Paul Sorvino, an imposing actor who specialised in playing crooks and cops like Paulie Cicero in Goodfellas and the NYPD sergeant Phil Cerreta on Law & Order, has died. He was 83.
Paul Sorvino, an imposing actor who specialised in playing crooks and cops like Paulie Cicero inHis publicist Roger Neal said he died on Monday morning of natural causes at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. Sorvino had dealt with health issues over the past few years.Mira Sorvino, his daughter, wrote a tribute on Twitter: “My father the great Paul Sorvino has passed. My heart is rent asunder- a life of love and joy and wisdom with him is over. He was the most wonderful father.
Many responded to Mira Sorvino’s tweet with condolences and sympathy. Jane Lynch wrote, “Your father sang ‘’ for my Aunt Marge at The Chicago Film Critics Awards in 2012. We all cried.” Rob Reiner, who appeared in one of his father’s films with Sorvino, said he was sending love. Lorraine Bracco tweeted two broken heart emojis.
In his over 50 years in the entertainment business, Sorvino was a mainstay in films and television, playing an Italian American communist in Warren Beatty’s. He would often say that while he might be best known for playing gangsters his real passions were poetry, painting and opera. Born in Brooklyn in 1939 to a mother who taught piano and a father who was a foreman in a robe factory, Sorvino was musically inclined from a young age and attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York where he fell for the theatre. He made his Broadway debut in 1964 inPaul Sorvino and his daughter Mira Sorvino attend the premiere of Reservation Road during the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007.