SOMETHING WILD (REMEMBERING RAY LIOTTA)

 

When Ray Liotta's mentioned, the chances are that the first film that comes to mind is his electric lead performance in 'GoodFellas'.

Bizarrely, Liotta never received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his charismatic turn as the Mafia hood Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese's classic gangster film - even though he more than held his own alongside Robert de Niro and Joe Pesci.

But then again, he didn't land a BAFTA or a Golden Globe nomination either.

In many ways that summed up Liotta's career.

While he certainly had more than his fair share of box office and critical duds during his career, he was also an inveterate scene stealer in his strongest films whose greatest performances didn't get the accolades they deserved.

Take one look at his glorious screen career which included Jonathan Demme's 'Something Wild,' Phil Alden Robinson's 'Field of Dreams,' James Mangold's 'Copland' and Simon J Smith and Steve Hickner's animated 'Bee Movie' and you will see just how smart and varied those roles were.

But he also had a reputation of being a challenging and intimidating colleague and interviewee which may not have always endeared him to Hollywood.

Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1954, Liotta had a tough start in life - being abandoned in an orphanage.

At the age of six months, Ray was adopted by Mary Liotta, a township clerk of Scottish heritage and her husband Alfred of Italian stock, an auto parts store owner.

Ray realised he was adopted as a young child and even told his classmates about it during a show and tell in kindergarten - his sister, Linda was also adopted.

He eventually traced his birth mother and later admitted: "When I was younger I felt like damaged goods".

However he also developed an appreciation of why he was abandoned at such an early age.

"Most people in their situation give up on their situation, give up on their children, so kids can have a better life," he later observed. 

"It's not because they don't want them."

Raised in a Catholic household, he attended Union High School in New Jersey and kind of fell into acting by accident.

"To be honest with you, I thought I would be in construction," he told the Guardian in a typically prickly 2021 interview, revealing he only studied drama at college because it had no maths element and a pretty girl encouraged him by saying it would suit him.

It was his father who talked him into studying drama at the University of Miami where he appeared in productions of 'Cabaret,' 'Oklahoma,' 'Dames at Sea' and 'The Sound of Music'.

"I'm a jock from New Jersey, so it couldn't have felt further away from what I do," he later laughed.

However Liotta enjoyed the experience so much, he ended staying for the full four years instead of a semester as he originally intended.

Moving to New York, he found work as a bartender at the Shubert Organisation which ran a number of Broadway theatres and he found an agent within six months of arriving there.

There was a recurring role between 1978 and 1981 as a character Joey Perrini in NBC's soap 'Another World' whose notable alumini include Christine Baranski, Kelsey Grammer, Anne Heche, Scott Bakula, Brad Pitt, Debra Messing, David Strathairn and Ving Rhames.

His big screen career got off to an inauspicious start with a debut role in Peter Sasdy's critically derided 1983 drama 'The Lonely Lady' with Pia Zadora. 

However his next movie role three years later was far from unforgettable.

In Jonathan Demme's 1986 screwball comedy 'Something Wild,' Liotta burned up the screen as the ex-convict husband of Melanie Griffith's Lulu/Audrey who takes Jeff Daniels' Manhattan investment banker for a walk on the wild side.

Lauded by the critics, it earned him a Best Supporting Actor gong from the Boston critics and a Golden Globe nomination.

Liotta followed that up with a well judged performance as the brother of a man with an intellectual disability in Robert M Young's 1988 acclaimed drama 'Dominick and Eugene' with Tom Hulce and Jamie Lee Curtis.

He memorably played the baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson in Phil Alden Robinson's mesmerising 1989 sports fantasy drama 'Field of Dreams' with Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, Burt Lancaster and James Earl Jones.

Ray later confessed he had never seen Robinson's much loved movie because his adopted mum was ill at the time and it still evoked painful memories.

During the 1980s, he acquired vital experience on TV shows like NBC's medical drama 'Saint Elsewhere,' their miniseries 'Casablanca' with David Soul, CBS's 'Mike Hammer' with Stacy Keach and ABC's 'Our Family Honor' with Eli Wallach and Michael Madsen

In 1990, he landed his most memorable role as the real life Mobster Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese's 1990 Mafia classic 'GoodFellas'.

