The memorable roles Martin Scorsese gave to his parents in ‘Goodfellas’
Martin Scorsese is hailed as one of the most vital auteurs of all time, boasting a style that has famously found the perfect balance between gritty and authentic, with his oeuvre sporting a range of coveted works from Goodfellas to Silence. Although he is primarily known for his mastery of the crime genre, Scorsese has dipped his toes into an array of forms, including biopics, adventures and romantic dramas. The director’s understanding of cinema is unrivalled, a factor which has allowed him to maintain such a lengthy and consistent career.
With that, it goes without saying that two of Scorsese’s biggest fans were his parents, Charles and Catherine. Sitting down for dinner with them in 1988, he brought a film crew along and recorded the pair gushing with praise about their son’s work. At one point, Scorsese told his parents that the crew wanted to know what they enjoyed about his movies, with Charles wasting no time in expressing: “As far as Mean Streets, I liked it, but when I heard the language… I didn’t care for the language.”
The elder Scorsese continued his account and explained how brilliant he thought Robert De Niro was in the film: “The acting was great. Bobby (De Niro), Bobby, was out of this world. I mean… as I said before, he took that picture, when you saw him in that picture, he took the whole picture. He was great.”
Outside of the movies themselves, Catherine admitted that she loved watching her son in action from his best position, the director’s chair: “I love to watch my son direct. I just love to sit there and watch him direct a picture.”
The vocal Charles weighed in again, discussing how much he loved the realism of the fight scenes in 1980’s Raging Bull: “… Raging Bull, that was a great picture. As far as I’m concerned, because Raging Bull… the fight scenes were so great, and I used to go to fights a lot in them days, every day… two times a week I used to go to fights – when I was much younger – and all those fights there, the way he put those films together and the fight scenes, they were great.”
He concluded: “There was ideas that he got from me and what he did, they were powerful, it was very powerful ideas, and then the fight scenes came out great. I think Raging Bull is one of the greatest pictures.”
Catherine then assumed the floor and revealed the one thing she didn’t like about her son’s work: the moment he cast her but eventually removed her from a picture: “I tell you what I don’t like. I don’t like when he puts me in a picture and then he takes me out. That’s not fair. I worked so hard.”
It is not well known, but Catherine was initially cast in the bleak 1976 thriller Taxi Driver, but her time on set was little. She was originally lined up to play Ivy Steensma, Iris’ mother, protagonist Travis’ first passenger in the film, but was cut out after a to-do with some shopping bags that were too heavy for her. Later, her role as an extra in Raging Bull was also cut. However, Catherine had already featured in a handful of Scorsese pictures prior, and he would continue to use her until 1995’s Casino, where she played Piscano’s mother in her last role before her death. It wasn’t just Catherine that would get the chance to be in her son’s works either. So would Charles.
The pair had cameos in 1982’s The King of Comedy and 1993’s The Age of Innocence. Nevertheless, their most famous roles came in the 1990 crime masterpiece Goodfellas. Whilst the movie is most well-known for the performance of the late Ray Liotta and supporting roles from Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, it featured minor turns from the elder Scorseses.
In the film, Catherine plays the mother of Joe Pesci’s character, Tommy DeVito, but the more enduring appearance comes from Charles. He plays Vinnie, the somewhat dim cook in prison, who is given the timeless instructions by Paulie: “Don’t put too many onions in the sauce”.
