Part of Goodfellas featuring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino, and Samuel L. Jackson.
Rise to Fame
Jonathan Demme cast him as a hair-trigger ex-con in Something Wild (1986), earning him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. That was the setup. Tim Burton wanted him to play Harvey Dent in Batman, and Liotta turned it down. What he held out for was Henry Hill. Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas (1990) put him opposite Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, playing a real mob informant narrating his own downfall. Liotta carried the film without getting overshadowed, which is not a small feat. Goodfellas got six Oscar nominations. Joe Pesci won. Liotta owned the movie.
In the Spotlight
After Goodfellas, his career didn't sustain the same altitude. He worked steadily but spent years in genre films that didn't need what he could actually do. The late career was different. Marriage Story (2019), No Sudden Move (2021), The Many Saints of Newark (2021) put him back in rooms with directors who knew what to do with him. The last TV role was Black Bird on Apple TV+, a true-crime limited series where he played Big Jim Keene, the father of Taron Egerton's character. Series creator Dennis Lehane wrote the part specifically for him. He was reportedly over the moon about it. He died before it aired.
Side Notes
He was abandoned as a newborn and adopted at six months by an Italian-American family in New Jersey. For decades, that's who he thought he was. In his later years, he hired a private detective to find his biological mother and discovered he was mostly of Irish and Scottish descent, not Italian, which created an odd irony given the career he'd built playing mob guys. A black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and he claimed he'd never once thrown a punch in real life. His characters didn't share the restraint.
Final Chapter
He died in his sleep on May 26, 2022, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, while filming Dangerous Waters. He was 67 and engaged to be married. Martin Scorsese said he was "absolutely shocked and devastated" by the news. Black Bird premiered on Apple TV+ in July 2022, two months after his death, to strong reviews. He was posthumously awarded a Hollywood Walk of Fame star on February 24, 2023.