A shining ensemble player in two of the finest Mafioso titles of all time, Goodfellas (1990) and The Sopranos (HBO, 1999-2007), Lorraine Braccos husky laugh and self-reliant spirit gave a sorely-needed shot in the arm to a genre used to portraying Italian-American women as overbearing mothers and gum-snapping girlfriends. The Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated actress also defied Hollywood conventions by reaching her greatest career achievements close to the age of 50, when roles for fully-realized, complex, female characters like Jennifer Melfi from The Sopranos were scarce. Bracco racked up four Emmy and three Golden Globe nominations during her six season Sopranos run, and followed up her success in a predictably unpredictable manner by launching her own line of wines.
Lorraine Bracco was born on Oct. 2, 1954, spending her early years in a Norwegian neighborhood in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. The middle child of three, Braccos Italian-American father was a fish dealer at Manhattans Fulton Fish market and her mother was a nurse and war bride from England. Her atypical New York Italian-American upbringing got more atypical when the family moved to a Jewish neighborhood in Hicksville, Long Island an experience that Bracco credited with convincing Martin Scorsese to cast her as Henry Hills Long Island Jewish wife in her breakout role in Goodfellas. But 25 years before that day, young Bracco still harbored fantasies of becoming a model, despite being labeled an ugly duckling by her schoolmates. When she finally got the nerve to approach modeling agencies in New York, she immediately landed a contract with the prestigious Wilhelmina Agency, appearing in Mademoiselle, Seventeen and Teen magazines.
In 1974 at the age of 19, the bold Brooklynite moved to Paris where she became a favorite model of designer Jean Paul Gaultier and became fluent in French. She also began exploring other entertainment-related avenues, first working as a DJ for Radio Luxembourg before parlaying her music experience into a producer position on the popular variety TV show, Les Enfants Du Rock. Beginning in 1979, she appeared in a string of French films, mostly comedies, including her debut "Duos sur Canape" (1979) and the comic book adaptation Fais Gaffe
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