A long time prior to Ray Liotta landed meaty roles in “Field of Dreams” and “Goodfellas,” the charismatic actor was rolling in dough at a pizzeria in Cranford, NJ.
Liotta was boyhood buddies with Vincent Preziosi, Jr., whose mother, Ronnie, now 93, and father, Vincent Sr., started Pizza Home/Pizza Chef in Newark in the 1950s right before relocating the organization to Cranford in 1970.
Liotta worked at the pizzeria for the duration of his higher summer vacations from 1971 to 1973. “We were being making $3.50 an hour back then,” Preziosi Jr. recalled.
“Ray was a terrific worker. … He employed to demonstrate just before me. He was a pizzamaker. He was superb at tossing the pie, producing the circle even bigger.”
With his ice blue eyes and broad smile, Liotta was a box workplace draw even again then.
“The pizzeria opened at at 10 a.m., but there ended up normally five or 6 women lined up outside the house the retail store about 40 minutes earlier,” Preziosi Jr. explained. ” I was like, ‘Who eats pizza that early?’ It was not hard to figure out. The girls ended up coming to see Ray.”
Preziosi Jr. viewed as the actor, who died Thursday at the age of 67, a dear close friend who under no circumstances forgot where he arrived from.
“Ray was an very faithful, generous, humorous, responsible man. I was tremendous stunned when I listened to he handed,” Preziosi Jr. advised The Write-up from his dwelling in Orlando, Fla.
About 5 decades ago, Liotta sent the Preziosi family — now co-owned by Ronnie and daughter, Gina, 59 — an autographed picture that reads, “I miss out on the best pizza on the East Coastline!” The framed photograph proudly hangs on a wall of Pizza Home/Pizza Chef, which like Liotta’s do the job, draws rave opinions for its skinny-crust and margherita pies.
The two Jersey Boys adopted the exact path via college or university, attending the College of Miami, where they were being roommates for a yr. They created the push to Miami in Liotta’s circa-1969 orange Mercury.
It was at faculty that Liotta majored in drama — “he hated math and science” — before shifting to the Major Apple, stated Preziosi Jr., now a chiropractor.
In addition to Preziosi Jr., that internal circle incorporated Gene Laguna, an coverage company operator Jules Geltzeiler, a urologist Freddy Silverman, a previous security industry qualified, and Gary Hecker, who became a Beverly Hills attorney.
Liotta would say, “We’re all Jersey Guys,” and to that, the team, when alongside one another, “dropped their share of ‘F-bombs,'” Preziosi Jr. mentioned.
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