Photo: gdcgraphics / CC BY-SA 2.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Ray Liotta belongs to my personal pantheon of actors who could change a film's temperature just by entering the frame. Goodfellas gave him the role of a lifetime, that laugh and those eyes flickering between charm and menace, yet Field of Dreams proved he could play pure tenderness too. Hollywood never quite knew what to do with that range, so he spent decades elevating material that did not deserve him. That his lone Emmy came as a guest actor says everything: he was the visitor who stole the show. His death in 2022, mid-renaissance, still feels like an unfinished sentence in American cinema.
Overview
Raymond Allen Liotta ( lee-OH-tə, Italian: [liˈɔtta]; December 18, 1954 – May 26, 2022) was an American actor. He first gained attention for his role in the film Something Wild (1986), which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination. He was best known for his portrayals of Shoeless Joe Jackson in the film Field of Dreams (1989) and Henry Hill in the film Goodfellas (1990).
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Ray Liotta
- Name (Japanese)
- レイ・リオッタ
- Reading
- れい・りおった
- Born
- December 18, 1954 – May 26, 2022
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Sagittarius / Horse
- Origin
- Newark, New Jersey, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- 2 cm
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- actor / film producer / film actor
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Union High School
- University
- University of Miami
Awards & achievements
- 2005 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
- 2016 New Jersey Hall of Fame
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Actor — see all → · Film producer — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-11
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.