Ray Liotta

Raymond Allen "Ray" Liotta (born December 18, 1954) is an American actor, film producer, and voice actor. He is best known for his portrayals of Henry Hill in the crime-drama Goodfellas (1990) and Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams (1989). For his second feature film, Jonathan Demme's Something Wild (1986), Liotta received a Golden Globe nomination and won the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor. He has since become a highly-regarded screen personality, appearing in leading or supporting roles in films such as Unlawful Entry (1992), No Escape (1994), Narc (2002), Wild Hogs (2007), Killing Them Softly (2012) and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). Early life Liotta was born in Newark, New Jersey and adopted at the age of six months by Mary, an appointed township clerk, and Alfred Liotta, an auto-parts store owner, personnel director, and the president of a local Democratic club. His adoptive parents both unsuccessfully ran for local office. He has a sister, Linda Liotta, who is also adopted. Liotta has said he knew he was adopted as a young child and did a show-and-tell report on it for kindergarten. Liotta located his biological mother in the 2000s. His adoptive parents were of Italian and Scottish ancestry. After research and talks with his biological mother, he learned he is part Scottish. He has one half brother, five half sisters, and a full sister. Liotta was raised Roman Catholic, although his family was not very religious. Liotta said the family went to church and he received first communion and was confirmed, but the family did not pray much. He occasionally uses prayer in his daily life. Liotta's parents were both Democrats, but he has identified as a Republican. Liotta recalls attending parades handing out flyers for his father's run for Township Committee. He graduated from Union High School in 1973 in Union, New Jersey where he grew up. Liotta graduated from the University of Miami, where he received a degree in Fine Arts in 1978 and studied acting with Robert "Buckets" Lowery. He performed in musicals such as Cabaret, Dames at Sea, Oklahoma, and Sound of Music, during college, especially in his first year of acting studies. Career After college Liotta moved to New York City. He got a job as a bartender at the Shubert theaters and landed an agent within six months. One of Liotta's earliest roles was as Joey Perrini on the soap opera Another World; he appeared on the show from 1978 to 1981. He quit the show so he could try his luck in the film industry, and moved to Los Angeles. He made his film debut in a sexual assault scene with Pia Zadora and a garden hose in the 1983 cult classic The Lonely Lady. His first major acting role was Something Wild (1986), which earned him his first Golden Globe nomination. In 1989, he costarred alongside Kevin Costner in the fantasy/drama film Field of Dreams— Liotta portrayed Shoeless Joe Jackson, the ghost of the famed baseball player. His voice over line, "If you build it, he will come", is #39 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 movie quotes. In 1990, Liotta portrayed real-life mobster Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese's film Goodfellas. In 1992, he costarred as a psychopathic cop alongside Kurt Russell and Madeleine Stowe in the thriller Unlawful Entry. He appeared in a leading role in the sci-fi/action film No Escape. Liotta earned critical praise for his turn in James Mangold's film Cop Land, starring alongside Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, and Harvey Keitel. In 1998, he received critical praise for his performance in Phoenix playing a compulsive gambler. In addition to his film roles, Liotta portrayed singer Frank Sinatra in the 1998 TV movie The Rat Pack (for which he received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination), he provided the voice of Tommy Vercetti for the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and appeared in the television drama ER in 2004, playing Charlie Metcalf in the episode "Time of Death". The ER role earned Liotta an Emmy for "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series" (Liotta would later spoof himself and his Emmy win in Bee Movie). Liotta starred in the 2006 CBS television series Smith, which was pulled from the schedule after three episodes, and in 2012 Liotta appeared as himself in a purely vocal role for the "What a Croc!" episode of the Disney Channel comedy series Phineas & Ferb. Liotta played the father of drug dealer George Jung in the 2001 Johnny Depp film Blow and, in the following year, appeared as Detective Lieutenant Henry Oak in the Joe Carnahan-directed film Narc, a role that led to an Independent Spirit Award nomination and a Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards nomination for Best Supporting Male. Personal life Liotta married actress Michelle Grace in February 1997 after they met at her former husband (Mark Grace)'s professional baseball game. The couple co-starred in The Rat Pack, in which Liotta played Frank Sinatra and Grace played Judith Campbell Exner. They have a daughter. The couple divorced in 2004. From his experience shooting the Western Texas Rising, Liotta says he has continued horseback riding. He said, "I was obsessed with riding horses [on the show]. I love it now. I've never had a hobby. It might be my new hobby. Just love it, everything about them. Horses are unbelievable: Smart, loyal -- and moody, [laughing] which I can relate to."