(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
IN MEMORIAM
...Ray Liotta...
(1954 - 2022)
(© Publicity Photo 'Field of Dreams') |
  'Field of Dreams'-actor Ray Liotta passed away
Nederlands
 SANTO DOMINGO (Dominican Republic) -
American actor Ray Liotta, who was wellknown for his roles in the movies 'Field of Dreams' and 'Goodfellas', unexpectedly passed away on Thursday (May 26) at age 67.
It was reported that the actor died in his sleep while being in the Dominican Republic.
There, Liotta was shooting scenes for the film 'Dangerous Waters'.
Raymond Allen Liotta was born on December 19, 1954 in Newark, New Jersey (USA).
Liotta went on to study acting at the University of Miami.
Thereafter, he became a popular actor in many TV-series and movies.
And with his intense blue eyes, Liotta became a very recognizable face.
Several of the characters that were played by Liotta all appeared to have some sort of a mysterious background.
For fans of baseball-movies, Ray Liotta was known for his role of legendary player 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson in the film 'Field of Dreams' (1989), which was based on the novel 'Shoeless Joe', written by W.P. Kinsella.
In the movie, farmer Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner, builds a baseball-field in his cornfield in Dyersville, Iowa.
One of the famous lines in the movie is 'If you build it, he will come', which was spoken by Liotta's character.
The baseball-field attracts several ghosts of baseball-legends.
One of them is Shoeless Joe Jackson with other members of the Chicago Black Sox.
That team, which was Chicago White Sox, was nicknamed Black Sox for the (true story) scandal it created in 1919.
Eight members of the team were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate.
The most famous player of that group was Jackson.
The eight players were permanently banned from professional baseball by Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first Commissioner of Major League Baseball.
The 1988 movie 'Eight Men Out' is a dramatization of his scandal.
Other stars in 'Field of Dreams' include James Earl Jones (as Terence Mann), Burt Lancaster (in his final role as Dr. Archibald Graham) and Amy Madigan (as Annie Kinsella).
Wellknown baseball-coach Rod Dedeaux (University of South California) served as baseball advisor during the filming of the movie.
The film, which was directed by Phil Alden Robinson, was nominated for three Academy Awards (Oscars), Best Picture, Best Original Score (by James Horner) and Best Adapted Screenplay (by Robinson).
The film won several movie-awards in Japan as Best Foreign Language Film.
In 2017, the movie was selected by the Library of Congress to be preserved in the United States National Film Registry.
The site where the baseball-field was created and the baseball-scenes were shot for the movie became a well-visited destination for tourists.
In 2019, Major League Baseball announced that a regular season-game was to be played annually in a special constructed stadium (8,000 seats) bordering the famous movie-set.
The first game was scheduled for August 13, 2020 between Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees.
However, because of the coronavirus-pandemic (COVID-19) and the shortened MLB-season, the game was postponed to last year.
On August 12, 2021, the teams from Chicago and New York faced each other in Dyersville and Kevin Costner opened the pre-game ceremony.
This year, on August 11, Cincinnati Reds and Chicago Cubs will play in the Field of Dreams-game.
...Movie-poster...
...'Field of Dreams'... |
In 2010, Ray Liotta played in another movie that focused around baseball.
In the road-movie 'Chasing 3000', Liotta played the older Mickey Straka.
In this movie, directed by Gregory J. Lanesey, two brothers drive across the country to see there favorite player Roberto Clemente of Pittsburgh Pirates hit his 3,000th basehit.
Also playing this movie are Lauren Holly, Seymour Cassel, Michael O'Keefe, Trevor Morgan and Rory Culkin.
In 2011, Liotta played in another sports-movie, 'All Things Fall Apart', a drama that centers around a promising American football-player during his senior year in college.
Also playing in that movie were 50 Cent, Lynn Whitfield and Steve Eastin.
The movie was directed by Mario Van Peebles.
Ray Liotta started his career in TV-series in the early eighties.
