My Story
Gender:
Male
Date of Birth:
05-13-1939
Age:
85
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Place of birth:
United States (US)
Harvey Keitel
Biography
Harvey Keitel (born May 13, 1939) is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of morally ambiguous and "tough guy" characters. He first rose to prominence during the New Hollywood movement, and has held a long-running association with director Martin Scorsese, starring in six of his films: Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967), Mean Streets (1973), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and The Irishman (2019).
Keitel received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination for his portrayal of Mickey Cohen in Bugsy (1991). He won the AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for The Piano (1993). Other notable films include Blue Collar (1978), Thelma & Louise (1991), Reservoir Dogs (1992), Bad Lieutenant (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), From Dusk till Dawn (1996), Holy Smoke! (1998), Cop Land (1997), and Youth (2015).
He has acted in the Wes Anderson films Moonrise Kingdom (2012), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and Isle of Dogs (2018). He played FBI Agent Peter Sadusky in both National Treasure (2004), and National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2006) and reprised his role in the Disney+ series National Treasure: Edge of History (2022). From 1995 to 2017, he was a co-president of the Actors Studio, alongside Al Pacino and Ellen Burstyn.
Keitel was born in New York City, on May 13, 1939, the youngest child of Jewish immigrants. His mother Miriam (née Klein; 1911–1987) was from Romania and his father, Harry Keitel, was from Poland. His parents owned and ran a luncheonette, and his father also worked as a hat maker. He grew up in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn, with his elder sister, Renee, and elder brother, Jerry. He attended Abraham Lincoln High School. He enlisted in the Marines at the age of 17. After his discharge, he worked as a court stenographer for 10–12 years before beginning his acting career.
Keitel studied under both Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg and at the HB Studio, eventually landing roles in some Off-Broadway productions. During this time, Keitel auditioned for filmmaker Martin Scorsese and gained a starring role as "J.R.", in Scorsese's first feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967). Since then, Scorsese and Keitel have worked together on several projects. Keitel had the starring role in Scorsese's Mean Streets, which also proved to be Robert De Niro's breakthrough film. Keitel re-teamed with Scorsese for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), in which he had a villainous supporting role, and appeared with Robert De Niro again in Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), playing the role of Jodie Foster's character's pimp.
In 1977 and 1978, Keitel starred in the directorial debuts of Paul Schrader (Blue Collar, co-starring Richard Pryor and Yaphet Kotto), Ridley Scott (The Duellists, co-starring Keith Carradine), and James Toback (Fingers, in which Keitel played a street hood with aspirations of being a pianist – a role Toback wrote for Robert De Niro to play). In 1979, he was cast as Captain Willard in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979). Keitel was involved with the first week of principal photography in the Philippines. Coppola was not happy with Keitel's take on Willard, stating that the actor "found it difficult to play him as a passive onlooker". After viewing the first week's footage, Coppola replaced Keitel with a casting session favorite, Martin Sheen.
Keitel continued to do work on both stage and screen in the 1980s, often in the stereotypical role of a thug. Keitel played a corrupt police officer in the 1983 thriller Copkiller (co-starring musician John Lydon), before taking a supporting role in the romantic drama Falling in Love (1984), starring Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep. Between 1985 and 1988, he was one of the busiest character actors around, appearing in 16 films and telefilms, including Brian De Palma's mobster comedy Wise Guys (1986), starring Danny DeVito and Joe Piscopo, and as Judas in Martin Scorsese's controversial The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).
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