Intense, quintessentially "New Yawk" actor who made his first big impression standing in for direc tor Martin Scorsese in Scorsese's highly autobiographical breakthrough feature Mean Streets (1973). He had also played a Scorsese surrogate in the director's earlier Who's That Knocking at My Door? (1968), his first film. Italian Catholic Scorsese has commented: "I found him very much like me, even though he's a Polish Jew from Brooklyn." Keitel studied at the Actors' Studio and worked in summer stock and rep theaters for 10 years before breaking into films. When his work for Scorsese threatened to typecast him in tough, contemporary, urban roles, he took some parts that legitimately stretched him, and others that seemed way out of left field. While his turn as a violent-goodold-boy in Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) was convincing, Keitel seemed to be struggling as an Austrian detective in 1980's Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession (Oddly enough, he played almost exactly the same rolethankfully minus the imitation-Freud accent-in 1991's Mortal Thoughts

Aside from character and second leads in a wide variety of American pictures, he has done extensive work overseas, starring in Ridley Scott's The Duellists (1977), Bertrand Tavernier's Deathwatch (1980), and La Nuit de Varennes (1982), among others. His performance as a Brooklynaccented Method Judas in Scorsese's controversial The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) provoked almost as many arguments as the movie itself.

The year 1991 brought Keitel breakthrough recognition, after more than twenty years in movies. Key supporting roles in Thelma & Louise and Mortal Thoughts (as detectives in both films) and an Oscar-nominated turn as gangster Mickey Cohen in Bugsy comprised an impressive parlay. (Interestingly, he had played Bugsy Siegel in a 1974 TV movie, The Virginia Hill Story) Making no distinction between starring or supporting roles, Keitel continues to work steadily in projects that command his interest. He gave powerful lead performances as a thief in the gritty Reservoir Dogs (which he also coproduced) and, especially, as a corrupt cop looking for redemption in Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant (both 1992) then etched memorable supporting turns as an assassin in Point of No Return and a racist cop in Rising Sun (both 1993). Most recently, he costarred in Jane Cam pion's acclaimed The Piano (1993), as an unusually romantic and vulnerable character (and performed in the nude, as he had in Bad Lieutenant with an apparent nonchalance rare in actors), and Ferrara's Dangerous Game (1993), as a movie director, opposite Madonna. In 1994 Keitel's versatility was showcased in Monkey Trouble, Pulp Fiction (a comic variation on his Point of No Return role as a "cleaner"), and Imaginary Crimes. He followed with Smoke and Clockers (both 1995). Sometimes frighteningly intense, and often associated with the dark side of humanity, Keitel may not be a star in the conventional sense of the term, but a growing number of filmmakers have come to rely on him. And Keitel always delivers.

--Leonard Maltin