Mira Sorvino calls out the Academy for neglecting to include her father, Paul, during the “In Memoriam” section of the awards ceremony. Well-known for his portrayal of gangster Paulie Cicero in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, Paul Sorvino died last year from natural causes.
The Academy neglected to include him and other late film legends, including Ann Heche, during its Memoriam segment and instead put them in an extended list on their website. After the official tribute ceremony, the telecast presented a QR code for the audience to find this list. However, this proved insufficient for those like Mira, who felt short-changed in honoring their loved ones.
After the broadcast, Mira wrote an extensive note on her Instagram criticizing the Academy for seemingly ignoring everything her father, Paul, had done. She says that she feels “hurt and shocked that my father’s lifelong, irreplaceable, enormous contribution to the world of cinema was overlooked by whomever made that list,” despite the fact that people “know just how unique and incredible he was.”
Her tribute to her father ahead of the broadcast shows the great amount of love she still holds for her father, even recalling her Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Mighty Aphrodite. To her, sharing this moment with Paul was vital since she “got to ‘give back to him what he had been giving me all my life.'” “On this first year after his passing, it is truly a bittersweet but beautiful memory,” she reminisces.
Even Paul’s widow Dee Dee Sorvino has shown immense disapproval of this snub against her late husband. According to her statement in People, Paul left too much of an impact on the film industry to be a footnote in the broadcast. Dee Dee also notes that Paul “was not the only deserving soul left out, and a QR Code is not acceptable.”
Dee Dee calls for an apology in her statement from the Academy. “Mistakes are made,” she says, “this was a big one. Please do something to make it right.”