Luhrmann's operatic sensibility, which swings from low comedy to high romance at the drop of a hat, is a perfect match for a playwright who was as adept at capturing the breathless infatuation of true love as entertaining the drunken groundlings who sat in the front row.
The film's frantic, MTV style is sure to alienate many, but it also serves to create one of the only truly successful films at capturing the full muscularity of Shakespeare's writing. Since that time, nearly every generation has received some take on the classic tale, from Franco Zeffirelli's iconically sensual 1968 production to Baz Lurhmann's flashy, modernized 1996 take starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. There have, of course, been various other updates of the tale for the screen, including but not limited to the Jet Li vehicle Romeo Must Die, the zombie rom-com Warm Bodies, and the classic musical West Side Story.Īs polarizing as any film Baz Luhrmann ever made, Romeo + Juliet famously modernizes the Bard's play, setting it on Verona Beach and transforming the conflict between the Montagues and Capulets into a full-blown mafia war. The play's journey to the big screen began in 1936, with a George Cukor-directed MGM production that, despite its miscast leads, showed that the story's inherent power wasn't lost in the translation between mediums. Reportedly premiering in 1597, the story has stood the test of time and transcended into archetype, with the pairing of the titular character's names becoming synonymous with the greatest lovers of all time. She was by his side when he died.Romeo and Juliet has been brought to the screen in a variety of different ways, but how do its traditional adaptations rank from worst to best? Shakespeare's most famous play with the possible exception of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet tells the story of two star-crossed lovers from conflicted families whose tragic deaths ultimately restore peace. He was the love of my life, and one of the greatest performers to ever grace the screen and stage,” his wife said in a statement. There will never be another Paul Sorvino.
In 2014, he married political pundit Dee Dee Benkie and said a goal of his later life was to “disabuse people of the notion that I’m a slow-moving, heavy-lidded thug.” “Our hearts are broken. Sorvino starred in Miller’s Tony- and Pulitzer-winning play “That Championship Season” on Broadway in 1972, which also got him a Tony nomination, as well as its film adaptation. He also ran a horse rescue operation in Pennsylvania, had a grocery store pasta sauce line based on his mother’s recipe and sculpted a bronze statue of the late playwright Jason Miller in Scranton, Pa. In 1996, “Paul Sorvino: An Evening of Song” was broadcast on television as part of a PBS fundraising campaign. He wanted to be seen for more than what he was on screen and took particular pride in his singing. He also directed and starred in a film written by his daughter Amanda Sorvino and featuring his son Michael Sorvino. Sorvino had three children from his first marriage, including actor Mira Sorvino. He also appeared in 31 episodes of Dick Wolf’s “Law & Order.” He followed those with roles in “The Rocketeer” and “The Firm.” The movie “Nixon” earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, and he also appeared in Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” as Juliet’s father, Fulgencio Capulet. With his 6-foot-4-inch stature, Sorvino was especially prolific in the 1990s, kicking off the decade by playing Lips in Beatty’s “Dick Tracy” and Paulie Cicero in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” a character based on real-life mobster Paul Vario. He made his Broadway debut in 1964 in “Bajour” and his film debut in Carl Reiner’s “Where’s Poppa?” in 1970. … I’m sending you love in the stars, Dad, as you ascend.” In his more than 50 years in the entertainment business, Sorvino was a mainstay in films and television, playing an Italian American communist in Warren Beatty’s “Reds,” Henry Kissinger in Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” and mob boss Eddie Valentine in “The Rocketeer.” Born in Brooklyn in 1939 to a mother who taught piano and a father who was a foreman in a robe factory, Sorvino was musically inclined from a young age and attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York, where he fell for the theater. His publicist, Roger Neal, said he died Monday of natural causes at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.Īcademy Award winner Mira Sorvino, his daughter, wrote a tribute on Twitter: “My father, the great Paul Sorvino, has passed.
Phil Cerreta on “Law & Order,” has died at 83. Paul Sorvino, an actor who specialized in playing crooks and cops like Paulie Cicero in “Goodfellas” and the New York Police Sgt.