Ray Liotta

Liotta in 2011, s_bukley / Shutterstock.com

Date of Birth: December 18, 1954

Place of Birth: Newark, New Jersey, U.S.

Date of Death: May 26, 2022

Place of Death: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Ethnicity: Scottish, other

Ray Liotta was an American actor and film producer. He starred in the films Something Wild, Dominick and Eugene, Field of Dreams, Goodfellas, Unlawful Entry, Corrina, Corrina; Cop Land, as Frank Sinatra in The Rat Pack, Heartbreakers, Blow (2001), Narc, Identity (2003), Smokin’ Aces, Observe and Report, Youth in Revolt, Date Night, The Place Beyond the Pines, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Marriage Story, Hubie Halloween, and Cocaine Bear. He played many Italian-American characters.

At the age of six months, Ray was adopted by Mary (Edgar), a township clerk, and Alfred Liotta, an auto parts storeowner and president of a local Democratic Party club. His adoptive father was the son of Italian emigrants, Frank/Francesco Liotta, from Santa Margherita di Belice, Agrigento, Sicily, and Maryanne/Marianna Crescimanno. His adoptive mother was the daughter of Scottish-born parents, David Edgar and Mary Miller, from Glasgow. Ray was raised in Union, New Jersey.

Ray had stated that he was not of Italian ancestry by birth, though he did have (biological) Scottish roots. He had also specified, “[my birth mother] said she was a mix of something, and when I asked about what my Dad was she wouldn’t even talk about it. It was like it never even happened.” Ray’s given name is sometimes listed as Raymond Julian Vicimarli, although this is not accurate.

In 2014, Ray was also asked about his ancestry on Reddit:

Redditor: I read that you don\t have any Italian in you, but regardless I consider you more Italian than many of my friends who are 100% Italian. How does it feel to be the most Italian non-Italian on the planet?

Ray: It feels great, thanks for noticing.

Ray had a daughter with his former wife, actress Michelle Grace. Michelle was the former wife of professional baseball player Mark Grace.

Sources: http://www.smokemag.com

Genealogies of Ray Liotta – https://www.geni.com
https://www.findagrave.com

Alfred Liotta on the 1930 U.S. Census – https://familysearch.org

Mary Edgar on the 1930 U.S. Census – https://familysearch.org

ethnic

Curious about ethnicity

17 Responses

  1. Mr. Postman says:

    According to Elizabeth Banks, he stated:

    “I’m adopted. My last name’s Liotta, and because of my career, everybody assumes I’m Italian, but I recently found out that I am actually mostly Irish.”

    https://www.indiewire.com/2023/02/ray-liotta-irish-heritage-epiphany-filming-cocaine-bear-1234813182/

  2. jonasbsjr says:

    Damn, he just passed… Good actor and great guy. RIP

  3. Dar says:

    “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.”. Such an awesome movie one of my favorites, probably watch it tonight in honor of him, he should have won an Oscar for that role. He was great in Cop Land too. Such a great and underrated actor, he will be incredibly missed. I still think he probably had some Italian somewhere in him, but if not I’ll still consider him Italian. RIP!

  4. jonasbttencourt says:

    Even back in the day when i watched Goodfellas for the first time i founded hard to believe he was half italian like his character, because he does not look italian at all, if he has italian, must be at best something like 1/8th. He looks british, irish, and something from that western europe area, with some slavic spice to it. My guess for his full ethnicity would be : English, Scottish, Irish, Dutch, German, and something from eastern europe…

    • muricansareallmutts says:

      First at all only his surname is fully Italian but genetically he’s supermixed to other races like all muricans.
      Only in murica surname makes races, damn it doesn’t make no sense!
      Talking about his looking bull—-, me as a real Italian from Italy in Europe not a fake mutt murican arab-hispanic from murica who claim to be Italians who match zero to us I tell ya that here in my country he can be native Northern and Central Italian who are racially Alpine, and he can be a Southern too of ancient North and Central Italy origin or of the ancient foreigner European roots cause the South has had many foreigner invasions centuries ago.
      Don’t open your fricking mouth when you don’t know anithing about races.
      If the guy in the pic it’s you I tell you a terribile sad truth about your race: you’re NOT white.
      You’re arab, levantine as hell, NOT European.
      Not white.

      • muricansareallmutts says:

        * of the ancient foreigner other European roots

      • jonasbttencourt says:

        Wow, i have seen many other ignorant, childish, and fully emotional rants against my comments here, but DAMN i must give the “salty hater crow” to you. It’s funny how right after you tried so hard to appear superior by bringing up that you are “a real Italian from Italy”, you gone full italian-american-s–ttalk-style and presented the most uniformed, obsolete, and bigoted arguments possible. It’s really hard to take seriusly someone that unironically says things like “he’s supermixed to other races”(Implying that indignous europeans are not all one big white/caucasoid spectrum group of people, but rather a variety of different “races”), and also using “Alpine” as a legit “race categorization” in the 21st century… And im sorry to informe you, as well as the other members of “fan club” on this site, that i could not care less about what you all say about me, i never claimed to be an expert and im only here for the entretainiment value of the site, that essentialy ofers nothing but celeb trivia, no matter how hard some phony genetic/ancestry experts try to make it about something else, im really not that pretentious, i don’t have enough insecurities in order to seek validation in a random site LOL… As for the whole “you are not white” part, well, the fact that you actually bothered so much to point this out, as if i had said that i was in my earlier comment, really says more about you than it says about me. I never actually give a fck for how people perceive me, and if you really wanna go full “picky” on choosing who is really white, well then you are just as “white” as me my friend. If we really stick to the most classic definition of “white” in history, only about 0.8% of the world’s population would be white… But anyway, the fact that you used this as a validation factor to my comments is quite telling, you basically implied that only “truly white” people can talk about whiteness, and you would be an apropriate person to do so because you are a “real Italian from Italy” Hahahah you are just laughably ignorant, man.

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