As the narrator and main character, Liotta took the audience on a gruesome thrill ride through the world of Italian and Irish Mafiosi in Brooklyn and gelled perfectly with Lorraine Bracco as Hill's Jewish wife Karen Friedman.

Starring alongside seasoned hands like Robert de Niro, Joe Pesci, Paul Sorvino Mike Starr and Frank Vincent, Liotta slotted confirtably into their company in arguably Scorsese's greatest movie.

He featured in so many of the film's magical moments that it is impossible to pick a favourite one from the nightclub scene to the murder of Billy Bats, the helicopter sequence to the iconic "funny how?" scene with Pesci's volatile Tommy de Vito.

However much to his surprise, he never worked for Scorsese again.

There was a lead role opposite Keifer Sutherland, John C McGinley, Lea Thompson and Forest Whittaker as a doctor in a veterans hospital in Howard Deutch's 1992 comedy 'Article 99' which underwhelmed critics and flopped at the box office.

Jonathan Kaplan's thriller 'Unlawful Entry' proved a much greater success with audiences and critics, with Liotta singled out for praise playing a psychotic police officer who terrorises Kurt Russell and Madeleine Stowe's couple.

There was a sci-fi action lead in Martin Campbell's dystopian prison island drama 'No Escape' featuring cannibal inmates, which saw him star alongside Lance Henriksen, Kevin Dillon and Ernie Hudson but it barely made its $20 milion budget back after drawing lukewarm reviews.

Liotta changed gear in 1994 as Whoopi Goldberg's love interest in the nanny comedy 'Corrina Corrina' which also struggled to make its $22 million budget back after a mixed critical reception.

There were more mixed reviews for his next project, Simon Wincer's 1995 Disney action comedy Vietnam War film 'Operation Dumbo Drop' which laboured to match its $24 million budget.

The critics slaughtered his next movie, John Dahl's sci-fi thriller 'Unforgettable' with Linda Fiorentino, Peter Coyote and Christopher McDonald in which he played a crime scene medical examiner in Seattle.

Robert Butler's 1997 action thriller set on a plane 'Turbulence' fared even worse with critics and audiences, crash landing soon after its release, with Liotta playing an accused serial killer and rapist who, along with Brendan Gleeson's bank robber, breaks free of the US Marshalls guarding them and goes on the rampage.

Liotta soon found his mojo, though, with a scene stealing performance as a twitchy, corrupt cop in James Mangold's superb 1997 New Jersey thriller 'Copland' with Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Janeane Garofalo, Anabella Sciorra, Peter Berg, Michael Rappaport, Robert Patrick and Robert de Niro.

He married the actress and producer Michelle Grace that year after initially meeting her at a Chicago Cubs baseball game that her then husband Mark was playing in.

The couple had a daughter Karsen but the marriage ended in divorce in 2004.

Liotta ended the 1990s with appearances in Danny Cannon's 1998 neo-noir thriller 'Phoenix' which struggled to find an audience and acting opposite Miss Piggy in a cameo in Tim Hill's 1999 comedy 'Muppets in Space'.

The 1990s also saw him guest star as a caller on NBC's sitcom 'Frasier' and act opposite Andie McDowell in HBO's short film anthology 'Women and Men 2'.

Liotta played Frank Sinatra in Rob Cohen's 1998 HBO film 'The Rat Pack' in which he starred alongside Joe Mantegna as Dean Martin, Don Cheadle as Sammy Davis Jr and Angus MacFadyean as Peter Lawford but, despite earning him a Screen Actors Guild nomination, the production received mixed reviews.

In an episode of CNBC's 'Jay Leno's Garage,' Liotta claimed Sinatra's daughters Nancy and Tina jokingly sent him a horse's head in the mail after learning he had been cast as their father.

He featured in arguably the most memorably gruesome moment of 'Hannibal,' Ridley Scott's disappointing 2001 follow up to 'Silence of the Lambs' as a corrupt Justice Department official opposite Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman and Giancarlo Giannini.

In David Mirkin's box office hit comedy 'Heartbreakers' with Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Anne Bancroft and Gene Hackman, Ray played a small time crook and auto shop owner who initially falls victim to a mother and daughter marriage scam.

