What Does The Cast Of Moonstruck Look Like Today?

Norman Jewison's romantic comedy "Moonstruck" turns 35 in December 2022. The story of a colorful Italian-American family in Brooklyn was the brainchild of screenwriter John Patrick Shanley, whose hilarious script won an Academy Award for best original screenplay.

Cher stars as Loretta Castorini, a lonely widowed bookkeeper. Now in her late 30s and childless, she is dating a dolt named Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello), who proposes marriage. Feeling her options are limited, she agrees to marry him, but he first must fly to Sicily to be at the bedside of his dying mother. He has one request for Loretta: to invite his estranged younger brother Ronny (Nicolas Cage) to their wedding. Ronny, who bakes bread for a living, can never forgive Johnny for making him look the wrong way one day, resulting in him losing his hand in a bread slicer. Loretta and Ronny end up falling in love as confusion reigns for her, her disenchanted mother and womanizing father, and an assorted bunch of neurotic relatives entranced by the giant moon that looms over them all.

"Moonstruck" was a hit with both audiences and critics. Gene Siskel called it "one of the funniest pictures to come out in quite some time," per the Chicago Tribune. The film won three Oscars, including leading actress for Cher. We take a look at the actors who helped make the picture an enduring comedy classic, where they are now, and remember those cast members who are no longer with us.

Known for his eccentricities both on and off-screen, Nicolas Cage displayed a gift at playing a tragic yet romantic comic lead in "Moonstruck." As Ronny Cammareri, a professional baker, Cage was an angst-ridden loner, bitter about love and life after his fiancee leaves him when he cuts off his hand on a bread slicing machine. When Loretta (Cher) calls Ronny to tell him she's engaged to his brother and that he is invited to their wedding, Ronny hangs up on her, so she shows up at Ronny's bakery, where he gives a speech of almost Shakespearean pathos as he laments losing both his hand and his fiancee. Cage told GQ that Cher personally wanted him to play the role after seeing him in "Peggy Sue Got Married."

Cage's performance earned him positive notices and a Golden Globe nomination. Critic Chris Chase observed in the Daily News, "[W]hen Nicolas Cage explains that snowflakes are perfect, love isn't, he is hilariously moving. People keep being surprised that Cage, who's only 23, is such a terrific actor. Maybe you have to be 23 to have that combination of wildness and earnestness work for you. It might look foolish on an older fellow."

Cage, who is now 58, has had a turbulent personal life and has been married five times. His first wife was Patricia Arquette and his second was Lisa Marie Presley. He was arrested in 2011 on charges of battery during a drunken argument with third wife Alice Kim. He married fifth wife Riko Shibata, who is three decades his junior, in February 2021.

A longtime stage and character actor, Olympia Dukakis became a star at age 56 as the world-weary matriarch of the eccentric Castorini family in "Moonstruck." Her performance won her an Oscar for best supporting actress. Dukakis said on "George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight," "'Moonstruck' was the first one. It's like somebody said, 'Look. She waited all these years. Let's give her something good!' It was incredible, and then that changed my whole life."

Rose Castorini has seen it all. She suspects her husband Cosmo (Vincent Gardenia) is seeing another woman and spends a great deal of the movie pondering why men cheat. "Why would a man need more than one woman?" she asks her daughter's fiance (Danny Aiello). When he offers that it may be because they are afraid of death, she reaches an odd catharsis. This leads to one of the film's funniest moments when she tells Cosmo, "I just want you to know no matter what you do you're gonna die just like everybody else."

Dukakis went on to appear in major motion pictures such as the much-loved "Steel Magnolias," "Dad," "Look Who's Talking," and "The Cemetery Club." She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on May 24, 2013. A documentary about her life, "Olympia," appeared in the DOC NYC Festival in 2018. Dukakis married actor Louis Zorich in 1962, with whom she had three children. Zorich died in 2018. Dukakis died in Manhattan on May 1, 2021 at age 89 after many months of illness, per The Hollywood Reporter.

One of the most recognizable character actors of the 1980s, Danny Aiello played Cher's bumbling fiance who travels to Sicily to be at his dying mother's side. But he wants to make peace with his estranged younger brother (Cage), and enlists Cher to invite him to their wedding.

AIello appeared in a number of iconic films starting in the 1970s, including "Bang the Drum Slowly," "The Godfather Part II," and "The Front." In 1989, he delivered his Oscar-nominated performance as Sal, the owner of a pizzeria in a predominantly Black Brooklyn neighborhood in Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing." He also played Madonna's father in her 1986 music video "Papa Don't Preach." Despite the success of "Moonstruck," it was not one of Aiello's favorite roles. He told App, "I said, 'Oh my God, I'm such a wimp, I wince when I see it.' ... I was a neophyte actor doing these things."

In addition to acting, Aiello was an accomplished singer who performed in clubs in New York and Atlantic City and released several albums. He died on December 12, 2019 following a brief illness, according to The Hollywood Reporter. A memorial service open to the public was held for Aiello in Manhattan, with remembrances from Spike Lee and John Turturro. Turturro called Aiello, "Full of life. Very funny. He had his insecurities, like we all do, but he was very honest about them" (via Fox5 New York). Cher tweeted of "Moonstruck," "It was one of the happiest times in my life,& He Was apart of that Happy time."

