
Harvey Keitel (born May 13, 1939) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor. He plays Lt. Gene Hunt on the American version of Life on Mars.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Keitel was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the son of Miriam and Harry Keitel, Jewish immigrants from Romania and Poland.[1] His parents owned and ran a luncheonette and his father also worked as a hatmaker.[2]
Keitel grew up in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn with his sister, Renee, and brother, Jerry. He attended Abraham Lincoln High School (New York). At the age of sixteen, he decided to join the United States Marine Corps, a decision that took him to Lebanon. After his return to the United States, he was a court reporter and was able to support himself before beginning his acting career.
Career[]
Keitel studied under both Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, eventually landing roles in some off-Broadway productions. During this time, Keitel met struggling filmmaker Martin Scorsese and gained a part in Scorsese's student production, Who's That Knocking at My Door. Since then, Scorsese and Keitel have worked together on numerous projects. Keitel had the starring role in Scorsese's Mean Streets but this proved to be Robert De Niro's breakthrough film. He later appeared with De Niro in Taxi Driver, playing the role of a pimp.
Originally, Keitel was to have played the role of Captain Willard in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now; however, he was fired early in the production and replaced by Martin Sheen. After this, it was many years before he would be able to get anything other than minor roles. At the end of the 1970s, Keitel was mostly working in European films for directors such as Ridley Scott, usually in sinister character parts.
Throughout the 1980s, Keitel continued to find plenty of work on both stage and screen, but was usually in the stereotypical role of a thug. This role reached its zenith when Keitel starred in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs in 1992, where his performance as "Mr. White" relaunched his semi-slumping career. Ridley Scott also helped Keitel by casting him as the sympathetic policeman in Thelma and Louise in 1991. That same year he landed a role in Bugsy, for which he obtained an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Since then, Keitel has chosen his roles with care, seeking to change his image and show off a broader acting range. One of those roles was the title character in Bad Lieutenant, about a self-loathing police lieutenant trying to redeem himself. His decision to co-star in Jane Campion's The Piano marks the approximate beginning of this phase of Keitel's career. He played the efficient clean-up expert Winston Wolf in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. In 1996 he landed a major role in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's film, From Dusk Till Dawn, and in 1997 he starred in the crime drama Cop Land, which also starred Sylvester Stallone, Ray Liotta, and Robert De Niro. Later roles include the fatherly Satan in Little Nicky, a wise Navy man in U-571, and diligent F.B.I. agent Sadusky in National Treasure. In 1999, Keitel was replaced by Sydney Pollack on the set of Eyes Wide Shut, due to scheduling conflicts. He has shown a willingness to help other start-up filmmakers by appearing in their first feature film. He did this not only for Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, but also Ridley Scott (The Duellists), Paul Schrader (Blue Collar), James Toback (Fingers), and Tony Bui (Three Seasons).
He also appeared in the Steinlager Pure commercials in New Zealand in 2007. Unlike many American male actors who either never appear nude in film or only do so once, Keitel has appeared nude in several films, including full frontal nudity in Bad Lieutenant and The Piano.
In January 2008, Keitel played Jerry Springer in the New York City premiere of Jerry Springer: The Opera at Carnegie Hall. It was announced in July 2008 that Keitel had been cast in the role of Detective Gene Hunt in ABC's new series Life on Mars.
In 2002 at the Moscow International Film Festival Keitel was honored with the Stanislavsky Award for the outstanding achievement in the career of acting and devotion to the principles of Stanislavsky's school.
Personal life[]
Keitel was formerly in a long-term relationship to actress Lorraine Bracco. He married actress Daphna Kastner in 2001. Keitel is the father of three children: daughter Stella (born 1985) from his relationship with Bracco; son Hudson (born 2001) from his relationship with Lisa Karmazin; and son Roman (born 2003) from his marriage to Kastner. He is godfather of close friend Michael Madsen's son Max.