There was an eye catching performance as Johnny Depp's father in Ted Demme's Columbian cocaine drama 'Blow' with Penelope Cruz, Franka Potente, Rachel Griffiths and Paul Reubens but it struggled at the box office despite earning decent reviews.

Joe Carnahan directed him and Jason Patric in the acclaimed, violent 2002 indie flick 'Narc' about two detectives trying to discover who murdered an undercover cop.

He also played a police chief in Nick Cassavetes' starry hostage thriller 'John Q' with Denzel Washington, James Woods, Anne Heche and Robert Duvall which performed impressively at the box office despite negative reviews 

Liotta teamed up again with James Mangold for the twisty 2003 Agatha Christie inspired pulp thriller 'Identity' with John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Alfred Molina, Clea DuVall and Rebecca de Mornay, playing one of ten strangers stranded in a motel during a rainstorm.

It performed well in cinemas after gaining decent reviews.

Tim Hunter directed him, Michelle Rodriguez and Willem Dafoe in the straight to video 2004 prison drama 'Control' and there was an appearance alongside Alec Baldwin, Matthew Broderick, Toni Collette and Tony Shalhoub in the little seen but well received Jeff Nathanson action comedy 'The Last Shot'.

In Guy Ritchie's critically lambasted 2005 box office flop 'Revolver,' Liotta played a gang boss and casino owner called Dorothy, starring alongside Jason Statham, Vincent Pastore, Andre Benjamin, Mark Strong and Francesca Annis.

Joe Carnahan directed him once more in the hit 2006 thriller 'Smokin' Aces' which saw him play Ryan Reynolds' FBI colleague in a film also starring Ben Affleck, Chris Pine, Alicia Keys, Andy Garcia, David Proval, Taraji P Henson, Common and Jeremy Piven.

In Mark Rydell's gambling drama 'Even Money' with Nick Cannon, Forest Whittaker, Kelsey Gramner, Tim Roth and Danny de Vito, he played Kim Basinger's husband but it struggled to find an audience.

He executive produced Liz Friedlander's dance drama 'Take the Lead' with Antonio Banderas and Alfre Woodard which was a modest hit at the box office. 

There was a prominent role as the leader of a tough biker gang in Walt Becker's hit 2007 comedy 'Wild Hogs' with John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, Tim Allen, William H Macy, Jill Hennessy and Marisa Tomei.

Irish actor Stuart Townsend directed him in the political action thriller 'Battle in Seattle' which was inspired by the 1999 World Trade Organisation summit protests, in which he played a Mayor based on Paul Schell.

Also starring Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Rodriguez, Connie Nielsen, Isaach de Bankole, Andre Benjamin and Channing Tatum, it got mixed to decent reviews but struggled to draw audiences.

Liotta amusingly played himself in Dreamworks hit animated family comedy 'Bee Movie' which boasted a voice cast that included Jerry Seinfeld, Renee Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, Chris Rock, Oprah Winfrey, Kathy Bates and Sting who also appeared as himself.

That year he had a brush with the law, facing a drunk driving charge after being arrested in his Cadillac in the Pacific Palisades area of LA and didn't contest the charge.

2008 saw him star in forgettable direct to DVD movies like Brian Smrz's 'Hero Wanted' with Cuba Gooding Jr and Timothy Lin Bhui's 'Powder Blue' with Jessica Biel, Forest Whittaker, Eddie Redmayne and Patrick Swayze in his final screen role.

He played a sleazy immigration official in Wayne Karmer's heavy handed 2009 drama 'Crossing Over' with Harrison Ford, Ashley Judd, Alice Eve, Jim Sturgess, Alice Braga and Cliff Curtis which was battered by the critics and bombed in cinemas.

He scored a minor hit as a detective in Jody Hill's black comedy vehicle for Seth Rogen 'Observe and Report' and trotted out a by the book performance as an assassin in a by the book James Cotten crime drama 'The Line' with Armand Assante and Andy Garcia.

