As is the case every year with the Academy Awards every year, in the midst of the 2023 Oscars winners being announced, Sunday’s ceremony aired the traditional In Memoriam segment, where actors, crew members and other talent in the entertainment industry who passed away over the last year are honored. Unfortunately, it’s also become a regular occurence for this segment to accidentally leave certain people out of the reel, and this year, Paul Sorvino was among the people missing. Now Mira Sorvino, daughter of the Goodfellas actor, is doubling down on criticizing the Oscars for leaving out her father and other individuals from the In Memoriam.
Mira Sorvino, known from movies like Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion and TV shows like Shining Vale, first expressed her dissatisfaction with Paul Sorvino not being recognized at the Oscars last night in an update to an earlier Instagram post, saying that she felt “incredibly hurt.” Today, Sorvino took to her Twitter page to not only pass along her earlier comments to her followers on this platform, but to also share a USA Today article about the Oscars forgetting to mention her father.
It is baffling beyond belief that my beloved father and many other amazing brilliant departed actors were left out. The Oscars forgot about Paul Sorvino, but the rest of us never will!! https://t.co/dbgcfb1qy3 via @forthewinMarch 13, 2023
Paul Sorvino passed away on July 25, 2022 at the age of 83, and along with playing Paulie Cicero in Goodfellas opposite Ray Liotta (who died a few months earlier), Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, he was also well known for The Rocketeer, Nixon, Romeo + Juliet, Moonlighting and Law & Order, among other projects. Shortly after his passing, Mira Sorvino joined celebrities like Forest Whitaker in paying tribute to the man, and eight months later, she’s “baffled beyond belief” that the Oscars didn’t include Paul Sorvino during the In Memoriam. Other people who were left out of the segment included Anne Heche, who died on August 11 at the age of 53, and Robert Blake, who died just four days ago at the age of 89.
Among the people who did make this year’s In Memoriam were Grease’s Olivia Newton-John and Look Who’s Talking’s Kirstie Alley, both of whom worked with John Travolta, who presented the segment. Looking further into the past, when Luke Perry was left out of the 92nd Academy Awards’ In Memoriam, the Academy said it “receives hundreds of requests to include loved ones and industry colleagues in the Oscars In Memoriam segment,” and and “executive committee “makes selections for the telecast based on limited available time.” That’s understandable, but considering how prominent Paul Sorvino was in the acting industry, you’d think he’d be worthy of making the cut.
In any case, the world at large will continue to be able to enjoy Paul Sorvino’s body of work to their heart’s content. If you’d like to see how the entirety of the 95th Academy Awards unfolded, it can be streamed now with a Hulu subscription, or plan for the future by looking over the 2023 new movie releases left to come out.
