The keenest cinephiles remember Ray Liotta especially for Those good guys by Martin Scorsese, although many audiences born in the 1990s associate his name with lighter comedies such as A wife for dad alongside Whoopi Goldberg ed Heartbreaks alongside Sigourney Waever. If there was a Ray Liotta trait, disappeared at the age of 67 in the Dominican Republic, where he was engaged in filming the film Dangerous Waters by John Barr, was the adaptability to both the dramatic and the brilliant register. His hard features and pockmarked skin led casting directors to see him in the roles of tough guy and villain, though behind that deep gaze and thin lips hid a professional that Hollywood has almost always confined to minor roles, never give it the right space.
Ray Liotta leaves as he lived: on tiptoe. Spur into sleep for no apparent reason – his participation in Barr’s film had been announced at the beginning of May -, but gathering around him the heartfelt and sincere condolences of colleagues such as Jamie Lee Curtis, Viola Davis and Rosanne Arquette who, through social media, wanted to express their their closeness to the family. Born in Newark on December 18, 1954, Ray Liotta was adopted by the Vidimarli-Liotta family when he was six months old. He approaches cinema thanks to his friend Steven Bauer, at the time married to Melanie Griffith, who takes him to the set of Something overwhelming, a project thanks to which he obtained his first Golden Globe nomination. From there, after a series of small roles, comes Scorsese’s proposal who wants him in the role of the Italian Irish Henry in Those good guysalongside Robert De Niro, Paul Sorvino and Joe Pesci.
Together with the cinema – among others, he starred in Hannibal by Ridley Scott, in Blow by Ted Demme and in Revolver by Guy Ritchie – his career also boasts several television appearanceslike the one in the series ER which, in 2005, earned him the Emmy. The new generations, however, will remember him above all in the role of the shark lawyer that Adam Driver relies on in Story of a wedding by Noah Baumbach, available on Netflix, and in The many saints of New Jersey by Alan Taylor, film sequel of the Soprano. Many projects awaited him, including a film alongside Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley: a great loss for the cinema that, we hope, pays him as he deserves.
To receive the other cover of Vanity Fair (and much more), subscribe to Vanity Weekend.
Source: Vanity Fair
