He played psychopaths, gangsters, corrupt cops and guys you don't want to mess with. A lot of times in those roles, he was so convincing that you thought in real life, Ray Liotta must actually be crazy.
But that wasn't all he played. Liotta also played good guys, heroes, sensitive fathers, surgeons, athletes and lawyers. In "Operation Dumbo Drop," he was an Army captain who helps deliver an elephant to a village in Vietnam. He even did a pair of movies with the Muppets, and he didn't pistol whip any of them (at least not on camera).
Liotta, who died this week at age 67, didn't mount a career measured in awards. He was never nominated for an Oscar — the fact that he was overlooked for "Goodfellas" is a travesty — but when he connected with a role, a part that met his charismatic madness and intimidating intensity, he hit like a bolt of electricity. That's what made him such a unique, livewire presence in films from the 1980s all the way through to last year's "Sopranos" spinoff, "The Many Saints of Newark."
