Ray Liotta, the charismatic wiseguy star of classic films like Goodfellas, has died. He was 67 years old. 

The actor reportedly died in his sleep in the Dominican Republic, where he had been shooting the film Dangerous Waters. Liotta’s rep, Jennifer Craig, confirmed the actor’s death to The Hollywood Reporter. 

At the time of his death, Liotta was busy acting in a handful of films and had recently wrapped production on a number of other projects, including the forthcoming Apple TV+ series Black Bird. 

Liotta, a seasoned actor whose career spanned four decades, turned in a number of memorable supporting performances in the last few years alone. In Noah Baumbach’s Oscar-nominated drama Marriage Story, he played a vicious lawyer going toe to toe with Laura Dern. In The Many Saints of Newark, a prequel film to the beloved HBO series The Sopranos, he played a New Jersey mafioso. 

However, Liotta’s most memorable role will always be that of Henry Hill, the charismatic wiseguy he portrayed in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 mob epic Goodfellas. In the film, based on a true story, Liotta stars as a charismatic Italian-American man rising through the ranks of his local mob, then descending into chaos as the FBI closes in on him. Goodfellas also starred Scorsese regulars Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, whom Liotta easily held his own against. Though Goodfellas would be Liotta’s only project with the famed director, the critically acclaimed blockbuster put a young Liotta in league with the auteur’s favorite actors. 

Lorraine Braco, who played Hill’s fiery wife Karen, paid tribute to the late actor on Thursday. “I am utterly shattered to hear this terrible news about my Ray,” she wrote, sharing a photo of herself with Liotta. “I can be anywhere in the world & people will come up & tell me their favorite movie is Goodfellas. Then they always ask what was the best part of making that movie. My response has always been the same…Ray Liotta.”

Acting wasn’t always the plan for Liotta. “To be honest with you, I thought I’d be in construction,” he said in a 2021 interview with The Guardian. The actor, who was adopted at six months old by an Italian-American couple and grew up in New Jersey, fell into acting after “a really pretty girl” told him he should audition in high school. He took to the craft, continuing to study acting at the University of Miami. Six months after graduating, he landed a role in the soap opera Another World, which aired in 1978. “It happened really fast,” Liotta told Rolling Stone, calling the soap world “really, really good training. These were unbelievable people I was working with, these great stage actors, really seasoned…. I really liked it. It didn’t bother me at all.”

He eventually left daytime TV and moved to Los Angeles, eventually getting cast in a slew of films. He starred in the Jonathan Demme comedy-thriller Something Wild, playing a jealous ex-con opposite Melanie Griffith and Jeff Daniels. He then embodied the ghost of baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson in the classic sports film Field of Dreams. Liotta never saw the movie, though, telling The Guardian that his mother was sick at the time they went to see it together, burdening the film with sad memories. “It’s not something I want to do,” he said of watching the film. “It’s on TV a lot, but I just pass over it. I’ve no desire. That’s it.”

Right after Field of Dreams came Goodfellas, the film that would define his career for the rest of his life. Liotta has spoken at length about the film in various interviews over the last few decades, always telling stories from the set and heaping praise on Scorsese and his costars, as well as acknowledging how much of a career peak it was for him. “All I can say is my career has been up and down,” he said in a 2016 interview with Terry Gross. “And I like it much better being up.” At the time of his death, Liotta’s career was certainly up, his schedule dense with varied, complex characters. 

The actor is survived by his fiancée, Jacy Nittolo, and daughter Karsen Liotta, from his former marriage to Michelle Grace. Karsen is also an actor, costarring alongside her father in shows like Shades of Blue and in films like Hubie Halloween.