Harvey Keitel Biography

Quick Facts

NAME: Harvey Keitel
OCCUPATION: Film Actor, Television Actor, Producer
BIRTH DATE: May 13, 1939 (Age: 74)
PLACE OF BIRTH: Brooklyn, New York
ZODIAC SIGN: Taurus

Best Known For

Harvey Keitel is best known for his work with director Martin Scorsese in the films Mean Streets and Taxi Driver.

Quiz

Think you know about Biography?

Answer questions and see how you rank against other players.

Play Now

Print Cite This

Harvey Keitel

APA Style

Harvey Keitel. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 03:19, May 22, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/harvey-keitel-9542059.

Harvard Style

Harvey Keitel. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/harvey-keitel-9542059 [Accessed 22 May 2013].

MLA Style

"Harvey Keitel." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 22 2013, 03:19 http://www.biography.com/people/harvey-keitel-9542059.

MHRA Style

"Harvey Keitel," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/harvey-keitel-9542059 [accessed May 22, 2013].

Chicago Style

"Harvey Keitel," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/harvey-keitel-9542059 (accessed May 22, 2013).

CBE/CSE Style

Harvey Keitel [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 22] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/harvey-keitel-9542059.

Bluebook Style

Harvey Keitel, http://www.biography.com/people/harvey-keitel-9542059 (last visited May 22, 2013).

AMA Style

Harvey Keitel. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/harvey-keitel-9542059. Accessed May 22, 2013.

Synopsis

Harvey Keitel was born May 13, 1939 in Brooklyn, NY. Following an unsuccessful public school experience, Harvey joined the Marines and went to Lebanon. Upon his return to New York he joined the Actors Studio,

Quotes

The way I see things, the way I see life, I see it as a struggle. And there's a great deal of reward I have gained coming to that understanding - that existence is a struggle.

– Harvey Keitel

where he met a young director named Martin Scorsese. Their first successful film together was for Mean Streets and later with Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and Taxi Driver.

Profile

Actor, producer. Born May 13, 1939 in Brooklyn, New York. The son of a Polish mother and Romanian father who ran a Brooklyn luncheonette, Keitel was frequently reprimanded for cutting class at P.S. 100 and Abraham Lincoln High School. After being asked to leave Alexander Hamilton Vocational School for truancy, he was sent to Lebanon with the Marine Corps. Upon his return, he joined New York's Actors Studio where he studied under Frank Corsaro, Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg. Soon after, Keitel met up with a young student director by the name of Martin Scorsese, and they began the first of many collaborations.

The duo made their onscreen feature debuts with 1968's Who's That Knocking at My Door?, and followed up five years later with Mean Streets, a film that earned them both fame and critical acclaim. Riding on this success through the 1970s, Keitel and Scorsese put out two more seminal films, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and Taxi Driver.

Despite this early success, Keitel's career took a dive in the 1980s with roles in mostly forgettable films with the exception of Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988. Three years later, his bad luck broke when he was ironically cast as a sympathetic detective in two hit films, Thelma and Louise and Mortal Thoughts. Soon after, he earned an Oscar nod for his portrayal of gangster Mickey Cohen in Bugsy and subsequently landed roles in such diverse films as Reservoir Dogs, Sister Act and Jane Campion's exotic The Piano. Throughout the 1990s, Keitel continued to display his versatility, giving solid performances in everything from the arthouse drama Lulu on the Bridge in 1998 to the goofy Adam Sandler vehicle Little Nicky in 2000.