This article originally appeared on eightieskids.com

He was adopted when he was six months old

Liotta was always candid about the fact that he was adopted when he was just six months old. In 1955, he was taken in by Mary Miller and Alfred Liotta after a brief spell in an orphanage in Newark, New Jersey. Liotta’s adoptive father was a second-generation Italian immigrant, while his mother was of Scottish descent.

He hired a PI to find his birth mother

Liotta said in interviews that one of his earliest memories was helping his new parents choose his sister Linda from an orphanage when he was three years old. In 2006, Liotta revealed that he had tracked down his biological mother in 1997 through a private detective. He also learnt that he had one biological sister.

Martin Scorsese wouldn’t let Liotta tie his own tie while shooting Goodfellas

Martin Scorsese is a hands-on director, but did you know just how hands-on he was when it came to directing his magnum opus Goodfellas? Liotta revealed in an interview with GQ back in 2010 that Scorsese was so obsessed with detail that he wouldn’t even allow his lead actor tie his own tie on set. “Marty would tie my tie every day. There was a certain way that he wanted it done,” he revealed.

He worked in a cemetery before he got famous

While studying in Miami, Liotta took up acting as a hobby before realising he could pursue a career in it. Liotta didn’t land acting jobs to fund his way through college, though – instead, he worked in a cemetery. He told Bonnie Hunt in 2010, “I cut the grass and stuff. And I set up funerals and the chairs and everything that happens.”

He got his first screen role on a soap opera

Liotta eventually left Miami for New York, where he soon found his first acting work in a commercial. His first proper acting role, however, was in Another World, a long-running TV soap opera shot in Brooklyn. Liotta appeared in the role of Joey Perrini from 1978 to 1981. Another World eventually came to an end in 1999, having been on the air since 1964.

His preparation for Narc involved eating Chinese food until he was ‘puffy’

Liotta plays volatile, ferocious police detective Henry Oak in Joe Carnahan’s 2002 crime thriller Narc. To better inhabit his character’s larger-than-life persona, Liotta gained over 20 pounds to play the role. To bulk up, Liotta gorged on carbs, guzzling down large quantities of Chinese food. According to Liotta, the extra soy and water in Chinese food helped to make him appear puffier and filled out.

He was offered the lead in 1989’s Batman

Back in the late 80s, Warner Bros were incredibly keen to sign on Ray Liotta for a role in their upcoming Batman movie. Liotta was an up-and-coming star and the production company were convinced he’d soon take Hollywood by storm. The producers had actually been considering casting Liotta in the film’s title role, but he declined.

He also turned down offers to play The Joker or Harvey Dent

The makers of Batman persevered, offering Liotta the role of the Joker or Harvey Dent – but again, he turned these down. Liotta turned down the roles largely because was unwilling to star in a superhero movie, then a genre still largely in its infancy. It was also partly because Liotta was about to start work on another film – Goodfellas – with the legendary Martin Scorsese.

He only did Operation Dumbo Drop for the money

1995 saw Liotta appear in Operation Dumbo Drop, a commercially successful though critically derided Disney family film. Liotta admitted afterwards that his only motivation in taking the roe was the substantial salary. His co-star Denis Leary (who also admitted only doing the film for the money) said Liotta carried “a picture of a house that he was building outside LA” as motivation on set.

He also only did Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for the money

Liotta turned his attention to voice acting for video games in 2002 when he worked on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Liotta took the role of Tommy Vercetti in the game – another role he admits he only did for the money. However, Liotta was unpleasantly surprised when he saw how much he’d be paid for the work.

Liotta was angry about how little money he made from GTA

Liotta awkwardly referred to the shoddy pay he received from the Rockstar crew in several interviews. On one occasion he was asked what he’d do if he could go back and do anything differently, to which he replied: “ask for more money.” When asked by IGN in 2002 what the main difference between acting on video games and acting on movies was, Liotta replied, “cash.”

