Paul Sorvino

Paul Sorvino
Paul Sorvino at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.
Born	Paul Anthony Sorvino (1939-04-13) April 13, 1939 (age 77) Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1956-present
Spouse(s)	Lorraine Davis (1966–1988; divorced) Vanessa Arico (1991–1996; divorced) Dee Dee Benkie (2014–present)
Children	3

Paul Anthony Sorvino (born April 13, 1939) is an American actor, opera singer, businessman, writer, and sculptor. He often portrays authority figures on both sides of the law, and is possibly best known for his roles as Paulie Cicero, a portrayal of Paul Vario in the 1990 gangster film Goodfellas, and NYPD Sergeant Phil Cerreta on the police procedural and legal drama television series Law & Order. He is the father of actress Mira Sorvino and actor Michael Sorvino.

Sorvino was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City. His mother, Angela Maria Mattea (née Renzi), was a homemaker and piano teacher, who was born in Connecticut, of Italian (Molisan) descent. His father, Ford Sorvino, was an Italian (Neapolitan) immigrant who worked in a robe factory as a foreman. He attended Lafayette High School, where he was classmates with painter Peter Max, and the American Musical and Dramatic Academy.

He began his career as a copywriter in an advertising agency, where he worked with John Margeotes, founder of Margeotes, Fertitta, and Weiss. He took 18 years of voice lessons. While attending The American Musical and Dramatic Academy, he decided to go into the theatre. He made his Broadway debut in the 1964 musical Bajour, and six years later he appeared in his first film, Carl Reiner's Where's Poppa? starring George Segal and Ruth Gordon. In 1971, he played a supporting role in Jerry Schatzberg's critically acclaimed The Panic in Needle Park starring Al Pacino and Kitty Winn. He received an avalanche of critical praise for his performance as Phil Romano in Jason Miller's 1972 Broadway play That Championship Season, a role he repeated in the 1982 TCS film version. In a 1974 ABC Movie of the Week, he played Harry Walters, a stout real estate salesman, who is randomly picked up by a beautiful woman (JoAnna Cameron) and raped at gunpoint as a prank, and left to explain to his friend (Adam Arkin) and wife (Michael Learned) how "It Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Guy", a movie considered risqué, even for the '70s. He also appeared in the 1976 Elliott Gould/Diane Keaton vehicle I Will, I Will... for Now. He has starred in the weekly series We'll Get By (1975, as George Platt), Bert D'Angelo/Superstar (1976, in the title role) and The Oldest Rookie (1987, as Detective Ike Porter). He also directed Wheelbarrow Closers, a 1976 Broadway play by Louis La Russo II, which starred Danny Aiello.