he\u2019ll be, and in an instant, I knew that Liotta\u2019s was a name and face I would always remember. (Years later, I would discover that I had seen him in his film debut three years earlier, in the legendary Pia Zadora catastrophe \u201cThe Lonely Lady\u201d; suffice it to say that it takes a special brand of performer to launch a successful film career after such an ignominious beginning.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Ray<\/p><\/div>\n

Liotta will forever be remembered in conjunction with his starring role as Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese\u2019s genre-defying 1990 mobster epic \u201cGoodfellas,\u201d and for good reason: It\u2019s an utterly magnetic role in an unforgettable classic, and Liotta is cracklingly alive throughout. Henry is a man whose priorities and allegiances are perpetually shifting; he pledges fealty to his wife Karen (Lorraine Bracco) and to the mob, and he will betray both over the course of the film. But it\u2019s Liotta\u2019s live-wire narration (written by Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi) that puts us squarely inside Henry\u2019s head for a rollercoaster of highs and lows, and the performance is so gripping that we have no choice but to follow him every step of the way.<\/p>\n

The actor, born in New Jersey in 1954 and raised by adoptive parents, started out in soaps (a three-year stint on \u201cAnother World\u201d) and moved back and forth between film and television over the course of his career. His small-screen triumphs include a role as Frank Sinatra in 1998\u2019s \u201cThe Rat Pack,\u201d a 2004 guest shot on \u201cE.R.\u201d that earned him an Emmy, and recent lead roles on \u201cShades of Blue\u201d (as a bisexual cop), \u201cHanna,\u201d and the upcoming Apple TV+ series \u201cBlack Bird.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Hollywood<\/p><\/div>\n

His versatility as a performer also served him well on the big screen \u2014 one immediately associates him with tough guys and mobsters (up to and including his role as the Moltisanti twins in 2021\u2019s \u201cThe Many Saints of Newark\u201d), but his shark of a divorce attorney in \u201cMarriage Story\u201d (2019) didn\u2019t need a gun to make our blood run cold. He\u2019s the only person in the film who looks like they might intimidate Laura Dern\u2019s opposing counsel, and that\u2019s saying something.<\/p>\n

Liotta had a softer side as well. His \u201cShoeless\u201d Joe Jackson in 1989\u2019s \u201cField of Dreams\u201d might have a somewhat brusque sense of humor (at least when it comes to Babe Ruth), but it\u2019s a performance that fits in with one of the greatest four-hanky movies ever made. \u00a0He didn\u2019t need to be menacing to be memorable, and films like 1988\u2019s \u201cDominick and Eugene,\u201d<\/a> in which he plays the caretaker to his intellectually-disabled twin brother (played by Tom Hulce), or 1994\u2019s \u201cCorrina, Corrina,\u201d as a widower who grows close to his daughter\u2019s Black nanny (Whoopi Goldberg) in 1959 Los Angeles, he\u2019s utterly riveting playing sweet, strong guys trying to do the right thing and to take care of their families.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Ray<\/p><\/div>\n

The actor also apparently had a great sense of humor about his own fame, turning up as parody versions of himself in projects ranging from the sitcom \u201cJust Shoot Me\u201d to the animated feature \u201cBee Movie.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s always a good time to watch \u201cGoodfellas\u201d again, but Liotta\u2019s filmography highlights his multi-faceted gifts as a performer. (\u201cDominic and Eugene\u201d is currently unavailable via streaming or on DVD \u2014 sounds like a job for the folks at Missing Movies<\/a>.) The circumstances of his demise indicate that he was a consummate professional to the end: He passed away on a movie shoot, with a half-dozen or so projects ready for imminent release and even more of them in development and now facing an uncertain future. It\u2019s the thespian equivalent of dying with your boots on, and it\u2019s both a testament to his decades of extraordinary performances and an indication that he still had so much to give.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some screen actors sneak up on you over the course of multiple memorable supporting roles, while others jar your consciousness like a crack of lightning. The latter was my experience with Ray Liotta, in a movie I walked into not even knowing his character would be part of the plot. The film in question was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":102499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,3,105,106],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/1653634205_From-Psychotic-to-Sweetheart-Versatile-Actor-Could-Do-It-All.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102498"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}