Goodfellas Actor Suing Simpsons Because Mafia Character Looks Like Him

Twenty-five years after the release of the mafia gangster movie
Goodfellas, and twenty-three years after the mafia
characters on the The Simpsons were introduced on the
animated television show, one of the actors in Goodfellas
is suing the creators of The Simpsons because, he alleges,
they stole his likeness in creating one of the mafia characters.
The actor is Frank Sivero, who played Frankie Carbone and says the
Simpsons character gangster Louie looks like him. Here’s a
side by side:

It’s hard, I think, not to see a resemblance, but the idea that
performing artists be able to “own” the broad features of
characters they create seems ridiculous. Even if you’ve never
watched Goodfellas, the Simpsons character looks
like what you might imagine a member of the mafia looks like.

Sivero doesn’t explain why he waited more than two decades to
sue, but does explain why he thinks the creators of The
Simpsons “stole” his character.
Via NBC News:

Silvero claims in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Los Angeles
Superior Court that in 1989 he lived in a Sherman Oaks apartment
next door to “The Simpsons” writers and that “Simpsons” producer
James L. Brooks was “highly aware of who Sivero was, the fact that
he created the role of Frankie Carbone, and that ‘The Simpsons’
character Louie would be based on this character.”

“During this time, both writers knew who Sivero was, and they
saw each other almost every day,” the complaint alleges. “They knew
he was developing the character he was to play in the movie
‘Goodfellas,’ a movie Sivero did in 1989. In fact, they were aware
the entire character of ‘Frankie Carbone’ was created and developed
by Sivero, who based this character on his own personality.”

Can I say ay caramba or is it going to get me sued? Will the

Department of Homeland Security have to get involved?

Related: This summer Sivero
sued a deli in Los Angeles for selling a sandwich called the
Frankie Carbone.