He was considered for the role of Scar in The Lion King

Bt the mid-90s, Ray Liotta was most commonly associated with bad guy roles, so it’s not too surprising that he was in contenytion for one of the biggest bad guys of the era: Scar in The Lion King. James Caan, Tim Curry, Robert Duvall, Alan Rickman and Malcolm McDowell were also in the running for the role before Jeremy Irons was cast.

He channelled his anguish over his mother’s death into his Goodfellas performance

Liotta’s impassioned performance in one particularly violent Goodfellas scene drew on very real turmoil in his personal life. The actor once recalled, “When I was doing Goodfellas, my mother was dying – and did die – from cancer… [in one scene] I had to go across the street and pistol-whip a guy, and I just remember thinking about my mother. It really made me angry.”

He never watched Field of Dreams because his mother was dying during production

Not long before Goodfellas, Liotta took a key supporting role opposite Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams. Although the 1989 fantasy drama proved a huge hit, Liotta admitted he never saw the film, because “My mom was really sick during that period, so it brings back other things.” He only saw Goodfellas twice due to those same associations with a painful time in his life.

To prepare for Goodfellas, he had lunch with a mobster who stole his wallet

Whilst preparing for Goodfellas, Liotta had lunch with a real-life mobster to ascertain how best to play a mafioso. Speaking on Jimmy Kimmel in 2015, Liotta revealed that the made man played an unsettling prank on him. “I wanted to pay [for our lunch]… but my wallet’s not there.” Liotta then found his wallet discarded on the street, and was certain the mobster took it.

He watched brain surgeries to prepare for his gruesome Hannibal scene

Liotta co-stars in 2001’s Silence of the Lambs sequel Hannibal, and his character Paul Krendler meets a grim fate: Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter drugs Krendler, cuts open his head, and feeds him a piece of his own brain. Discussing the disturbing scene with Larry King in 2014, Liotta revealed that he watched actual brain surgeries to prepare for the harrowing moment.

He didn’t know Paul Sorvino was going to slap him in Goodfellas

In another memorable Goodfellas scene, Paul Sorvino’s Paulie tells Ray Liotta’s Henry to stay away from drug dealing, giving him a short, sharp slap to get the point home. Liotta’s surprised reaction in the scene is genuine as Sorvino improvised the slap; it wasn’t in the script and Scorsese didn’t direct him to do it.

He admits to being “a d*ck” on set

Liotta always insisted in interviews that was an easy-going person in real life, far removed from many of the characters he played on film. Even so, Liotta admitted that the nature of his role could impact his temperament. He told The Globe and Mail in 2012, “If I’m playing a nice guy, I’m great on the set. If I’m not, I’m a d**k.”

He didn’t know why Scorsese wouldn’t work with him again

Credit: Charley Gallay/Getty Images for VF

Despite Liotta’s great performance in Goodfellas, this was the only time the actor ever worked with Martin Scorsese. Larry King asked Liotta about this in 2014, and the actor admitted it was a sore spot, saying he thought about reuniting with Scorsese “All the time. I’m a little miffed it just hasn’t worked out […] I would have loved to do it again.”

After Liotta died, Scorsese expressed regret at never reuniting with him

It wasn’t only Liotta who felt bad about never getting the Goodfellas dream team back together. Since Liotta’s passing, Scorsese has admitted, “We had many plans to work together again but the timing was always off, or the project wasn’t quite right. I regret that now.”

He was Scorsese’s first choice for Mark Wahlberg’s role in The Departed

The closest Liotta came to reuniting with Scorsese was when the director offered him the role of cop Sean Dignam in 2006’s The Departed. Unfortunately, Liotta “had a movie I was already committed to so I couldn’t get out of it.” This must have stung, as The Departed became one of Scorsese’s biggest hits and Wahlberg’s performance earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.

He was arrested for driving under the influence in 2007

Credit: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Netflix

In 2007, Liotta was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence after he crashed into two parked vehicles in LA whilst using prescription medication. Fortunately, nobody was injured as the parked cars were empty and Liotta’s car had no passengers. He pleaded no contest and was sentenced to three years’ probation, ordered to complete a short alcohol education program and fined $300.