That included the recurring role of Joey Perrini in the daytime soap 'Another World' in 1979-1981.
In his early acting years, he also played roles in series such as 'St. Elsewhere' and 'Mike Hammer'.
Halfway the eighties, Liotta played in his first movies for the big screen.
First in 'Something Wild' (1986), then in 'Dominick and Eugene' (1988).
For his role in 'Something Wild', Liotta was nominated for a Golden Globe.
Thereafter, he played a major role in 'Field of Dreams' (1989), followed by his breakthrough-role in the biographical crime/drama movie 'Goodfellas'.
Liotta played the part of Henry Hill in that film and appeared together with Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci.
The film, which was directed by Martin Scorsese, was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture.
Pesci won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
In following years, Ray Liotta became a successful actor as well as a familiar face in movies, which mostly were action thrilers.
Amongst these movies were 'Unlawful Entry' (1992) with Kurt Russell and Madeleine Stowe, 'Escape from Absolom' (1994) with Lance Henriksen, 'Turbulence' (1997) with Lauren Holly, Brendan Gleeson and Hector Elizondo and 'Cop land' (1997) with Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro.
...Movie-poster...
...'Chasing 3000'... |
But he also played in several comedy drama-movies, such as 'Article 99' (1992) with Kiefer Sutherland and 'Corrina, Corrina' (1994) with Whoopi Goldberg.
Or action/adventure-movies, like 'Operation Dumbo Drop' (1995) with Danny Glover.
In 1998, Ray Liotta played a completely different kind of role.
That was in the TV-movie 'The Rat Pack', which tells the story of the public and private lives of famous singers/actors Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, who together formed the Rat Pack when they performed on stage.
Liotta played Frank Sinatra, Joe Mantegna was Dean Martin, Don Cheadle was Sammy Davis Jr., Angus Macfadyen was Peter Lawford and Bobby Slayton played the role of Joey Bishop.
For his role, Liotta was nominated for the Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a TV Movie by the Screen Actors Guild.
Liotta also appeared in the adventure comedy 'Muppets from Space' (1999).
In 2014, he played in another Muppet-movie, 'Muppets Most Wanted'.
Many roles followed.
In 2001, he played in 'Hannibal', directed by Ridley Scott, which was the sequel of the successful thriller 'The Silence of the Lambs' (1991).
Starring in both films was Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.
In 2009, he played opposite Harrison Ford and Ashley Judd in the crime-drama 'Crossing Over'.
Ray Liotta also did voice-work for some animation movies.
In 2007, he provided the voice for his animated self when he made a cameo-appearance in 'Bee Movie'.
And in 2008, Liotta was a voice-actor in an episode of TV-series 'SpongeBob SquarePants'.
In more recent years, Liotta also returned again to television, appearing in several series, including providing a voice in a 2018 episode of 'The Simpsons'.
He also had a guest-role in the hospital-series 'ER' in 2005 for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award.
Amongst his most recent work are the crime/mystery/drama 'No Sudden Move' (2021) with Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro and Brendan Fraser and directed by Steven Soderbergh.
Liotta also played in six episodes (2021) of the high-rated TV action-series Hanna' (2019-2021).
Ray Liotta recently completed work on TV-crime-series 'Black Bird', which wll be televised in July-August.
He also completed work on two movies that will be released next year.
At the moment, Ray Liotta was working on three future movies.
One of them was the thriller 'Dangerous Waters' for which he was filming in the Dominican Republic.
Although the plot of the film is not yet completely known, it is about a holiday sailing trip that moves out of control when a teenage daughter discovers the dark past of the boyfriend of her mother.
That boyfriend was played by Liotta.
Also acting in the movie are Saffron Burrows, Odeya Rush and Eric Dane.
It is not known how far the production of the movie was, which is directed by John Barr.
The webmaster of Grand Slam * Stats & News offers his condolences to the family and friends of Ray Liotta and wishes them a lot of strength with this big loss.
(May 27)
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