Ray Liotta death

Ray Liotta, the actor best known for playing mobster Henry Hill in “Goodfellas” and baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson in “Field of Dreams,” has died.

But he’d still end up playing a mob type with James Gandolfini in Andrew Dominik’s “Killing Them Softly.” And later, he would pay his own ticket to audition for “The Many Saints of Newark.” For gamers, he’s immortalized as the voice of Tommy Vercetti in the video game “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.” He also starred opposite Jennifer Lopez in the series “Shades of Blue.” A few years later, he would get the memorable role of the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson in “Field of Dreams.” Though it moved many to tears, it wasn’t without its critics. “The business is rough, no matter where you’re at in your career,” Liotta said in 2012. It would take a few years for him to land his first big movie role, in Jonathan Demme’s “Something Wild” as Melanie Griffith’s character’s hotheaded ex-convict husband Ray. He was 30 years old at the time and hadn’t had a steady job in five years. The one physical thing he does do, when he goes after the guy who went after Karen — you know, most audiences, they actually like him for that.” And later, at the University of Miami he picked drama and acting because they had no math requirement attached. The Newark, New Jersey, native was born in 1954 and adopted at age six months out of an orphanage by a township clerk and an auto parts owner. Robert De Niro, who co-starred with Liotta in “Goodfellas,” said in an emailed statement: “I was very saddened to learn of Ray’s passing. “I hated doing it, because that’s politics for me; calling someone to help you out. Liotta’s publicist, Jen Allen, said he was in the Dominican Republic shooting a new movie and didn’t wake up Thursday morning. My response has always been the same…Ray Liotta.”