Raymond Liotta was born on December 18, 1954, in Newark, New Jersey. After his biological mother decided to give him up, Liotta spent the first six months of his life living in an orphanage, after which point he was adopted by Mary and Alfred Liotta. The son of a township clerk and a car-related business owner, Liotta played a lot of sports growing up, eventually playing basketball for the University of Miami. He ended up dropping out of the league after disagreeing with the squad’s coach, and we imagine Henry Hill would have done the same.
It wasn’t long, however, before Ray Liotta discovered the school’s drama scene, and the actor was soon popping up in several amateur productions of well-known plays like West Side Story and A Streetcar Named Desire. After graduating with a degree in Fine Arts, Liotta moved to New York City to pursue a career as a professional actor. Liotta had been in the city for less than a week by the time he landed his first gig — a commercial for a love-songs compilation. But playing one of those annoyingly happy people you see on TV at 2 a.m. paid off, with Liotta scoring both a manager and an agent just a few days after that.
Ray Liotta in something wild
In 1978, Ray Liotta successfully auditioned for the recurring role of Joey Perrini on the popular daytime soap Another World and quickly parlayed that into bit appearances in a series of movies and television shows. Liotta toiled in relative obscurity until he landed the breakout role of Ray Sinclair in Jonathan Demme’s cult 1986 comedy Something Wild, for which he earned a raft of glowing reviews and even a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. Ray Liotta followed that up with his first starring role in 1988’s Dominick and Eugene, though it was his heart-wrenching turn as Shoeless Joe Jackson in the quintessential 1989 guy flick Field of Dreams that cemented his status as a rising star.
Ray Liotta in goodfellas
In 1990, Ray Liotta appeared opposite heavy-hitters Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning masterpiece Goodfellas, which afforded the up-and-coming performer the opportunity to pick and choose his next roles. He spent the remainder of the ‘90s appearing in everything from dramas (1992’s Article 99, 1994’s Corrina, Corrina) to thrillers (1992’s Unlawful Entry, 1996’s Unforgettable) to family-friendly comedies (1995’s Operation Dumbo Drop, 1999’s Muppets from Space), and found himself working side by side with some of Hollywood’s biggest names (including Sylvester Stallone, Kiefer Sutherland and Don Cheadle).
Ray Liotta in crossing over and observe and report
Ray Liotta has been keeping extremely busy by appearing in over two dozen films and television shows since the turn of the century, and in 2006, he took a short-lived stab at his own series with the crime thriller Smith (which, despite the participation of Amy Smart and Virginia Madsen, was yanked after only seven airings). 2009 is already shaping up to be a record-breaking year for Liotta. He’s popped up in the recent theatrical releases Crossing Over and Observe and Report, and will soon be seen opposite Michael Cera in Youth in Revolt and alongside Jessica Biel in Powder Blue. We’ll eventually get to those but, after writing this, we’re kind of in the mood to see Goodfellas.
Buying cigarettes is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?
