Catherine Scorsese

Catherine Scorsese was an American actress, born Catherine Cappa on April 16, 1912, in New York. Her parents, Domenica and Martin Cappa, were Sicilian; her father worked as a stage co-ordinator, and her mother ran a shop. She had a twin brother named Charles, two other brothers, Salvatore and Andrew, and five sisters, including Mary and Sarah. She grew up in a cramped three-room apartment on Elizabeth Street, at the edge of Manhattan's Little Italy, sharing the space with fourteen people, including boarders and relatives.

Her acting career began when her son, filmmaker Martin Scorsese, cast her in his short film It's Not Just You, Murray!. She often portrayed Italian mothers on screen, and her most famous role came in his film Goodfellas, playing Mrs. DeVito, the mother of Joe Pesci's character Tommy. In 1933, while working as a machinist in the Garment District, she married Luciano Charles Scorsese, a fellow Sicilian American from the same street who also worked in the garment industry. Her upbringing in Little Italy among first- and second-generation Italian Americans deeply influenced her son, who documented their attitudes and way of life in his 1974 documentary Italianamerican.

She frequently cooked meals for the cast and crew of her son's films. Two months before her death, her recipe collection was published as Italianamerican: The Scorsese Family Cookbook. Catherine Scorsese, who had Alzheimer's disease, died on January 6, 1997.