Catherine Scorsese is about as nice a mother any gangster could ever ask for - and probably a filmmaker too. Most famous for her turn in her son Martin's film Goodfellas as Tommy's (Joe Pesci) mum, she lovingly prepares the notoriously hotheaded wiseguy and his associates Henry and Jimmy (Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro) shortly before the trio departs to finish the job of killing a made man who insulted Tommy. Not that his mother actually knows that - Tommy tells her they hit a deer with his car and they'd come to borrow a shovel, and she's so happy to see her boy and generally kind-hearted that she keeps them at the house for spaghetti and conversation in one of Scorsese's most darkly comic and memorable scenes. But Goodfellas isn't the only time Catherine Scorsese has made an onscreen appearance: the woman who helped create one of the greatest living film directors has appeared as a character's mother in no fewer than five of her son's films, including Casino and The King Of Comedy, meaning that she's actually appeared in more Scorsese movies than Leonardo DiCaprio. And nobody ever whines about Cathy never getting an Oscar...