Over the course of the decade, there were appearances in Fox's adult animated comedy 'Family Guy' in 2001, as himself in two episodes in 2001 of the NBC sitcom 'Just Shoot Me,' a guest role in an episode of NBC's 'ER' in 2004 and in Nickelodeon's 'SpongeBob Squarepants' in 2008 as the leader of the Bubble Poppin' Boys Gang.

In 2010, he played Tim Allen's old partner in crime in his co-star's directorial debut 'Crazy On The Outside' with Sigourney Weaver, Kelsey Grammer, Jeanne Trippelhorn, JK Simmons and Julie Bowen but the comedy got walloped by critics and failed to find an audience.

Liotta played a school principal in an episode that year of the Disney Channel's 'Hannah Montana' with Miley Cyrus.

There was an uncredited appearance in Shawn Levy's hit comedy action thriller 'Date Night' with Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Mark Whalberg, Common and Taraji P Henson.

In Burr Stiers' underwhelming supernatural drama 'Charlie St Cloud' with Zac Efron, Amanda Crew, Donal Logue and Kim Basinger, Ray played a paramedic.

There were other forgettable movies like Jacob Aaron Estes' 'The Details' with Tobey Maguire, Mario Van Peebles' 'All Things Fall Apart' and Dito Montiel's 'The Son of No-one' which also co-starred Channing Tatum and Al Pacino.

However just when it looked like his career was limping along, Liotta came roaring back in 2012 with a terrific performance as a dodgy guy wrongfully suspected of robbing his own card game in Andrew Dominik's allegorical neo-noir 'Killing Them Softly' with Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, Richard Jenkins and Sam Shepard.

Ariel Vroman directed him in the acclaimed biographical crime drama 'The Iceman' with Michael Shannon, Chris Evans and Winona Ryder which saw him portray the real life New York Gambino crime family gangster Roy De Meo who hires Shannon's dub artist as a hitman.

In Derek Ciafrance's crime drama 'A Place Among the Pines,' he joined Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mended, Rose Byrne, Mahershala Ali, Bruce Greenwood and Ben Mendelsohn in an acclaimed tale which saw him in another detective role.

Ray appeared in his second Muppet adventure as a Gulag prisoner alongside Kermit the Frog, Jermaine Clement, Danny Trejo, Tom Hiddleston and Josh Groban, Tina Fey's prison governor and Stanley Tucci's guard in James Bobin's disappointing 'Muppets Most Wanted' with Ricky Gervais and Ty Burrell.

In 2014, he played a businessman in Robert Rodriguez's stylish sequel 'Sin City: A Dame To Kill For' with Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Juno Temple, Eva Green, Powers Boothe, Stacy Keach and Christopher Lloyd which drew mixed reviews and fell considerably short of box office expectations.

Michael Cuesta's investigative journalism drama 'Kill the Messenger' with Jeremy Renner, Andy Garcia, Tim Blake Nelson and Michael Sheen saw him portray a CIA source for stories about the Iran Contra affair in a drama that earned enthusiastic reviews.

Liotta narrated AMC's 2015 and 2016 docuseries 'The Making of the Mob' which charted the rise of organised crime in the United States.

In 2016, he joined Jennifer Lopez, Drea de Matteo in the NBC cop corruption drama 'Shades of Blue,' playing a bad lieutenant over the course of three seasons.

His movie career was blotted once more by appearances in disappointing films like Daniel Alfredson's 'Blackway' with Anthony Hopkins and Julia Stiles, Cathy Scorsese's sci-fi thriller 'Campus Code' which also featured a cameo from her father Martin, Amanda Harlib's 'Sticky Notes' in which he played a cancer patient and Bob Castrone's comedy 'Flock of Dudes' with Chris D'Elia, Kumail Nanjiani, Peri Gilpin and Hilary Duff.

However, he came bouncing back once more in 2019 as Adam Driver's attorney in Noah Baumbach's excellent divorce drama 'Marriage Story' with Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern and Alan Alda.

When told by the Guardian that Dern had used some stories about his rude behaviour on other movie sets to motivate her for her Best Supporting Actress winning turn as a rival divorce attorney, Liotta shrugged it off.

"People use whatever they need to use to find the person in the part and, if she needed that, that's fine.

"But it's all people telling stories, misinformation."

