Harvey Keitel

• Born: May 13, 1939
• Place of Birth: Brooklyn, New York

• Actor

An intense method actor, Keitel created memorable characters in acclaimed films such as Taxi Driver (1976), Pulp Fiction (1994), and The Irishman (2019).

Area of achievement: Entertainment

Early Life

Harvey Keitel was born into a traditional Orthodox Jewish family. His father, Nikonar Keitel, was a Polish Jew who changed his first name to Harry upon immigration. His mother, Maritska, born LeClose, changed her name to Miriam Klein when she came to America from Maramures, Romania. In the ethnically diverse, immigrant New York City neighborhood of Brighton Beach, the Keitels owned a luncheonette. Harry also worked as a hat maker. Harvey Keitel had an older brother and an older sister.

Keitel’s family observed the Jewish dietary laws of kashrut, keeping a kosher kitchen. To prepare Keitel for his Bar Mitzvah, Keitel’s paternal grandfather taught the boy how to read Hebrew books. In 1956, at sixteen, Keitel dropped out of high school and joined the United States Marine Corps. In boot camp, he still observed kashrut, giving away his milk whenever meat was served.

The Marines deployed Keitel to Lebanon during a crisis in 1958 in violation of the rule, then in existence, not to send Jewish American soldiers to the Middle East. Keitel was honorably discharged in 1959. On his return to America, he read a book on Greek mythology and became fascinated with the world of ideas.

Keitel worked as a shoe salesman for one year and as a court stenographer from 1960 to 1968. A colleague took him to acting classes in 1962. In 1965, Keitel volunteered to play the tough-guy lead, J. R., in Martin Scorsese’s first film. The film became Who’s That Knocking on My Door, released in 1967, after a gratuitous sex scene with Keitel was added. In 1965 and 1968, Keitel also acted in Off-Broadway productions.

Embittered by the deep misery he perceived in the world, Keitel temporarily lost his Jewish faith. Later, he returned to his faith, occasionally mentioning his rebellious actions.

Life’s Work

Keitel’s film acting career took off with his friend, Scorsese, who gave Keitel the major role of Charlie, a tough Italian American gangster ridden by guilt, in Mean Streets (1973). In 1974, Keitel began training in method acting at New York’s HB Studio. Keitel’s powerful performance as the pimp of Jodie Foster’s underage prostitute in Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) solidified Keitel’s emerging reputation as a quality actor.

In 1976, director Francis Ford Coppola clashed with Keitel’s more active vision of the role of Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now (1979). Two weeks into shooting, Coppola fired Keitel. This dampened Keitel’s career in Hollywood, so he turned toward European films.

While acting in European films, Keitel met Italian American actor Lorraine Bracco. The two began a long-term relationship. In 1985, their daughter Stella was born.

In 1988, Keitel played his first Jewish character, Judas Iscariot, in Scorsese’s film The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). This controversial film relaunched Keitel’s career in the United States, which flourished in the early 1990s.

Keitel starred opposite Jack Nicholson as Julius “Jake” Berman in The Two Jakes (1990). He gave an acclaimed performance as sympathetic sheriff Hal in Ridley Scott’s masterpiece Thelma and Louise (1991). He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the historic Jewish American gangster Mickey Cohen in Barry Levinson’s Bugsy (1991). He also drew attention for starring in the graphic crime film Bad Lieutenant (1992).

Keitel’s support for young directors paid off well in his association with Quentin Tarantino. Keitel served as coproducer of Reservoir Dogs (1992) and played the violently loyal Mr. White. In Jane Campion’s masterpiece, The Piano (1993), Keitel awed critics as Victorian settler George Baines, who adopts the facial tattoos and culture of the indigenous Maori of New Zealand, where the film is set. Keitel played clean-up specialist Winston “The Wolf” Wolfe in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994).

In 1993, a bitter public custody battle erupted between Keitel and Bracco over their daughter after the couple ended their relationship on bad terms. Keitel continued to act in Hollywood, American independent, and European films. He went on to support new directors such as Vietnamese American Toni Bui, playing a returning Vietnam War veteran in Bui’s The Three Seasons (1999), set in Saigon.

In 2001, Keitel starred in two independent films about the Holocaust. He played American Major Steve Arnold investigating a German composer of the Nazi era in Taking Sides (2001). He gave a harrowing portrayal of fictional Nazi officer Eric Muhsfeldt in Tim Blake Nelson’s The Grey Zone (2001). The film dramatized the only Jewish revolt at the concentration camp at Auschwitz, with its tragic ending. That year, Keitel became father to a son, Hudson, with his then girlfriend, Lisa Karmazin. On October 7, 2001, Keitel married Jewish Canadian actor Daphna Kastner in a Jewish wedding ceremony in Israel. On August 17, 2004, their son Roman was born. A versatile actor, Keitel handily portrayed the light role of FBI agent Sadusky in the popular adventure films National Treasure (2004) and National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007).

Keitel continued to act steadily through the 2010s, appearing in a wide variety of films, mostly in supporting roles. One notable collaboration was with director Wes Anderson, as the actor had parts in his works Moonrise Kingdom (2012), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and Isle of Dogs (2018). Keitel also continued to be associated with Scorsese, playing real-life mobster Angelo Bruno in the director's 2019 film The Irishman. In 2022, he appeared in the action film The Baker and reprised his role as FBI agent Sadusky in an episode of National Treasure: Edge of History. In the dramatic series The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which is based on a true story and debuted in 2024, Keitel portayed the older Lali Sokolov, a Holocaust survivor who tattooed identification numbers while imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration and death camp. That year, he also starred in the dramatic film Joe Baby and the comedy Spread.

Significance

Keitel established himself as a persuasive character actor with a wide range of intensely performed roles. He did so not with leading-man good looks but with outstanding method acting skills. His potent performances added depth to films. His early work for Scorsese emphasized troubled, tough characters, often in Italian American gangster milieu. His later characters generally had some extreme aspect to their personality. He served as co-president of the Actors Studio with Ellen Burstyn and Al Pacino from 1995 to 2017.

Keitel remained noted for his support for young directors, such as Scott, Tarantino, and others, and this enabled them to launch their own successful filmmaking careers. Keitel’s character roles in their films enhanced their reception by critics.

Bibliography

Balaga, Marta. "‘We Can Choose to Love Rather Than Hate’: Led by Harvey Keitel and Melanie Lynskey, The Tattooist of Auschwitz Finds Love in a Hopeless Place." Variety, 18 Mar. 2024, variety.com/2024/tv/global/harvey-keitel-melanie-lynskey-claire-mundell-1235944432/. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.

Burnham, Clint. “Scattered Speculations on the Value of Harvey Keitel.” Boys: Masculinities in Contemporary Culture, edited by Paul Smith, Routledge, 2018.

Caveney, Graham. Harvey Keitel. Bloomsbury, 1995.

Clarkson, Wensley. Harvey Keitel: Prince of Darkness. Piatkus Books, 1997.

Fine, Marshall. Harvey Keitel: The Art of Darkness. Fromm International, 2000.

"Harvey Keitel." IMDb, www.imdb.com/name/nm0000172/. Accessed 1 Sept. 2024.

Nelson, Tim Blake. The Grey Zone: The Director’s Notes and Screenplay. Newmarket Press, 2003.