Since the news of the death of American actor Paul Sorvino on July 25 at the age of 83, another video popped upmade in 1996, when his daughter Mira received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for her role in Mighty Aphrodite by Woody Allen. With the Oscar in her hands, she thanks her father, ‘who taught her everything’. Paul Sorvino hides his head in his hands and begins to sob loudly, one of the legendary Oscar cry.
The emotional moment was especially striking, because at that point in his career, Sorvino was best known for his role as unapproachable mob boss Paulie Cicero (based on the historical mobster Paul Vario) in the Scorsese classic Goodfellas from 1990. Sorvino played Cicero as a man who radiates maximum threat with minimal resources. The voiceover in the film came from the character Henry Hill (played by Ray Liotta, who died in May 2022) who introduced Sorvino’s character: “Paulie didn’t move much, but that was only because he didn’t step aside for anyone.” .’
Sorvino was already 50 when he played the part of his life and had quite a career behind him. He hesitated for a long time whether he should take the part, which in retrospect seemed so suited to him. He couldn’t grasp the essence of the role, not because he didn’t know those types (he was the son of Italian immigrants and grew up in Brooklyn, New York), but because he had so emphatically chosen a different life path, as an opera singer, sculptor, actor and producer of pasta sauces, based on a recipe from his mother.
He later shared that he discovered his character when he casually glanced into a mirror while tying his tie. “I saw the guy,” he said. (In other versions of the story, he removes a piece of spinach from between his teeth in front of the mirror). After Goodfellas he would play a number of mafia bosses, including in The Rocketeer and in The Firm. In later interviews, he often referred to his role as Henry Kissinger in Nixon by Oliver Stone (1995, starring Anthony Hopkins), to prove he was more than a menacing mobster.
His first ambitions were with the theatre. He attended The American Musical and Dramatic Academy and made his Broadway debut in 1964 in the musical Bajour. He made his film debut in the early 1970s. In the era before Goodfellas played numerous supporting roles, most notably as American communist leader Louis C. Fraina in the three Oscar-winning historical epic reds by Warren Beatty.
When Paul Sorvino was interviewed in 2018 about film producer Harvey Weinstein, who allegedly assaulted his daughter Mira, he said in an interview: ‘If he doesn’t go to jail, he will meet me. And I will kill the motherfucker.’ There may have been more of Paulie Cicero in Sorvino than he cared to admit.