| Net Worth | $20 million |
|---|---|
| Source Of Wealth | Actor |
| Born | 18th December 1954 |
| Death | 26th May 2022 |
| Children | Karsen Liotta |
| Birth Name | Raymond Allen Liotta |
| Height | 5ft 11in (180cm) |
Ray Liotta Net Worth
Ray Liotta has had an illustrious career in film and television, amassing a $20 million net worth along the way. Born in New Jersey in 1954, Liotta began his acting career in the early 1980s with roles on daytime soap operas. He first came to prominence with his role in the 1984 film The Cotton Club, for which he received critical acclaim.
Ray Liotta's movies have grossed a combined total of more than one billion dollars. While Liotta is perhaps best known for his work in crime dramas such as "Goodfellas" he has also appeared in a number of comedies, action movies, and thrillers.
How did he get to be so successful? If you were curious about the mysterious and lucrative life of one of Hollywood's most beloved actors, then keep on reading, and we'll take you through everything you'll want to know!
Early Life
Ray Liotta was born on December 18, 1954, in Newark, New Jersey. Soon after he was born, he was left at the doorsteps of a local orphanage. He was adopted a few months later by Alfred and Mary Liotta.
Alfred owned an auto shop, and Mary worked as a township clerk. His adoptive parents were active and politics, and both unsuccessfully ran for office as Democrats.
His sister, Linda, was also adopted. Ray knew from a young age that he was adopted and would even give class presentations about the subject.
Decades later, Ray hired a private detective to find his biological mother. While he was raised by Italians, Liotta found out that his mother was mostly of Scottish origins.
Ray Liotta would go on to graduate from the University of Miami in 1978 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
Career
After he graduated from college, Ray Liotta moved to New York City. There, he started working at the Shubert Organization, a company that owns major theaters in New York. He started out as a bartender at the organization and in a few months landed an acting agent.
His first role was on the soap opera Another World as Joey Perrini. He was on the show from 1978 to 1981. Once the show was over, he moved to Los Angeles in hopes of being taken more seriously as a screen actor.
In 1983, he landed a small role in the movie The Lonely Lady. However, people first started to notice him after he starred in the Jonathan Demme comedy Something Wild as Ray Sinclair, a violent ex-husband. It was here that he established his bad boy, mafioso image.
He even was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for the movie. Liotta's star continued to rise when he played the ghost of baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams three years later.
The movie grossed $64,431,625 at the worldwide box office on a budget of only $15 million.
Career Peak
Ray Liotta is perhaps best known for portraying real-life gangster Henry Hill in Goodfellas. The 1990 film, directed by Martin Scorsese, was a massive box office and critical success and was said to reinvigorate the mafia genre.
The movie also starred Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci and premiered at the 47th Venice International Film Festival. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards. Its only win went to Joe Pesci for Best Supporting Actor.
Sadly, Liotta was never nominated.
Two years later, Ray Liotta starred in the thriller Unlawful Entry as a deranged police officer. He was then the lead in No Escape, an action/sci-fi movie. Both films were successful.
In 1997, Ray Liotta rejoined De Niro to star in Cop Land and received a lot of praise for his performance. The next year, Liotta co-produced and starred in Pheonix. While the movie was panned by critics, Liotta's performance received was well-regarded.
Television Time
Liotta then went back to the small screen to portray singer Frank Sinatra in the television movie The Rat Pack. He got a Screen Actors Guild award nomination for his performance.
In 2001, he starred in the short-lived sitcom Just Shoot Me where he played a version of himself. In 2004, he guest starred on the show ER as Charlie Metcalf in the episode "Time of Death."
He also provided the voice for Tommy Vercetti for the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, released in 2002.
After performing on ER, Ray won an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. Several years later, he would parody himself and his Emmy win in Bee Movie.
He starred in the CBS TV series Smith in 2006, but the show was canceled after only three episodes. Six years later, he'd play a voice version of himself for the Disney Channel animated comedy series Phineas & Ferb.
Continued Film Work
In 2001, Ray Liotta would play Paul Krendler, a Justice Department official, in the 2001 movie Hannibal. The film also starred Julianne Moore and Anthony Hopkins.
Hannibal would be Ray Liotta's most successful movie. The film, directed by Ridley Scott, had a budget of around $87 million and made more than $350 million at the box office. It was even more successful than its prequel, Silence of the Lambs.
That same year, Ray Liotta starred alongside Johnny Depp in Blow. He played Depp's father.
The next year, Ray Liotta stuck with the theme of drugs and appeared in the movie Narc. Narc was directed by Joe Carnahan and saw Liotta play Detective Lieutenant Henry Oak. Liotta received nominations for Best Supporting Actor from the Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards.
He then linked up for a second time with director James Mangold in 2003. He starred in the thriller/horror movie Identity with Alfred Molina and John Cusack.
In 2005, Liotta narrated Inside the Mafia for the National Geographic television channel. A few years later, he reunited with director Joe Carnahan to star in Smokin' Aces. He played FBI agent Donald Carruthers.
Broadway and Beers
Ray Liotta starred in his first Broadway play with Frank Langella in Match by Stephen Belber. The show was a flop and Ray Liotta's performance was not received well.
