Ray Liotta, ‘Goodfellas’ star, is dead at 67
CNN — Ray Liotta, the actor known for his roles in “Field of Dreams” and the Martin Scorsese mob classic “Goodfellas,” has died.
He was 67.
“Ray was working on a project in the Dominican Republic called ‘Dangerous Waters’ when he passed. He passed in his sleep. He is survived by his daughter, Karsen, and his fiancée, Jacy Nittolo,” his publicist Jennifer Allen told CNN.
Born in Newark, New Jersey, Liotta was the adopted son of Alfred and Mary Liotta, who also adopted a daughter, Linda.
He attended Union High School where he excelled at sports and went on to attend the University of Miami. He studied drama and was cast in his first play, “Cabaret.”
Following his college graduation, Liotta moved to New York City where he got work in commercials and was cast as Joey Perrini on the daytime soap opera “Another World,” in which he appeared from 1978 to 1981.
His performance as crazed ex-con Ray Sinclair in the 1986 Jonathan Demme film “Something Wild” proved to be a breakthrough role for the actor.
Liotta followed that with an acclaimed performance as baseball player “Shoeless” Joe Jackson in the box office hit “Field of Dreams” with Kevin Costner.
His most memorable role, perhaps, was as real-life mobster Henry Hill in the 1990 film “Goodfellas,” which cast him opposite heavy hitters Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci.
When asked by The Guardian in 2021 why he never worked with Scorsese again given the director’s propensity for using some of the same actors in different projects, Liotta responded, “I don’t know, you’d have to ask him. But I’d love to.”
Not that he didn’t find plenty of work over the years.
Liotta’s many film and television credits include “John Q,” “Blow,” “Operation Dumbo Drop,” “Hannibal,” “Wild Hogs” and “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.”
More recently, Liotta narrated the TV docuseries “The Making of the Mob” and starred in “The Many Saints of Newark,” the prequel film to the hit television mob series “The Sopranos.”
He played plenty of tough guys, but that was not Liotta’s true persona.
“I have never been in a fight at all, except for during sports, and that’s just pushing and goofy kid stuff,” he told People magazine last year.
"Ray was the epitome of a tough guy who was all mushy on the inside … I guess that’s what made him such a compelling actor to watch,” said Jennifer Lopez, who starred with Liotta in the TV cop series, “Shades of Blue.”
“We enjoyed doing our scenes together and I felt lucky to have him there to work with and learn from. Like all artists he was complicated, sincere, honest and so very emotional,” she wrote Thursday on Instagram. “Like a raw nerve, he was so accessible and so in touch in his acting and I will always remember our time together fondly. We lost a great today.”
Liotta was currently cast in multiple projects, according to his IMDB profile.
Among them was “Cocaine Bear,” a thriller directed by actress Elizabeth Banks about what happens after a drug runner’s cocaine disappears in a plane crash and gets eaten by a bear. The movie is due next year.
“When any actor of Ray’s caliber puts trust in you as a director, it’s a gift,” Banks said on Instagram. “Ray’s respect for me as a director, actress and artist, as his boss on set, meant everything to me because if you can direct Henry Hill, you can do f***ing anything in this town. I am so grateful Ray Liotta blessed my life. May he Rest In Peace.”
Liotta’s profile dipped in recent decades as A-list projects mostly eluded him. But he never stopped working. And in his interview with People, Liotta had sounded hopeful about the next phase of his career.
“It’s weird how this business works, because I’ve definitely had a career that’s up and down,” he added. “For some reason, I’ve been busier this year than I have in all the years that I’ve been doing this. And I still feel I’m not there yet. I just think there’s a lot more.”
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/26/entertainment/ray-liotta-dead/index.htmlAndy Fletcher obituaryKeyboard player and business brain of Depeche Mode who pushed the electronic band to long-lasting success
Bands could not function without a member designated the quiet standard bearer, and in Depeche Mode that was Andy Fletcher, who has died suddenly aged 60. Constitutionally modest, he was lucky inasmuch as the group had two members – singer Dave Gahan and guitarist Martin Gore – who were comfortable with being Depeche Mode’s public face. That allowed Fletcher, universally known as Fletch, to get on with being their backbone.
