In 2022, we said arrivederci to some of our favorite movie gangsters

"Look how they massacred my boy!"

Death is an occupational hazard for all of us. But even more so for those in the mobstering trade — as that famous scene in "The Godfather" reminds us.

James Caan, after being riddled at a tollbooth with more bullets than 1972 audiences had ever dreamed of, is laid out on a slab at the undertaker's. "I want you to use all your powers, and all your skills," Marlon Brando says. "I don't want his mother to see him this way."

2022 was a tough year on celebrities. But more so on that sub-species who rose to fame embodying all our worst impulses. Hollywood gangsters — alas — were high on this year's casualty list.

"The Godfather," "The Sopranos" and "Goodfellas" are probably the three most iconic gangster titles ever. We lost stars from all of them.

They were not actual criminals, of course. (Well, mostly not — we'll get to that). They were actors. But because of their powers and skills, they made us believe they were made men. Their characters were unforgettable.

Now that these artists are gone, let us give them a gangster's tribute. Perhaps a line of black limousines — and too many flowers.

Tough guy

James Caan, to start with. The Bronx-born movie tough guy, who left us on July 6, played the roughneck in all sorts of movies, from "Cinderella Liberty" to "Rollerball."

But it's Sonny Corleone we'll always remember — his temper, his tank-top shirt, his "badda-bing, badda-boom." He was the loose cannon of the Corleones, the old-school Sicilian you'd never want to cross. "You touch my sister again, I'll kill ya." Caan was in fact Jewish — but you wanna make something of it?

Tony Sirico, who passed just two days later on July 8, was a gangster.

Before he got his iconic role as Peter Paul "Paulie Walnuts" Gualtieri in "The Sopranos," Sirico had been arrested 28 times, for such things as assault and robbery. He had spent 20 months in Sing Sing. He certainly didn't have to go undercover to research his role as the loyal lieutenant of Tony Soprano — the guy so wise that he even has the inside dope on Purgatory.

"You add up all your mortal sins and multiply that number by 50. Then you add up all your venial sins and multiply that by 25. You add that together and that’s your sentence," he tells Christopher Moltisanti.

Sirico, a New York native, appeared in many other roles, including a spate of Woody Allen films ("Mighty Aphrodite," "Bullets Over Broadway"). But nobody could have brought Paulie Walnuts to life like he did — because no one walked in the character's footsteps like he had. He is said to have accepted the role on one condition. Paulie, he said, "must not become a rat." Spoken like a wise guy.

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From "The Sopranos," too, we lost Robert LuPone (August 27), the Brooklyn-born brother of actress Patti Lupone. He didn't play a gangster — he was Dr. Bruce Cusamano, Tony's next-door neighbor. But let's call him guilty by association.

"The Sopranos" is dear to the hearts of New Jerseyans, since the beloved HBO series was filmed here: North Caldwell, Kearny, Verona, Lodi, Asbury Park. But the two stars we lost from "Goodfellas" were bona fide Jersey boys.

Home grown

Paul Sorvino, who died July 25, lived in Tenafly for about 15 years, starting in 1970. And Ray Liotta, who passed May 26, was born in Newark and raised in Union.

"Don't make a jerk out of me," Paulie Cicero (Sorvino) warns Henry Hill (Liotta) in "Goodfellas." "Just don't do it."

He says it quietly — very quietly. He doesn't need to shout. His looming body shouts for him.

"He is more menacing with his restraint than with his temper," said Michael Uslan, lawyer, producer and chairman of the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission, who knew Sorvino and worked with him on several occasions.

"You never got the usual and trite from Paul," Uslan said. "You always got the unexpected."

In fact, Sorvino was a courtly fellow who painted, sang opera, wrote poetry and played the gentleman off-camera. And he bequeathed to New Jerseyans not just a notable film and TV career ("A Touch of Class," "Reds" "The Firm" "Law & Order") and The American Stage Company he co-founded, but also two famous actor-children, Mira and Michael.

"He was clearly the Jersey guy, the New York guy, the Brooklyn guy, the guy you grew up with who had attitude," Uslan said. "But who would throw himself in front of a car for a neighbor or a family member."

Ray Liotta, the star of "Goodfellas," was another one. Diamond in the rough, according to those who knew him.

"He was salt of the earth," said Steven Edwards, president of the New Jersey Hall of Fame, which inducted Liotta ("Field of Dreams," "Something Wild," "Hannibal") in 2017.

"When we were inducting him into the Hall of Fame, we were encouraging him to get some A-lister to induct him," Edwards recalled. "Ray insisted that we get his childhood friend, Gene Laguna, who he played baseball with. That's who he wanted to induct him."

We lost a lot of famous people in 2022. The list is as long as it is sad: Sidney Poitier, Angela Lansbury, Coolio, Loretta Lynn, Olivia Newton-John, Anne Heche, Naomi Judd, William Hurt, Meat Loaf, Peter Bogdanovich, Bob Saget, Robbie Coltrane, Gilbert Gottfried, Taylor Hawkins, Leslie Jordan, Jerry Lee Lewis and Queen Elizabeth II are just some of them.

But of all these people, the gangsters were a special breed.

Maybe because — as in the case of Sorvino — they were some of the sweetest.

"I can only describe him as the nicest human being I ever met," Uslan said.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: From 'Sopranos' to 'Goodfellas,' a tough year for gangsters