Actor Ray Liotta dies

The 67-year-old was best known for playing mobster Henry Hill in Goodfellas and baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams. Liotta reportedly died in his sleep Wednesday night while in the Dominican Republic to film a movie. He is survived by one daughter and his fiancée.

Who was Liotta? In contrast to his on-screen, tough-guy persona, Liotta said in a 1997 interview that he was rather gentle in real life. And despite multiple roles as an Italian gangster, he discovered later in life that he wasn’t even Italian. The Newark, N.J., native was adopted at the age of six months and later learned his birth parents were Scottish. Liotta played a preacher in The Identical, and he said the script about a young adopted man affected him emotionally. He also said he prayed and grew up in the Roman Catholic Church but wasn’t “hook, line, and sinker sold” on faith. Industry names like Robert De Niro and Lorraine Bracco have paid tribute to Liotta as a talented actor.

Dig deeper: From the archives, read Megan Basham’s review of The Identical.