The Untold Truth Of Ray Liotta

The entertainment world was shocked by the sudden death of actor Ray Liotta in May 2022. The 67-year-old New Jersey native was in the Dominican Republic filming a movie at the time of his death. Armed with piercing blue eyes and a slightly deranged laugh that brought an edge to even his gentlest roles, Liotta was a welcome presence on the big and small screens for nearly 40 years. He was a consummate professional, whether working with Joe Pesci or Miss Piggy; it's a testament to his work ethic that he had half a dozen projects in the works at the time of his death, including the Apple TV+ limited series "Black Bird," premiering in July 2022.

Though he made his mark in everything from horror to family films to tequila ads, Liotta's signature role was undoubtedly midcentury mobster Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese's 1990 masterpiece "Goodfellas." His performance was so complete, reflecting the history of the American mafia in from its 1960s heyday to its 1980s downfall, that it was easy for people to assume Liotta simply was Henry Hill. But he had more to offer, as an artist and a human being, than one lauded role. Here are some things you may not have known about the life and legacy of Ray Liotta.

After a few years plugging away on the long-running soap opera "Another World," Liotta moved west to Los Angeles in 1981 in the hopes of making it into films. The first few years were lean, with bit parts in things like the short-lived 1980s adaptation of "Casablanca" and an episode of "St. Elsewhere." During that time Liotta took an acting class led by Harry Mastrogeorge, whose students over the years include Bryan Cranston, Daryl Hannah, and Djimon Hounsou. Liotta's classmates were then-unknowns Kevin Costner, Steven Bauer, and Bauer's then-wife Melanie Griffith, who in 1986 was cast in the lead role alongside Jeff Daniels of Jonathan Demme's road comedy "Something Wild." Now 30 years old and with little of an acting career to show for it, he had to be talked into asking Griffith for help getting an audition. Griffith happily obliged and Liotta read for the part of her character's psychotic ex-husband. To his surprise, he was cast, and the rest is history.

Even after Liotta became established as a film actor and movie star, though, he remained in Mastrogeorge's class for more than a dozen years, returning in between film projects. It was a personal and professional friendship that continued through the rest of Liotta's life; in December 2021, Liotta posted a picture of the two of them at lunch to his Instagram account.

"There's not a day that goes by that I don't hear somebody mention 'Goodfellas,'" Liotta told GQ magazine in 2010 in honor of the film's 20th anniversary. "It's defined who I am, in a sense." The road to "Goodfellas" started for Liotta at the Cannes Film Festival. Martin Scorsese was in attendance with his controversial religious film "The Last Temptation of Christ," which had already generated such outrage and threats of violence against the celebrated director that he was being protected by a team of bodyguards. Liotta knew that Scorsese's next film would be an adaptation of Nicholas Pileggi's true-crime book "Wiseguy." As such, Liotta wanted to introduce himself to Scorsese and discuss playing the central role and narrator, Henry Hill. "Ray approached me in the lobby and the bodyguards moved toward him," Scorsese told GQ in 2010, "and he had an interesting way of reacting, which was he held his ground, but made them understand he was no threat. I liked his behavior at that moment, and I saw, oh, he understands that kind of situation."

Liotta may have convinced Scorsese that he was perfect for the role, but producers Irwin Winkler and Barbara De Fina were initially looking for a bigger star to anchor the film; "Tom Cruise was discussed," remembered Winkler, and an LA Times article from 1990 mentions Alec Baldwin, Nicolas Cage, and Val Kilmer in contention as well. But a chance encounter between Liotta and Winkler at a Venice Beach restaurant changed the producer's mind. "We went outside ... and [Liotta] really sold me on the role right that evening. I called Marty the next morning and I said, 'I see what you mean.'"

After growing up with a chip on his shoulder over being adopted, not understanding his birth mother's reasoning, he decided to do something about it. Or rather, his wife Michelle Grace did after seeing a segment on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" featuring Troy Dunn, a "locator" who specializes in tracking down missing relatives and reuniting adopted children with their biological parents. In his 2010 book "It's Never Too Late," Dunn writes about his experience with Liotta's case, stating that Liotta's birth mother had him at age 16 and gave him up for adoption not because she didn't want him, but that she wanted him to grow up in a more stable home than she could provide.

When Liotta starred in "The Identical" in 2014 he told The Hollywood Reporter that he connected with the film's story not just as an adopted child, but as someone who discovered that he had long-lost siblings. "I found my birth mother and found out I have ... a half-brother, five half-sisters, and a full sister that I didn't know about until fifteen years ago." Speaking to the Christian Post about finally meeting his biological family, he said that his biggest takeaway was "Thank God I'm adopted."

"The Rat Pack" was a 1998 biopic of entertainers Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop. It was produced by HBO and covers the titular group's scandalous years as the kings of mobbed-up Las Vegas. Alongside Joe Mantegna as Martin and Don Cheadle as Davis, the actors were heavy on talent and charisma, even if none of them particularly looked or sounded like their real-life counterparts.

But it turns out that that wasn't the only Frank Sinatra film in development at the time, or even the only Frank Sinatra film with its sights on Liotta. In a 2021 episode of the CNBC series "Jay Leno's Garage" (via the New York Post), Liotta revealed that Sinatra's daughters Nancy and Tina had approached him about starring in a miniseries that they were producing. When Liotta turned their project down in favor of the HBO film, the Sinatras sent him a fake horse's head in the mail, a la "The Godfather." Though the gesture is a clear threat in the film, in real life the sisters clearly meant it in jest. "[They] said, 'Oh you could do this one, but you couldn't do the one we wanted you to?'" Liotta told Leno.

By Liotta's own estimation, he played a lot of villains in his time, and probably should have played even more, especially during those breakout years between "Something Wild" and "Goodfellas." "These bad guys, they stick out to people," he said to Rolling Stone. Considering the length and breadth of his career, though, it is not surprising to learn that in real life Liotta was the opposite of a Hollywood tough guy. "I have never been in a fight at all," he told People in 2021, "except for during sports."

His gentle nature was seconded by the wave of tributes that poured forth from fans and colleagues in the days after his death. Lorraine Bracco, whose career was similarly shaped by the phenomenal success of "Goodfellas," tweeted a recent picture of she and Liotta together, writing "[Fans] always ask what was the best part of making that movie. My response has always been the same...Ray Liotta." His acting class friend of "Field of Dreams" star Kevin Costner tweeted a clip from the film in which Liotta as "Shoeless" Joe Jackson hits a curveball straight back at Costner's Ray Kinsella, a moment that was not originally in the script. "God gave us that stunt," Costner wrote, "Now God has Ray."