The last time he saw the real Henry Hill he was “under a tree, drunk as a skunk”

Although Liotta didn’t meet the real Henry Hill while shooting Goodfellas, they later enjoyed a casual friendship. Liotta described Hill as “a troubled guy. He definitely had addiction problems.” Liotta recalled the last time he saw Hill was in 2005: “I heard somebody call my name, and under a tree, drunk as a skunk, laying on the grass was Henry.” Hill died in 2012.

He loved shar pei dogs

Credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

Liotta once revealed that he owned several shar pei dogs. While the breed has a reputation for being high-maintenance, Liotta insisted the animals are misunderstood: “Because of their pure-bred nature they are often ill. They’re sweet dogs.” He went on to touch on the breed’s origin as a fighter dog: “Thousands of years ago. Mine aren’t fighters – they’re just lovers. They’re emotional, kind and protective.”

Melanie Griffith got him his big break

When Liotta first moved to LA in the early 80s, he met Melanie Griffith at acting class. When Griffith landed a role in 1986’s Something Wild, Liotta’s parents suggested he ask her if she could get him a part in the film too. Though embarrassed, Liotta did so, and Griffith happily encouraged director Jonathan Demme to hire Liotta. The film gave Liotta his big break.

He was a keen horse rider

Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Liotta learned to ride horses for 2015 historical miniseries Texas Rising, and he maintained the hobby afterward. He later told Esquire, “I’m pretty much obsessed with [horse riding]. Every chance I had, I was doing something… Each horse is different – they really have these different personalities – and they’re just really beautiful.”

Muppets Most Wanted was one of his favourite roles

Liotta didn’t like to pick favourites, but a few of his films he prized over others. “I have some that stand out,” he said in 2014. “Obviously Henry in Goodfellas. A movie I did, Narc. The Identical just came out. And dancing with Kermit and everybody in Muppets Most Wanted – singing and dancing with Danny Trejo and The Muppets is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

He wasn’t actually Italian

Liotta’s adoptive father was the son of Italian immigrants, while his adoptive mother was the daughter of Scottish parents. In a 2001 interview, he stated his biological parents’ ancestry was “mostly Scottish with a bit of Italian.” However, in 2006 Liotta tracked down his biological mother and learnt that his real father was not Italian at all.

He admitted to feeling starstruck only twice

It’s weird to think of anyone running in Hollywood circles for over four decades ever feeling starstruck in the presence of other actors, but Liotta’s knees slightly trembled working with two people: Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall. In a 2017 Facebook post, Liotta called Duvall an “idol”, who on the set of John Q “never talked about acting, but about Peking Duck!”

He called Scorsese and Ridley Scott his favourite directors

Liotta set a lot of things straight in his 2014 Reddit AMA, including the idea that his favourite film collaboration was with Martin Scorsese. Asked “Who is your favorite director to work with?”, Liotta replied: “I’ve been lucky to work with a bunch of them but probably Scorsese and Ridley Scott!”

That Goodfellas scene was the one Liotta would have liked to play again

We don’t even have to tell you what this scene is. You know it. Ray Liotta knows it. Asked in the 2014 Reddit AMA which one of his scenes he’d like to perform again, Liotta replied: “I would do the scene with Joe [Pesci] again (you think I’m funny?). it was just fun. It was improv actually.”

He thought Clint Eastwood was the most overrated actor of his time

Liotta went viral a few years ago when he appeared on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, who asked him who he thought the most overrated actor of the 80s and 90s was. “Pfff, Clint Eastwood probably,” Liotta said. After a slight rumble from the audience, Liotta shouted, “I don’t give a s***!”

Scorsese wouldn’t let him meet Henry Hill

In preparation for Goodfellas, Liotta met with Nick Pileggi, who had written Wiseguy, the book the film was adapted from. Pileggi supplied Liotta with cassette tapes of Hill’s interviews, but that’s as far as he got at the time, as Scorsese vetoed any attempts for the actor to meet the man he was playing.