He then worked as a spokesman for Heinekin in the United Kingdom and appeared in several commercials. Unfortunately, the campaign was quickly shelved after it was implied that stronger alcoholic drinks were better.
Trying His Hand at Comedy
In 2007, Ray Liotta starred in the political action-thriller Battle in Seattle. The film was made for eight million dollars and made less than one million dollars back. This box office bomb would hurt Liotta's bankability in Hollywood.
After playing so many gangsters, criminals, and compromised cops, it makes sense that Ray Liotta would want to act in a few light-hearted comedies. Liotta soon acted in Wild Hogs along with Tim Allen, John Travolta, William H. Macy, and Martin Lawrence.
In 2008, he voiced the leader of a gang in an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. The gang was called the Bubble Poppin' Boys and they tried to kill SpongeBob.
While he played another detective in 2009, it was the nemesis to a mall cop in the raunchy comedy Observe and Report. That same year, he also acted in the drama film Crossing Over with Harrison Ford.
He acted with Channing Tatum and Al Pacino in 2011 in The Son of No One. Surprisingly, this was the first time he ever acted with Al Pacino.
2010s
At the start of the 2010s, Ray Liotta continued with his comedy and off-kilter projects. He was featured in Date Night starring Tina Fey and Steve Carell and Charlie St. Cloud with Disney star Zac Efron.
He also acted in the independent movies Snow Men and The River Sorrow. In the latter film, he acted alongside Ving Rhames and Christian Slater.
In 2012, he starred in the indie crime/drama movie Killing Them Softly. The movie was directed by Andrew Dominik.
Liotta starred alongside James Gandolfini and Brad Pitt. It was one of Gandolfini's final performances.
In 2013, he starred in The Iceman, a biographical crime film about a notorious hitman. Liotta then took a major turn to act in Muppets Most Wanted the next year.
That same year, he starred as a preacher in The Identical, a Christain-oriented movie. He also acted in Stretch with Chris Pine, Kill the Messenger with Jeremy Renner, and acted in a David Guetta music video.
He starred in Texas Rising in 2015, a Western miniseries on The History Channel. He won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie nomination for his work on that show.
That same year, he narrated The Making of the Mob, a docu-series on AMC. He also acted with Jennifer Lopez on the show Shades of Blue from 2016 to 2018.
He became a spokesperson for Pfizer's Chantix in 2018.
Final Years
Ray Liotta seemed to be having a renaissance around this time. In 2019, he played Adam Driver's second divorce attorney in Marriage Story. The Netflix movie was critically acclaimed and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Liotta's performance was heavily praised. In 2021, he played twin brothers in the HBO Sopranos movie The Many Saints of Newark. In that film, he played twin brothers.
He can also be seen in the movie Cocaine Bear, directed by Elizabeth Banks. The movie is based on a true story of a bear in the 1980s that ate a big bag full of cocaine. The movie is set to come out in 2023.
Death
Ray Liotta died on May 26, 2022. He is said to have died in his sleep in the Dominican Republic. He was in the country to act in a movie called Dangerous Waters.
He was discovered in his hotel room the next morning.
Many people online speculated that he died of either Covid-19 or the coronavirus vaccine. However, while his cause of death is not public, it is confirmed that he did not die of anything related to Covid.
Real Estate
Ray Liotta has clearly been in a lot of movies. And it's clear that the guy didn't have much trouble landing a job.
Ray Liotta also made headlines for some of his real estate deals. For example, he put his house up for sale in 2007 after being arrested for drunk driving.
He famously sold his long-time Pacific Palisades mansion to Britney Spears for $8 million. Britney ended up purchasing the home right after her publicized divorce from Kevin Federline.
It's a Mediterranean-style mansion by the ocean. The home has five bedrooms, and Britney allegedly made an offer after touring the house for forty minutes.
Fun Facts About Ray Liotta
While Ray Liotta's career has been exciting and often in the tabloids, there are still probably a lot of fun and interesting things that people don't know about him.
For example, Ray Liotta was originally asked to play the character Dignam in The Departed. However, he had a scheduling conflict and was already filming another movie.
The role instead went to Mark Wahlberg. The movie would go on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards and Mark Wahlberg would get nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
While turning down that role was probably a mistake, cinephiles can be glad that Liotta turned down the role of Harvey Dent in 1990's Batman to play Henry Hill in Goodfellas.
Relationships
Ray Liotta's relationship with his wife, Michelle Grace, lasted from 1997 to 2004. The couple had one daughter and divorced on friendly terms. At the time of his death, he was engaged to Jacy Nittolo.
Learning from Ray Liotta
Ray Liotta lived life to the fullest. He followed his dreams and had a career that most people could only dream of. He played good guys and bad guys and acted with gangsters and muppets.
He made a lot of money along the way but probably could have made even more through smart investments.
One of the greatest things a person can do is figure out how to make a living doing what they love. And that's what he did. But it's still easier said than done.
Our net worths are for entertainment purposes only. We do our best to provide accurate figures, but we cannot guarantee their accuracy. The figures are based on public information and estimates, and may not reflect the true value of assets or liabilities.
