Paul Sorvino, a tough guy actor, opera tenor and figurative sculptor, said:Good fellasAnd TV shows like “Low & Order” died on Monday. He was 83 years old.
His spokeswoman, Roger Neil, confirmed his death at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. No specific cause has been given, but Neil said Solvino “has been working on health issues for the past few years.”
Sorvino was the father of Mira Sorvino, who won the Best Supporting Actress Award for Woody Allen’s “Mighty Aphrodite” (1995). In her acceptance speech, she said her father “taught me everything I knew about acting.”
Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed mafia epic “Goodfellas” (1990) appeared 50 and decades after Solvino began his film career. His personality, Pauly CiceroWas the boss of a local mob — chewy, soft and icy.
“Polly may have moved slowly,” says Henry Hill, played by his neighbor’s disciple Ray Liotta in the film. (Mr. Liotta died in May at the age of 67.)
Sorvino told comedian Jon Stewart that he had almost abandoned his role because he couldn’t connect completely emotionally. 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.. When “finding the spine” of the character, Mr. Solvino said, “It makes all the decisions for you.”
He remembered that it didn’t happen. One day, as he was adjusting his tie, he looked in the mirror and saw something with his own eyes. Sorvino told South Carolina Lowcountry Weekly in 2019 when he saw what he called “the look of that deadly Pauly.”
He marked it on stage as a very different but perhaps similarly soulless character.That championship season(1972), a tragicomedy that won the Jason Miller Pulitzer Prize for the sad reunion of high school basketball players decades ago on Glory Day. In Broadway’s original work, Solvino played Phil Romano, a millionaire in strip mining in a small town that has an arrogant relationship with the mayor’s wife.
Sorvino was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in Theater 1982 movie Adaptation.
Paul Sorvino (1939-2022)
The tough guy actor best known for his role as gangster Paul Cicero in “Good Fellows” died at the age of 83.
Paul Anthony Sorvino was born on April 13, 1939 in Brooklyn, the youngest of three sons of Fortunato Sorvino, known as Ford, and Marietta (Renzi) Sorvino, a housewife and piano teacher. rice field. Elder Sorvino, the foreman of the Robe factory, was born in Naples, Italy, and moved to New York with his parents in 1907.
Paul grew up in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn and attended Lafayette High School.The dream of his initial career sing — He idolized the Italian-American tenor and actor Mario Lanza — And he started taking voice lessons at the age of eight or so.
In the late 1950s he began playing at Catskill Resorts and charity events. In 1963, he received his actor equity card as a chorus member of “South Pacific” and “Student Prince” at the Theater in Westbury, Long Island.That same year he started studying drama at American Musical and Dramatic Academy In New York.
The acting job was elusive. Solvino’s Broadway debut in the chorus of the musical “Bajour” (1964) lasted almost seven months, but the next show starring Van Johnson, the comedy “Mating Dance” (1965), was the opening night. It ended with.
Sorvino worked as a waiter and bartender, selling cars, teaching children acting, and appearing in deodorant and tomato sauce commercials. He wrote an advertising copy for nine months after his first child, Mira, was born, but his clerk gave him an ulcer.
“Most of the time I was another non-working actor who wasn’t arrested,” he told The New York Times in 1972. I can’t recognize it. “
Then his luck changed. He”Where is Poppa?(1970), a dark comedy directed by Carl Reiner, playing a small role as a retirement home owner. Then, starting with Off-Broadway production at the public theater, “the championship season” began.
The role of the film that first received a lot of attention from him was Joseph Bologna’s role as the moody Italian-American father.Made for each other(1971). Solvino, about five years younger than Bologna, wore old-age makeup for that role.
He then appeared as a New Yorker robbed by a prostitute In “The Panicin Needle Park” (1972), he was not the victim of police and gangster stereotypes. In 1973, he was a friend of George Segal’s film producer on “A Touch of Class” and a mysterious government agency on “The Day of the Dolphin.”
Sorvino later played a money-hungry egoistic evangelist with a southern accent in the comedy.Oh, God!(1977) and “The Devil’s Carnival” (2012) and its 2015 sequel God himself. He was “a sober newspaper reporter who loved ballerina.Slow dance in a big city(1978). In “Reds” (1981), he was a passionate Russian-American Communist Party leader shortly before the Bolshevik Revolution.
He was Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” (1995), with a German accent. And in Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” (1996), he played Juliet’s strong father, Flugencio Capulet, with an ancient grudge.
But in half a century of screen careers, Sovino’s characters were often behind the law. He played, among other things, Chubby de Coco (“Brothers who divided blood1978), Lips Manlis (“Dick Tracy”, 1980), Big Mike Cicero (“How Sweet It Is”, 2013), Jimmy Scambino (“Sicilian Vampire”, 2015), Fat Tony Salerno (“How Sweet It Is”, 2013)Kill the Irishman“2011).
And in at least 20 roles, he played a legal officer with positions such as detective, captain, and chief. During one season (1991-92) he was a sergeant. Phil Cerreta appeared on NBC’s “Law & Order”, but I found it difficult to speak because the shooting schedule was too tight.
Sorvino continued to sing professionally and made Frank Loesser’s city opera debut. “The happiest blowjob” in 2006.
His personal life sometimes strengthened his image of tough guys. More recently, in 2018, when movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was tried for criminal sexual activity and Mira Sorvino accused him of harassment, Sorvino predicted that Weinstein would die in prison. “Otherwise he has to meet me, and I kill [expletive deleted] — It’s really simple, ”Sorvino said in a widespread broadcast. Video interview..
Four months later, Mr. Weinstein Sentenced 23 years in prison In jail.
Sorvino’s final screen role was 2019. He played the corrupt Senator in the spy comedy movie “Welcome to Acapulco” and the criminal boss Frank Costello in the Epix series “Godfather of Harlem.”
He married actress Lorraine Davis in 1966 and had three children before divorcing in 1988. From 1991 to 1996, Solvino’s second wife was real estate agent Vanessa Ariko.he Married Dee Dee BenkyRepublican Political Strategist, 2014.
Sorvino began making bronze sculptures in the 1970s and found his unprofitable works of art particularly satisfying. “That’s why I like it,” he told the Florida newspaper Sun-Sentinel in 2005.
“Acting on stage is like sculpting,” he said. “Acting in a movie is like being an assistant to a sculptor.”
Mr. Sorvino has survived by his wife, Dee Dee Sorvino. Three children, Mira, Amanda and Michael. And five grandchildren.
Johnny Diaz Contribution report.
