He played intense, difficult-to-forget characters in films such as “Good fellas” and “Field of Dreams.” ray liotta cause of death, He allegedly died in his sleep in the Dominican Republic on Wednesday night.
He was filming a movie, “Dangerous Waters,” when he died in his hotel room, according to Liotta’s publicist, Jennifer Allen. When she first stated that the cause of death was unknown, it later emerged that he had died while sleeping. Her account was intentionally vague.
At the age of 67, Liotta passed away.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Liotta had an expected average life expectancy of 10 years. Dying a decade before one should raise suspicions.
(Some will argue that we shouldn’t care how Liotta died. Let the dead rest. Give Liotta his privacy. Unfortunately, if we adopt this principle, we will let those who drove Marilyn Monroe to overdose escape punishment. It is imperative to have transparency, especially when public figures are involved.)
What really caused Liotta’s death? Was there a coverup?
Liotta’s publicist’s ambiguous account was likely designed to avoid implicating herself in the cover up. Liotta’s death was likely caused by drugs, either through a lifetime of alcohol abuse or, worse, a drug overdose. Many friends and family members of those who have overdosed will go to great lengths to conceal the truth.
Those wealthy in the Dominican Republic (DR) can easily purchase illegal drugs without being scrutinized. (Note: DR isn’t the only country where it is possible to hide one’s drug purchases and misreport one’s cause of death.) (By bribing a coroner, one can misreport the cause of death.)
Playing nice to not-so-nice guys.
The actress Melanie Griffith pressured the director, Jonathan Demme, to let him read for the role in 1986’s comic crime story “Something Wild.” In the end, he played the ex-con husband of her character, a mean-spirited character.
In Martin Scorsese’s Good fellas, Liotta portrayed Henry Hill, a hustler turned mob rat. During one part of the film, Henry becomes a drug addict and a paranoid mess. He transforms from the pleasant guy in “Another World” into a cold, calculating mobster who becomes an FBI informant.
According to some commentators, Liotta has a gift for portraying characters who are extreme drug abusers without ever having taken drugs himself. That’s unlikely. Perfect portrayals require perfect emulation.
Acting method
To prepare for playing the homeless, method actors live on the streets. They gamble large sums of money to play a professional gambler. They take drugs to prepare for playing a junkie.
It is possible to act in a role without completely emulating the character. For example, pretending to be a serial killer isn’t possible unless the actor wants to be imprisoned for life. So there are limits to method acting.
With enough money, a method actor can experiment with drugs, develop an addiction, recover from it, and cover up the whole matter. It’s even possible for a method actor to die of an overdose and for his publicist, friends, and family to make sure nobody else knows the truth. It’s also possible to pay a coroner to call a death from overdose death to natural causes (or dying in one’s sleep). It’s even easier in a third-world Caribbean country like the Dominican Republic.
Hearsay and rumor
There have also been rumors that Liotta struggles with alcoholism. A true story inspired Liotta’s last film, “Cocaine Bear.” In 1985, a 175-pound black bear was found next to a Duffel bag on a drug smuggler’s plane filled with more than 70 pounds of cocaine. The bear did not consume the cocaine or was thrown from the plane, but it was unknown.
A combination of Liotta’s method of acting and his willingness to experiment with drugs may have caused his death. Years of drinking alcohol may also have contributed to his death. We will probably never know for sure. Based on the facts, this account explains the outcome better than the he-died-in-his-sleep account. It is unlikely that Liotta died of natural causes, since she died ten years before the average life expectancy.)
Nonsequiturs, false statistics, and opioids
There is no question that Liotta’s friends, family, and publicists would prefer the public think he died in his sleep. They want us to believe that he died of natural causes. Several similar stories exist when people overdose on opioids, whether public figures or ordinary people.
The epidemic of opioid addiction exploded because few people, except those personally affected, knew how widespread the problem was. It’s also a typical objection propagandist make when faced with evidence that they spread misinformation. The truth doesn’t matter. However, it does, especially when the person is a public figure, and full transparency would raise awareness of a pressing social issue like drug addiction.)
