#RIP: ‘Goodfellas’ Actor, Ray Liotta

Ray Liotta, best known for his iconic role in Goodfellas has died.

Deadline reported that Liotta died in his sleep in the Dominican Republic. He was there filming a new movie.

Liotta was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1954. He once told Larry King,

When I decided I wanted to do acting in college, it was (those) ’70s-type movies … but the movies of the ’70s were great.

And I aspired toward that, because that’s what my learning was.”

Liotta had a recurring role on the soap opera Another World right out of college. He was later in Something Wild with Melanie Griffith and as “Shoeless” Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams. His star making role was as real-life mobster, Henry Hill in Goodfellas.

Liotta was also Narc, Cop Land and The Place Beyond the Pines and returned to a mobster role in the Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark.

In a 2021 interview with the Today show promoting the movie, Liotta downplayed the hype around the prequel,

I’m not the kind of actor who wants to watch or see what I did, or see what it looks like. I just like staying home with my fiancée, watching TV and chilling.
To me, I’m just as hungry, just as angry as I was when I first graduated college. …