Actor Paul Sorvino passes away

This article was last updated on July 27, 2022

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Dead is Goodfellas’ mafia leader, Paul Sorvino.

The 83-year-old actor and singer Paul Sorvino has passed away. For his parts in Goodfellas and Law and Order, he’s most known for his roles as mafia leader Paulie Cicero and a police officer.

Sorvino’s career was extensive as a cinema and stage star for more than fifty years. Sorvino, who was born in New York City in 1939, had aspirations of becoming an opera singer before settling on a career in acting. In 1964, he made his New York stage debut. Where’s Poppa was where he made his cinematic debut six years later.

Goodfellas

In 1990, filmmaker Martin Scorsese cast him with Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, and the late Ray Liotta as the mafia leader in his picture, Goodfellas, in which he died in May of this year.

In the film Goodfellas, Paul Sorvino appears in the following scene:

Sorvino then earned the part of Phil Cerreta in the law enforcement drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as a result. He was featured in over 30 episodes in all. In 1995, Sorvino portrayed Henry Kissinger as Nixon, the United States Secretary of State.

A stable for horses and a pasta dish

The American actor also maintained a horse refuge in Pennsylvania alongside his acting career. It was also a family tradition for him to sell pasta sauces he had learned from his mother.

The bronze bust of actor Jason Miller, famed for the 1973 classic The Exorcist, was fashioned by him. He also sang and sculpted. In 1982, Sorvino acted in a film adaptation of his play That Championship Season.

In 2014, Sorvino commented, “Most people believe I’m either a mobster or a cop or something.” In actuality, I’m an award-winning novelist, opera singer, sculptor, and painter—none of whom are gangsters. “That would be good,” he remarked, “if people didn’t simply remember me for being tough.”

Sorvino has three children from his first marriage. For her performance in Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite in 1996, Mira Sorvino was awarded an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.