Ray Liotta, the blue-eyed actor best known for playing mobster Henry Hill in “Goodfellas” and baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson in “Field of Dreams,” has died. He was 67.
Liotta’s publicist, Jen Allen, said he was in the Dominican Republic shooting a new movie and didn’t wake up Thursday morning. Police in the Dominican Republic said they received a call just before 6 a.m. Thursday at a hotel where Liotta was staying with his fiancee and found the actor dead.
Robert De Niro, who co-starred with Liotta in “Goodfellas,” said in an emailed statement that he was saddened by Liotta’s passing. “He is way too way young to have left us,” De Niro said.
Another “Goodfellas” star, Lorraine Bracco, who played Henry’s wife Karen Hill, tweeted Thursday that she could be “anywhere in the world & people will come up & tell me their favorite movie is Goodfellas. Then they always ask what was the best part of making that movie. My response has always been the same…Ray Liotta.”
Liotta was also mourned by Alessandro Nivola, who recently appeared with him in “The Sopranos” prequel “The Many Saints of Newark,” and by the film’s writer and producer David Chase. Nivola called Liotta “dangerous, unpredictable, hilarious, and generous with his praise for other actors.” Chase said in a statement that “We all felt we lucked out having him on that movie.”