Frank Sinatra’s daughters sent Liotta a horse’s head

In 1998, Liotta played Sinatra in The Rat Pack, much to the annoyance of his daughters, Nancy and Tina, who wanted him for their own planned miniseries. “We were doing the movie and I got delivered a horse’s head,” Liotta admitted. “Obviously, it wasn’t a real one. It turned out that his daughters sent it and said, ‘Oh, you could do this one, but you couldn’t do the one that we wanted you to?'”

He turned down a key role in The Sopranos

Rumours have circulated for years for Ray Liotta was offered and declined the role of Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, something Liotta himself denied in his 2021 interview with The Guardian. In fact, Liotta was offered the role of Ralphie, ultimately played by Joe Pantoliano. Said Liotta: “I didn’t want to do another mafia thing…It just didn’t feel right at the time.”

Taron Egerton said Liotta was in a “frail way” during the filming of Black Bird

Taron Egerton worked on Black Bird with Liotta a year before his death, recalling on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2022 how at one point on set, the actor “stood up, walked towards me in a sort of frail way, just embraced me.” Egerton continued: “We stayed that way for a little while. It was kind of weird but really nice as well.”

He didn’t have kids until middle age

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Liotta married actress and producer Michelle Grace in February 1997, after they met at a baseball game where her former husband Mark Grace was playing for the Chicago Cubs. Liotta had his first child with Grace at the age of 44, Karsen Liotta, who was born in December 1998. Liotta and Grace divorced amicably in 2004.

He wasn’t that much older than Johnny Depp in Blow

In 2001’s Blow, Liotta played the father of the real-life George Jung, played by Johnny Depp. Liotta’s character spends most of the film giving fatherly advice to Depp’s Jung; in fact, there were only nine years between the pair, Depp having been born in 1963 and Liotta in 1954.

He was a theme park fan

Henry Hill, cold and calculating old Henry Hill, loved a theme park, just like us normal folk! When asked what his favourite ride at Disneyland was, the actor replied: “I have a few because I go every single year since my daughter turned 4. If it’s hot, the log ride. I don’t know their names; just where they’re located.”

He wasn’t actually a fan of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club

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Bizarrely, fans of English football club Tottenham Hotspur like to claim Liotta as a dedicated supporter of the team. This was not the case, however. Liotta explained in 2016, “It’s not that I don’t support them; I just don’t know anything about them,” but admitted to having attended one game whilst working in London, after being invited by a co-worker.

He regretted not landing certain roles

Liotta was a tough guy. He wasn’t the type to wallow and wallow in self-pity, but he did admit to having regrets about not landing roles. “There are some that I’ve wanted but I didn’t get,” he professed in the Reddit AMA. “Certain circumstances dictate you doing certain things at certain times. Sometimes, I wish that was different.”

His daughter found him annoying in Goodfellas

When interviewed by The Guardian in 2021, Liotta was asked whether or not his daughter Karsen had seen Goodfellas. “Good question. Have you seen it?” he said, asking his daughter who was sitting next to him. “Yeah, you showed it to me that time,” she replied. “Well, she wasn’t into my voiceover so much,” Liotta said. “She was like: ‘Oh Dad, will you shut up already?”

He had a simplified view of acting

Ray Liotta wasn’t too method. His idea of acting was simple and old school. You turn up, get the job done, and leave. “Just play pretend,” was his advice. “That’s pretty much it. The biggest thing is self-reliance: you don’t need a director to tell you what to do, it’s all in the script. If you simplify it, it sounds like make-believe, but it is!”

He wasn’t violent

Often, tough guys in cinema lead or have previously led tough-guy lives. Think Robert Mitchum, or Steve McQueen. Ray Liotta, though, really was a good fella, in that he wasn’t like his violent characters at all. He prided himself in being a well-adjusted family man away from the silver screen who had never been in a fight his whole life.