Filmography[]
Year | Film | Role | Other notes |
---|---|---|---|
1967 | Who's That Knocking at My Door | J.R. | |
Reflections in a Golden Eye | Soldier | Uncredited | |
1973 | Mean Streets | Charlie | |
1974 | A Memory of Two Mondays (TV) | Jerry | |
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore | Ben | ||
1975 | That's the Way of the World | Coleman Buckmaster | |
1976 | Taxi Driver | 'Sport' Matthew | |
Mother, Jugs & Speed | Tony Malatesta | ||
1978 | Blue Collar | Jerry Bartowski | |
The Duellists | Feraud | ||
Fingers | Jimmy Fingers | ||
1980 | Bad Timing | Inspector Netusil | |
The Border | Cat | ||
Saturn 3 | Benson | ||
Deathwatch | Roddy | ||
1981 | Copkiller | Lt. Fred O'Connor | |
1982 | That Night in Varennes | Thomas Paine | |
1983 | Exposed | Rivas | |
1986 | Blindside | Penfield Gruber | |
Wise Guys | Bobby DiLea | ||
1987 | The Pick-up Artist | Alonzo Scolara | |
1988 | Down Where The Buffalo Go | (TV) | |
The Last Temptation of Christ | Judas Iscariot | ||
1989 | The January Man | Police Commissioner Frank Starkey | |
1990 | The Two Jakes | Julius 'Jake' Berman | |
1991 | Thelma and Louise | Hal | |
Mortal Thoughts | Det. John Woods | ||
Bugsy | Mickey Cohen | Nominated: Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated: Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture | |
1992 | Bad Lieutenant | The Lieutenant | Won: Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor |
Reservoir Dogs | Mr. White - Larry Dimmick | Also co-producer | |
Sister Act | Vince LaRocca | ||
1993 | Rising Sun | Lt. Tom Graham | |
Dangerous Game | Eddie Israel | ||
Point of no Return | Victor the Cleaner | ||
The Piano | George Baines | Won: Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role | |
Young Americans | John Harris | ||
1994 | Imaginary Crimes | Ray Weiler | |
Pulp Fiction | Winston 'The Wolf' Wolfe | ||
Monkey Trouble | Azro | ||
1995 | Get Shorty | Himself | Uncredited |
Smoke | Augustus 'Auggie' Wren | ||
Ulysses' Gaze | A | ||
Blue in the Face | Auggie Wren | Also executive producer | |
Clockers | Det. Rocco Klein | ||
1996 | From Dusk Till Dawn | Jacob Fuller | Nominated: Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor |
Head Above Water | George | ||
1997 | FairyTale: A True Story | Harry Houdini | |
Cop Land | Ray Donlan | ||
City of Industry | Roy Egan | ||
1998 | Finding Graceland | Elvis | |
Gunslinger's Revenge | Johnny Lowen | ||
Shadrach | Vernon | ||
Lulu on the Bridge | Izzy Maurer | ||
1999 | Three Seasons | James Hager | Also executive producer |
Holy Smoke! | PJ Waters | ||
Presence of Mind | The Master | ||
2000 | Prince of Central Park | The Guardian | |
U-571 | CPO Henry Klough | ||
Little Nicky | The Devil (Nicky's Dad) | ||
2001 | The Grey Zone | SS-Oberscharführer Eric Muhsfeldt | Also executive producer |
Taking Sides | Major Steve Arnold | ||
2002 | Red Dragon | Jack Crawford | |
Ginostra | Matt Benson | ||
2003 | Crime Spree | Frankie Zammeti | |
Dreaming of Julia | Che | Also producer | |
The Galindez File | Edward Robards | ||
2004 | National Treasure | Sadusky | |
The Bridge of San Luis Rey | Uncle Pio | ||
Puerto Vallarta Squeeze | Walter McGrane | ||
2005 | Be Cool | Nick Carr | |
A Crime | Roger Culkin | ||
The Shadow Dancer | Weldon Parish | ||
2006 | The Path to 9/11 | John O'Neill | |
Arthur and the Minimoys | Miro | Voice | |
The Stone Merchant | The Merchant Ludovico Vicedomini | ||
2007 | One Last Dance | Terrtano | |
My Sexiest Year | Zowie | ||
National Treasure: Book of Secrets | Sadusky | ||
2008 | The Ministers |
Further reading[]
- You Shoot Me in a Dream, You Better Wake Up and Apologize: The Films of Harvey Keitel by Glenn Salter, David Shaw and Craig Proctor (Toronto, Salter Press, 1994)
References[]
External links[]
- Harvey Keitel profile on Rotten Tomatoes