Close encounters of the celebrity kind
Ray Liotta in “Something Wild.” ( Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios photo via IMDB) . Amber Heard and me at the 2018 Maui Film Festival at Wailea. (Maui Film Festival photo.) No one had ever heard of Ray Liotta the first time I interviewed him. It was 1986. He and a couple of other young actors early in their careers – Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith – were in New Orleans on a press junket for “Something Wild.” The comedy thriller wasn't set in New Orleans but director Jonathan Demme – an aficionado of American culture – had picked the destination as an excuse to spend the weekend enjoying some storied N'awlins' food and music. “Something Wild” was a quirky romp in which straight-laced Daniels gets waylaid by free-spirited Griffith before her loose cannon husband shows up to change the mood entirely. Liotta played the loose cannon. He was such a ticking time bomb on screen, it came as news (with junket journalists frantically checking our press kits to find out who he was) t