He was crucial to their makeup, pushing the band to achieve, chivvying them to get into the studio or on the road. Without his tenacity, exercised over 42 years, Depeche Mode would have splintered long before they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.
Fletcher was a keyboardist and passionate proponent of electronics, glorying in the synthesiser’s role in overturning the convention of music being made with guitars and drums. “Obviously, it’s sad to see the demise of the traditional rock group,” he said drily in 1993. “But there’s always going to be a place for it in cabaret.” But his musicianly interests were rivalled by a head for business. He enjoyed keeping tabs on receipts and merchandising, and for Depeche Mode, who became one of the world’s biggest touring groups in the 1990s, that was win-win: Fletcher was onstage behind his keyboard every night, but offstage performed dusty managerial duties. He estimated that he spent 17 years as player-manager; even after the band acquired heavyweight management he kept his hand in.
His knowledge of the industry was renowned. When his death was announced, the Pet Shop Boys, old confreres from the hit-making 80s, tweeted: “Fletch was a warm, friendly and funny person who loved electronic music and could also give sensible advice about the music business.” During the Hall of Fame induction, Gahan characterised the early Depeche Mode as “outsider, eyeliner-wearing weirdos from Essex”, but Fletcher was never as unconventional as Gahan and Gore. Rather, he viewed himself as “the tall guy in the background, without whom this international corporation called Depeche Mode would never work”.
He was the eldest of two sons and two daughters born in Nottingham to Joy and John Fletcher. In the early 60s, his father, an engineer, was offered a job at a cigarette factory in Basildon, and they became one of the first families to settle in the Essex new town. Andy joined the Christian organisation the Boys’ Brigade and remained a member until he was 18, during which he became actively religious. He attended church seven days a week, and with fellow member Vince Clarke, preached in the Brigade coffee bar. That period, he said, “shaped my moral beliefs and attitudes”. His church activities also sparked an interest in music, and it was there that he picked up his first instrument, a guitar. He retained his faith after he left the Brigade; in the 80s, as Depeche Mode charted with taut electropop singles that would influence rap, EDM and metal, he felt guilty about not going to church.
He took politics at A-level and planned to go to university, but instead, he and Clarke formed a band with a classmate from Nicholas comprehensive school in Laindon, Gore. Joined by Gahan, a friend from Southend, the new group had a ready-made audience on Southend’s busy social circuit. The band’s musical direction was shaped by Gore, who had bought a then-revolutionary synthesiser, while their image, according to Fletcher, was “post-Blitz kids with frilly shirts”. He got a job as a clerk at SunLife Insurance, and stuck with it until he was fairly sure he could make a living from music. By that point, Depeche Mode’s second single, New Life, had reached No 11 in the charts and they had been on Top of the Pops.
They maintained a considerable chart presence throughout the 1980s and 90s, with the music evolving in an ornate and gothic direction from the late 80s. Substance abuse, notably on Gahan’s part, marred their gargantuan 90s shows – the 14-month Devotional tour was described as “the most debauched rock’n’roll tour ever” by Q magazine. Fletcher, who had once viewed touring as “so much fun”, was now depressed. Moreover, he was used as a mediator by the brooding Gahan and the flamboyant Gore during their regular creative disputes.
Gahan became sober in the late 90s and the group resumed recording and playing live. Gore and Gahan launched solo careers, but Fletcher, who once said he had no great interest in writing songs, started his own record company, Toast Hawaii. He signed the band Client, which released several albums, but the label was always secondary to his Depeche Mode commitments and little was heard of it after Client departed in 2006. His involvement with the group did instil an interest in DJing – he learned the techniques at their gigs, and thereafter played occasional solo sets at clubs and festivals.
From the mid-90s, Fletcher and his wife, Gráinne Mullan, ran a restaurant in St John’s Wood, north London. He sold it after a decade, blaming “all the little things that went wrong”. He was game enough to re-enter the hospitality trade in 2021, investing in the relaunch of a Hampstead pub, the Duke of Hamilton.
Gráinne, whom he married in 1993, survives him, as do their children, Megan and Joe.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/may/27/andy-fletcher-obituary
