‘Goodfellas’ actor Suzanne Shepherd passes away at 89

Suzanne Shepherd
| Photo Credit: Gilbert Carrasquillo

The Goodfellas actor Suzanne Shepherd has died at the age of 89. She passed away on Friday morning in her home in New York City, her agent confirmed to Variety, a US-based media outlet.

Born on Oct. 31, 1934, Shepherd made her acting debut in the 1988 romcom Mystic Pizza, starring Julia Roberts, and appeared in such films as Working Girl, Uncle Buck and Second Sight before working on Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. In addition to her acting career, Shepherd directed in theatres across the U.S. and worked as an acting coach for over four decades at her own studio in New York.

The upcoming documentary A Gift of Fire will chronicle her career as an acting teacher, as per Variety. She portrayed the role of Mary DeAngelis, the mother of Carmela Soprano (Edie Falco), in HBO’s crime drama series The Sopranos, as well as the mother of Lorraine Bracco’s character Karen Hill in 1990’s Goodfellas.

She also had roles in Jacob’s Ladder (1990), Trees Lounge (1996), Lolita (1997), American Cuisine (1998), Living Out Loud (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000), A Dirty Shame (2004), Harold (2008), The Week Of (2018) and The Performance (2023), among other films. She is survived by her daughter Kate Shepherd, son-in-law Miles McManus and granddaughter Isabelle Shepherd.