Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 21, 1992 TAG: 9202210349
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
LORRAINE BRACCO'S FEISTY RISE
Lorraine Bracco does not pull any punches.When she talks about the sexes, she makes it quite clear who she thinks has the upper hand. "It's a man's world, and it always has been," the 37-year-old screen star says.
She talks like a woman who plays out her values - both in her life and in her roles. During her 10-year stint as a fashion model in Paris, Bracco says, she was constantly fighting off unwanted advances. Once, she says, she felt the pain and anger of being "almost . . . raped."
When potential bosses held out the possibility of glamorous modeling jobs in exchange for sexual favors, Bracco says, it was not easy "when you're hungry" to say no. But "I'd rather starve," she says, than sleep with a man for a job.
In both "GoodFellas" (which landed her an Oscar nomination) and "Someone to Watch Over Me," Bracco portrayed the traditional wife whose husband cheated on her. But she insists her characters did not slide into the stereotypical male view of women as victims. She belted her policeman husband, Tom Berenger, in "Someone" when she learned he had had an affair, and she pulled a gun on her gangster husband, Ray Liotta, in "GoodFellas" after she discovered he had a mistress. In her current film, "Medicine Man," she's a gutsy biochemist from the Bronx, dispatched to South America by her pharmaceutical company to get renegade fellow employee (Sean Connery) in line.
But in "Radio Flyer," she plays a role that cuts against her personality - the mother of two boys who is oblivious to her new husband's sexual abuse of her youngest son.
Calling the role "very hard" for her, she says she drew on her experiences with other women. "A lot of women . . . [would] rather not look. They see the rock, they know it's there, but they don't want to turn it over."
Women believe, she says, that "something" - any relationship with a man - "is better than nothing."
Separated from her second husband, actor Harvey Keitel, Bracco is raising two daughters, ages 12 and 6. "I see my kids every day," she said, noting that, unlike most women, she can afford almost constant sitters and expensive travel bills.
Bracco will only say that life with Keitel "wasn't working."
"Relationships are really hard," she says. "It's not easy."