A performer with a respectable theatre background, Julie Bovasso was best known for playing John Travolta's mother in "Saturday Night Fever" (she reprised the role in the film's 1983 sequel "Staying Alive"). Other film credits include Sidney Lumet's "The Verdict," Alan Alda's "Betsy's Wedding," and "My Blue Heaven" with Steve Martin and Rick Moranis. A Brooklyn native herself, she was also an acting and dialect coach who helped Cher and Olympia Dukakis perfect their Brooklyn accents in "Moonstruck" (she is credited as dialogue coach).

Bovasso played Loretta's aunt Rita Cappomaggi, who, with her husband Raymond (Louis Guss), runs an Italian specialty food market. Loretta does the books for her aunt and uncle, and in one of the film's final scenes in the kitchen of Loretta's parents' home, Rita and Raymond show up during breakfast with very solemn looks on their faces. They ask Loretta if there is something she needs to tell them. Loretta then suddenly realizes she forgot to make a big bank deposit for them. Everyone is relieved, with Raymond exclaiming, "We never suspected you," intimating that the idea that Loretta ran off with the cash had crossed their minds.

Bovasso died in Manhattan on September 14, 1991 at age 61. The cause was cancer, according to The New York Times.

A performer with a long list of theater and television credits, Anita Gillette played Mona, the sultry, easily impressed mistress of Loretta's father. Loretta refers to her as "a real piece of cheap goods." Mona is one of the few characters in "Moonstruck" who is not particularly nuanced. She has few words of dialogue and is in some ways a stock character — the girlfriend who is not particularly bright. In John Patrick Shanley's actual screenplay (via Daily Script), she is described as "a pretty but overripe Italian woman in her late forties."

Gillette, who is now 86, had an extensive Broadway career starting in the late 1950s. She was a frequent guest on many game and talk shows, including "To Tell the Truth," "The $25,000 Pyramid," and "Match Game." She was a guest on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" seven times, and she has performed a one-woman cabaret act in New York City. 

Per Broadway World, the Manhattan Association of Cabaret honored her with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Looking back on her career, Gillette told the outlet, "Speaking of film, the best result from an audition was when I got 'Moonstruck' and the role of Miss Mona." She had dressed like star Joan Collins from "Dynasty," showing cleavage and sporting a fascinator. Gillette praised director Norman Jewison and added, "I was so happy to do that small but important role in a classic like that."

John Mahoney co-starred in another Cher movie, "Suspect," as a judge the same year "Moonstruck" came out. As Perry, a college professor going through a midlife crisis, Mahoney has a brief flirtation with Rose Castorini (Olympia Dukakis) over dinner. He is a regular diner at the Grand Ticino, a charming Italian bistro where the Castorini family is known. Usually in the company of one of his attractive female students, he more often than not ends up eating alone. 

While Rose is having dinner solo, Perry's student makes a scene and throws a glass of water in his face before storming out. He apologizes to Rose, who comments, "She was just too young for you." After Perry rudely asks Rose her age, he apologizes and Rose sheepishly asks him if he'd like to join her. Their dinner conversation is sweet, enlightening, funny, and one of the film's most charming subplots as Rose tries to get an answer to the burning question, "Why do men chase women?"

Mahoney had an extensive theater background. He was part of Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and on Broadway won a Tony Award for "The House of Blue Leaves." He would later gain wide recognition for playing the father of the Crane brothers on "Frasier" for 11 seasons. The U.K.-born Mahoney died February 4, 2018, in his beloved "adopted hometown of Chicago" due to complications from cancer, per The Hollywood Reporter. He was 77. Mahoney never married or had children, and claimed he was happy among friends or alone.

A headline-making singing sensation, Cher long wanted to be taken seriously as an actor. She was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for 1983's "Silkwood" but snubbed for a leading nomination for her acclaimed performance in 1985's "Mask." In protest, she wore an outrageous Bob Mackie gown as a presenter at the 1986 Academy Awards. The star remarked, "As you can see, I did receive my Academy booklet on how to dress like a serious actress." "Moonstruck" cemented Cher as a bona fide movie star, earning her a best actress Oscar as Loretta Castorini, an unlucky-in-love, widowed bookkeeper living with her offbeat Italian-American family in Brooklyn. In a role once offered to Sally Field, Cher was tough but vulnerable, funny yet dignified. 

Now 76, Cher is active on social media, sometimes getting into trouble, such as her tweet inadvertently using a cow emoji to refer to Queen Elizabeth II upon her passing (she meant to call the late queen a G.O.A.T., an acronym for Greatest of All Time). She is most known for her musical legacy and frequently makes headlines for her active love life. Despite her success in "Moonstruck," Cher went on to make very few major film appearances, focusing more on performing live. In September 2022, she turned heads walking the runway at Paris Fashion Week in a stunning outfit designed by Olivier Rousteing (via the New York Post).