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He threatened to whack Weinstein.
Amid an outpouring of tributes to late screen icon Paul Sorvino, who died Monday at 83 of natural causes, one video in particular seemed to resonate with fans: A clip of the “Goodfellas” star threatening to choke the life out of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. The old snippet amassed 126,000 views on Twitter as social media lauded the deceased thespian for standing up to predators.
“It is reprehensible beyond description that women have been treated in this manner,” Sorvino told local news outlet KCAL9 at a Golden Globes Event in January 2018, addressing the highly-publicized scandal, in which multiple actresses — including the actor’s own daughter Mira Sorvino — stepped forward to accuse Weinstein, 70, of rape, sexual assault or sex harassment.
“When you’ve had a phenomenal mother like I had, you are automatically a feminist. That’s why I have this wonderful wife,” the “Godfather of Harlem” actor added. “The reality is, anyone who takes advantage of women should be publicly strangled and I’ll volunteer.”
Social media praised Sorvino for his pro-women stance.
“F–king legend!!” gushed one admiring fan on Twitter, adding in a follow-up tweet, “Wish more men thought and acted like this!!”
“Harvey would have swum with the fishes,” fawned another, while one Sorvino supporter declared, “A man stands up for women!”
Elsewhere in the interview, Sorvino addressed the appalling alleged incident, in which his daughter claimed she was blacklisted in Hollywood for refusing Weinstein’s advances.
“She’s been denied, we know that,” lamented the “Romeo and Juliet” star. “It’s a terrible thing. She deserves all the new looks and the chances she may not have had because she’s got it all, she’s got the whole package and she’s a great human being.”
In 2017, 54-year-old Sorvino told The New Yorker that Weinstein, 65, tried to give her a massage and “chased her around” a hotel room in 1995, then invited himself to her apartment a few weeks later, bypassing her doorman and refusing to leave until a friend she’d invited to pose as her boyfriend arrived.
“I can’t say for certain if [my career] was impacted,” the “Summer Of Sam” actress admitted. “But I won an Oscar with Miramax. To not continue and star in their movies much past that doesn’t make sense. I felt if I had accepted Harvey’s advances, I would have continued to make movies with them, and they were the people winning the Oscars for that decade.”
According to director Peter Jackson, Weinstein reportedly prevented Mira Sorvino from being considered for a role in the uber-successful “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
This didn’t sit well with her father, who told TMZ in 2018: “If I meet him on the street, he oughta hope that he goes to jail.”
“Because if we come across [one another], I think he’ll be lying on the floor somehow, magically,” he added. “He’s gonna go to jail. That son of a b—h, good for him if he goes, because if not, then he has to meet me, and I’ll kill that motherf–ker.”
He claimed at the time that he only learned about the sexual harassment and assault and blacklisting allegations against the “Shakespeare in Love” filmmaker when the public did, stating, “If I had known it, he would not be walking. He’d be in a wheelchair.
“My daughter is a wonderful person,” he said at the time. “A courageous and wonderful human being and doesn’t deserve to have been treated that way by this pig. This pig will get his comeuppance. The law will get him. He’s going to go to jail and die in jail. But if he doesn’t … I’ll just slap him around. I won’t do anything terrible.”
Following her father’s passing, Mira tweeted a moving tribute to her late dad and women’s rights champion.
“My father the great Paul Sorvino has passed,” the heartbroken dramatist wrote. “My heart is rent asunder- a life of love and joy and wisdom with him is over.
She added, “He was the most wonderful father. I love him so much. I’m sending you love in the stars Dad as you ascend.”
