Paul Sorvinoburly character actor who made a career out of playing tough guys, most notably ruthless mobster Paulie Cicero in Martin Scorsese‘s Good boys, has died. She was 83 years old.
Sorvino, the father of Oscar-winning actress Mira Sorvino (mighty aphrodite), died Monday of natural causes, his wife, Dee Dee, announced.
“Our hearts are broken, there will never be another Paul Sorvino, he was the love of my life and one of the greatest artists to ever grace the screen and stage,” he said.
Mira wrote on Twitter:: “My heart is in pieces: a life of love, joy and wisdom with him is over. He was the most wonderful father. I love him so much. Sending you love in the stars, Dad, as you ascend.”
Publicist Roger Neal said he died at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.
During a solid career that spanned half a century, Sorvino portrayed james caanthe bookmaker in The player (1974), claire danes‘Insistent father at Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet (1996), Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in oliver stone‘s Nixon (1995) and a heroin addict hung on the cooler (2003).
He played a founder of the American Communist Party in warren beatty‘s Reds (1981) and returned to work with the actor and director in dick tracy (1990), bulworth (1998) and Rules don’t apply (2016).
A respected tenor who made a dream come true when he performed for the New York City Opera at Lincoln Center in 2006, the Brooklyn native also starred for a season as Det. Phil Cerretta, Partner at chris noth‘s Det. Mike Logan on NBC Law.
In 1973, Sorvino received a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award for his performance as the unscrupulous Phil Romano, one of four former high school basketball players who reunite to visit their old coach, in the original production. Jason Miller’s Broadway. that championship seasonPulitzer Prize winner for drama.
He reprized the role for a 1982 film, then played the coach in a 1999 Showtime television movie in which he also made his directorial debut. He returned to Scranton, Pennsylvania, the scene of that championship seasonto star in and direct his only feature film, The problem with Cali (2012).
Still, Sorvino is probably best known for his portrayal of Cicero, who loved a good meal and cut his garlic with a razor, in the ultraviolent Good boys (1990), which Nicholas Pileggi and Scorsese adapted from Pileggi’s 1986 nonfiction book.
in a 2015 New York Times piece on the 25th anniversary of the film, Sorvino said I was delighted to get the part and scared to death.
“I had done a lot of comedies and dramas, but I had never played a really tough guy. I never had it in me,” she said. “And that [part] it required a lethality, which I felt was beyond me. I called my manager three days before we started shooting and said, ‘Get me out. I’m going to ruin the image of this great man and I’m going to ruin myself. He, being wise, said: ‘Call me tomorrow, and if necessary I will take you out.’
“Then I would go to the hall mirror to adjust my tie. He was heartbroken. And I looked in the mirror and I literally jumped a foot back. I saw a look I had never seen before, something in my eyes that alarmed me. A deadly soulless look in my eyes that scared me and was overwhelmingly threatening. And I looked up at the sky and said, ‘You’ve found it.’ “
Sorvino, 6-foot-3, 240-pounds in his prime, also played men on the wrong side of the law in The Panic in Needle Park (1971), William Friedkin‘s edge work (1978), the rocketman (1991) and the signature (1993).
“There are many people who think that I am actually a gangster or a mobster, largely because of Good boys,” he once said. “I guess that’s the price you pay for being effective in a role.”
However, he could be a big softie. When her daughter took the stage to receive her Oscar for best supporting actress in 1996, she saw Sorvino in the audience, crying with joy.
My father the great Paul Sorvino has passed away. My heart is torn: a life of love, joy and wisdom with him is over. He was the most wonderful father. I love him so much. I send you love in the stars dad as you ascend.
— Mira Sorvino (@MiraSorvino) July 25, 2022
Sorvino was born on April 13, 1939, in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. Her father was an Italian immigrant who worked in a robe factory and her mother was a homemaker and piano teacher. Her parents argued frequently and she spent time living in California with her mother before graduating from Lafayette High School in 1956.
Sorvino said he was always fascinated with the human voice and sang in Catskills hotels as a teenager. He took lesson after lesson and dreamed of becoming an opera singer, but an asthma condition forced him to focus on acting.
He attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, studied with Sanford Meisner and William Esper, and excelled on stage.
Learning to control your asthma with breathing exercises; she would later found the Sorvino Children’s Asthma Foundation and write a book in 1985, How to become a former asthmatic — Sorvino made his Broadway debut as a singing patrolman in the musical comedy Bajour in 1964.
Sorvino first appeared on screen in Charles Reiner‘s Where is dad? (1970), then played Joseph Bologna’s father in Made for each other (1971), Jorge Segalfilm producer friend of a touch of class (1973) and government agent in mike nichols‘ the day of the dolphin (1973).
In 1975, Sorvino tried out for a television series when he played a middle-class lawyer from New Jersey in we’ll managea CBS show created by Alan Alda. The comedy, however, lasted only 12 episodes. The following year, he played a maverick cop on the streets of san francisco cleave Bert D’Angelo, superstar. That was canceled after 11 episodes.
Speaking of his only season (1991-92) in LawSorvino was not nostalgic. “I felt like I was in the Russian gulag,” he said. “There was absolutely no communication with the writers and producers, and we had to work in the worst conditions.”
He left the show and Logan got a new partner, Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach).
Sorvino also played the policeman who sends Al Pacino undercover at Friedkin’s Cruise (1980) and played detectives in me the jury (1982) and as the title character in another short-lived CBS show, 1987-88 The oldest rookie.
the portrait Bruce Willis‘ father on ABC Moonlightingand with Raymond Burr ill, he stepped in to play a visiting lawyer in a Perry Mason telefilm, 1993 The Case of the Wicked Wives.
He also starred with Ellen Burstin and Kevin Dillon in the CBS drama 2000-02 This is life.
Sorvino’s resume also included Reiner’s Oh God! (1977), Slow dance in the big city (1978), blood brothers (1978), Lost objects (1979), the 1979 telefilm Fictional, Turkish 182! (1985), Things (1985), a good mess (1986), Money talks (1997), Plan B (2001), Fragrance (2001), mr 3000 (2004) and the bronx bull (2016).
Most recently, he played Frank Costello on the Epix series. godfather of harlem.
in a 1995 interview with Charlie Rose, Sorvino lamented that she was never given the opportunity to take a studio photo. “I’ve been to the top of the mountain, but I haven’t been the guy,” he said. “I have been a passenger on the bus, but I have not been the driver.”
Sorvino sang the role of Alfred in Fledermaus dies with the Seattle Opera Company in 1981 and years later starred in a revival of the happiest guy at Lincoln Center. He also recorded three CDs.
Sorvino married his third wife, Dee Dee Benkie, a Republican Party strategist and former aide to President George W. Bush, in 2014. They met on Fox News Channel. Your world with Neil Cavuto.
He had dealt with health problems in recent years, he said, and will be buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Survivors include his other children, Amanda and Michael, and five grandchildren.