Harvey Johannes Keitel ( ky-TEL; born May 13, 1939) is an American actor and producer. Known for his portrayal of morally ambiguous and "tough guy" characters, he rose to prominence during the New Hollywood movement.
Keitel has long been associated with Martin Scorsese, starring in six Scorsese films: Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967), Mean Streets (1973), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and The Irishman (2019). He is also known for his roles in the Quentin Tarantino films Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) and the Wes Anderson films Moonrise Kingdom (2012), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and Isle of Dogs (2018).
Keitel's role as Mickey Cohen in Bugsy (1991) earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, while The Piano (1993) won him the AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Other notable films include Blue Collar (1978), Thelma & Louise (1991), Bad Lieutenant (1992), Sister Act (1992), Imaginary Crimes (1994), From Dusk till Dawn (1996), Cop Land (1997), Holy Smoke! (1998), U-571 (2000), Red Dragon (2002), National Treasure (2004), National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007), and Youth (2015).
Keitel, Al Pacino, and Ellen Burstyn were co-presidents of the Actors Studio from 1995 to 2017.
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Early life
Harvey Johannes Keitel was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on May 13, 1939, the son of Jewish immigrants Miriam (née Klein; 1911–1987) and Harry Keitel (1904–2000). His mother was Romanian and his father was Polish. His parents owned and ran a luncheonette, and his father also worked as a hat maker. He grew up with his older sister Renee and older brother Jerry in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach neighborhood. He attended Abraham Lincoln High School and enlisted in the Marines at the age of 16. After his discharge, he worked as a court stenographer for around ten years before beginning his acting career.
Career
Keitel studied under both Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg and at the HB Studio, eventually landing roles in some Off-Broadway productions. During this time, Keitel auditioned for filmmaker Martin Scorsese and gained a starring role as "J.R.", in Scorsese's first feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967). Since then, Scorsese and Keitel have worked together on several projects. Keitel had the starring role in Scorsese's Mean Streets (1973), which also proved to be Robert De Niro's breakthrough film. Keitel re-teamed with Scorsese for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), in which he had a villainous supporting role, and appeared with Robert De Niro again in Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), playing the role of Jodie Foster's character's pimp. Between those, he portrayed Bugsy Siegel in the 1974 TV movie Virginia Hill starring Dyan Cannon.
In 1977 and 1978, Keitel starred in the directorial debuts of Paul Schrader (Blue Collar, co-starring Richard Pryor and Yaphet Kotto), Ridley Scott (The Duellists, co-starring Keith Carradine), and James Toback (Fingers, in which Keitel played a street hood with aspirations of being a pianist – a role Toback wrote for Robert De Niro to play). He was originally cast as Captain Willard in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979). Keitel was involved with the first week of principal photography in the Philippines. Coppola was not happy with Keitel's take on Willard, stating that the actor "found it difficult to play him as a passive onlooker". After viewing the first week's footage, Coppola replaced Keitel with a casting session favorite, Martin Sheen.
Keitel continued to do work on both stage and screen in the 1980s, often in the stereotypical role of a thug. Keitel played a corrupt police officer in the 1983 thriller Copkiller (co-starring musician John Lydon), before taking a supporting role in the romantic drama Falling in Love (1984), starring Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep. Between 1985 and 1988, he was one of the busiest character actors around, appearing in 16 films and telefilms, including Brian De Palma's mobster comedy Wise Guys (1986), starring Danny DeVito and Joe Piscopo, and as Judas in Martin Scorsese's controversial The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).
Keitel co-starred with Jack Nicholson in the Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes (1990), directed by Nicholson. Ridley Scott cast Keitel as the sympathetic policeman in Thelma & Louise in 1991; that same year, Keitel landed a role in Barry Levinson's Bugsy, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The following year, Keitel played another mobster in the Whoopi Goldberg-starring comedy Sister Act which was a commercial success at the box office.
Personal life
From 1982 to 1993, Keitel was in a relationship with American actress Lorraine Bracco, which ended acrimoniously and triggered a prolonged custody battle over their daughter Stella (born 1985). He dated American potter Lisa Marie Karmazin from 2000 to 2001, after they met in Israel. They have a son named Hudson (born 2001), with whom Keitel does not have any relationship. Karmazin took Keitel to court for child support, and he settled in 2004.
Keitel reconnected with Canadian actress Daphna Kastner at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2001, having gone on a date with her in the 1980s before they lost contact. They married three weeks later in Jerusalem. Their son, Roman (born 2004), is also an actor.
In July 2017, Keitel became an honorary citizen of Romania's Maramureș County, from where his mother hailed.