During the 2010s, there were roles as himself in the Disney Channel's animated series 'Phinneas and Herb' in 2011, in the History Channel's 'Texas Rising' in 2015 with Bill Paxton which earned  him a Screen Actors Guild nomination, as himself in ABC's hit sitcom 'Modern Family' in 2016, in an episode of Netflix's 'The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,' CBS's 'Young Sheldon' and as Moe's father Morty Syzlak in a 2018 episode of Fox's 'The Simpsons'.

His impressive performance in 'Marriage Story' reminded Hollywood once more of his talent.

There was a role as a rude man mourning the loss of his father in the Steven Brill directed hit Netflix comedy 'Hubie Halloween' with Adam Sandler, Julie Bowen, Rob Schneider, Maya Rudolph, June Squibb, Kenan Thompson, Shaquille O'Neal and Steve Buscemi.

In 2021, he memorably played two roles in Alan Taylor's 'Sopranos' prequel 'The Many Saints of Newark' with Alessandro Nivola, Michela de Rossii, Leslie Odom Jr, Vera Farmiga Corey Stoll, Jon Bernthal and Michael Gandolfini.

He dazzled as Nivola's dad "Hollywood Dick" Moltisanti and his jazz loving incarcerated twin brother, Salvatore in the film which attracted mostly good reviews and proved much more successful on the HBO Max streaming service than in cinemas where it got a simultaneous release.

Nivola commented afterwards: "Of all the scary legends I have worked with - de Niro, Christopher Walken, Joaquin Phoenix, Shirley MacLaine - Ray is the one I was most intimidated by.

"Not because he's mean - he's not - but because he's so intensely committed to the art of acting."

Liotta had previously famously rebuffed overtures to appear in 'The Sopranos'.

Steven Soderbergh directed him as a Mob boss Frank Capelli in the acclaimed period crime drama 'No Sudden Move' with Benicio del Toro, Don Cheadle, Julia Fox, Bill Duke, Jon Hamm, David Harbour, Kieran Culkin and Brendan Fraser.

In 2021, in the third and final series of the Amazon Prime action drama 'Hanna,' based on the 2011 movie with Saoirse Ronan, he played the pivotal role of Gordon Evans alongside Esme Creed Miles, Mireille Enos, Joel Kinnaman and Dermot Mulroney.

Liotta remained prolific up to his death.

A Dennis Lehane created miniseries 'Black Bird' with Taron Egerton, Paul Walter Hauser and Greg Kinnear is due to drop soon on the Apple TV+ streaming service in July 2021.

Matthew Coppola's 'Every Last Secret' was released on streaming services in April in which he played Sophie Turner's overprotective father in a story about a student in New York who grows close to a war veteran.

He completed work on a Charlie Day comedy film, as yet untitled, which is due for release in 2023 and features among his co-stars Kate Beckinsale, Jason Sudeikis, John Malkovich, Edie Falco and Adrien Brody.

Elizabeth Banks directed him in 'Cocaine Bear,' a thriller scheduled for release in 2023, among a cast which includes O'Shea Jackson, Keri Russell, Margo Martindale, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Alden Ehrenrich.

He was involved in three other productions at the time of his death - Coralie Fargeat's 'The Substance' with Margaret Qualley and Demi Moore, Ariel Vroman's thriller 'Clash' with Tyrese Gibson and Scott Eastwood and John Barr's 'Dangerous Waters' with Saffron Burrows which he was filming in the Dominican Republic when he passed away.

Prior to his death, he had become engaged to Jacy Nittolo who was 20 years younger than him and was with him when he died in his sleep.

Over the years, the New Jersey native also voiced characters in video games playing a Mafia hood in 'Grand Theft Auto: Vice City,' 'Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy: The Definitive Edition' and 'Call of Duty Black Ops 2' alongside Sam Worthington and Michael Keaton.

Liotta once told Esquire magazine it blew his mind "what people do to other people..

"It blows my mind how cruel other people can be."

As an astute observer of how cruel men could be, Ray Liotta regularly gave audiences a vivid insight into that mind blowing behaviour.

In doing that, he left future generations with a host of astounding performances that will be talked about for many years to come.

(Ray Liotta passed away at the age of 67 on May 26, 2022)