His nephew was also called Ray Liotta

It’s clear that Ray Liotta’s part in one of the greatest films about baseball had an effect on his family. The late actor had a nephew, also called Ray Liotta, who played on a farm team for the Kansas City Royals. A farm team is a club whose role is to train and nurture young talent in baseball before possible Major League moves.

Two of his films were selected by the Library of Congress

Ray Liotta starred in a few failures over his career but when he was good, he was really good. Two films he appeared in were subsequently selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant: Field of Dreams and Goodfellas, which were released within a year of each other.

He was a Hall of Famer

Liotta, a Newark native, was inducted into the 2016 New Jersey Hall of Fame in the Performance Arts category. “To me, New Jersey is about family … and Taylor ham,” Liotta said at the state Hall of Fame ceremony. “Which you can’t find anywhere but here.” His mother had also been a township clerk in the state.

He supported the New York Yankees

It would be weird if Shoeless Joe Jackson didn’t like baseball in real life, wouldn’t it? Tottenham Hotspurs fans were duped into thinking Liotta was a soccer nut only to find out he didn’t really have any interest, but, rest assured, the Field of Dreams actor was a huge baseball and New York Yankees fan.

He didn’t like to watch his own movies

This isn’t too much of a shock. Plenty of actors have gone on record as saying they don’t like to watch their own work. In the case of Liotta, it’s easier to understand, given that a lot of his films have him assaulting and killing people. “I’ve seen some just out of curiosity to see how it turned out but I’ve probably only seen half of what I’ve made,” he once said.

There was one character he always wanted to play

Who did Ray Liotta want to play more than anyone else? Take a guess. A Hollywood legend? A sporting legend? Maybe even a president? Nope, nope and nope. In 2014, the actor revealed he had always wanted to play Jesus. Presumably with fewer drugs and pistol whips, we’re imagining.

He didn’t mind being typecast as the bad guy

It’s hard enough to shake the reputation with one baddie role, let alone several. This didn’t bug Liotta, who was more than happy to be typecast as a villain. “No, I like playing it,” he revealed. “I’ve been lucky enough to play lots of other roles, but it seems like bad guys just stick out in people’s minds more.

A song was made in his honor

In 1997, British rock group Linoleum released a song called Ray Liotta in tribute to the actor and his career, which covered his memorable roles in Goodfellas, Field of Dreams and Cop Land. The song was a success despite the odds and only added to Liotta’s status as a film legend.

He was almost cast in A Star Is Born

When Bradley Cooper got his hands on the third remake of A Star Is Born, the rumour mill was teeming with big names, including Ray Liotta, who was originally considered for the role of Bobby, the long-suffering manager of troubled singer Jack. It eventually went to Sam Elliott.

He was engaged at the time of his death

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At the time of his death, Liotta was engaged to Jacy Nittolo, who was with him in the Dominican Republic when he passed away. Liotta revealed in September 2021 that his daughter Karsen had set him up with Nittolo who originally wanted “nothing to do with an actor whatsoever” but that they ended up hitting it off anyway.

He died of a “silent killer”

Ray Liotta died in his sleep due to atherosclerotic, which is marked by a slow buildup of plaque in your arteries, which in turn brings about both pulmonary edema and acute heart failure. The actor apparently didn’t have any idea that he might have been ill.

Cocaine Bear was dedicated to him

When Liotta died in his sleep at age 67 last year, he was filming a movie called Dangerous Waters in the Dominican Republic. Cocaine Bear had been filmed in the previous year during the summer of 2021. It stands as his final completed film and was dedicated in “loving memory” to him in the closing credits.

But they did modify the goriness of his death scene

The team over at Cocaine Bear were careful to make sure Liotta’s final performance in the movie wasn’t too insensitive or jarring (his character is mauled and disembowelled by the eponymous beast) “It was really difficult because of course, it’s the performance that he gave and he did it all joyfully. We did pull back on some of it for sure,” director Elizabeth Banks said.