Paul Sorvino was an American actor. He often portrayed authority figures on both the criminal and the law-enforcement sides of the law.

He was particularly well known for his roles as Paulie Cicero (based on real-life gangster Paul Vario) in the1990 gangster film Goodfellas and as NYPD Sergeant Phil Cerreta on the TV series Law & Order.

Usually cast in dramatic supporting roles, he occasionally acted in lead roles in films including Bloodbrothers (1978), and also in comedic roles including his turn as a bombastic Southern evangelist in Carl Reiner's Oh, God! (1977).

Paul Sorvino was also an accomplished sculptor, specializing in cast bronze. In December 2008, his sculpture of the late playwright Jason Miller was unveiled in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

In 2007, Sorvino launched Paul Sorvino Foods to market a range of pasta sauces. Based on his mother's recipe, the product appeared in supermarkets in the northeastern United States in late 2009.Three years later, Sorvino became part owner in Janson-Beckett Cosmeceuticals.

In an April 2014 interview, Paul Sorvino said, "Most people think I'm either a gangster or a cop or something, but the reality is I'm a sculptor, a painter, a best-selling author, many, many things—a poet, an opera singer, but none of them is gangster, but, you know, obviously I sort of have a knack for playing these things. It's almost my later goal in life to disabuse people of the notion that I'm a slow-moving, heavy-lidded thug, and most people's impression of me IS that—because of the success of Goodfellas and a few other things, but they forget that I was also Dr. Kissinger in Nixon, the deaf lawyer in Dummy, and they forget a lot of things that I've done. It would be nice to have my legacy more than that of just tough guy."

Paul Sorvino will always be remembered as an accomplished, talented actor In Heaven with the Stars.