Inspiration behind Goodfellas movie dies
Ray Liotta, Paul Sorvino and real-life mob informant Henry Hill — whose gangland experiences inspired the film — showed up to eat, swap stories, sing some Italian opera and recall director Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed mob movie.
They remembered the jokes, the scenes, they discussed the brutality of gangster life the film so vividly portrayed. Many of the cast and crew hadn’t seen each other since they shot the movie 15 years earlier.
“The government said a couple of hundred million dollars went through my hands. But I just blew it on slow horses, women, drugs and rock n’ roll,” said Hill, the former mobster- turned-FBI informant who died this week in Los Angeles aged 69.
His partner and manager, Lisa Caserta, did not give a specific cause but said years of heavy smoking combined with complications from a recent heart attack led to his death.
Hill had been leading different lives for the past 32 years under a witness protection programme but was kicked out of it for continuing to get into trouble with the law.
Most of the 50 people he informed on have died in prison.
When Hill began working as a gofer for the local Brooklyn mob’s taxi garage right across the street from his house, he received some simple advice. The mob told him: “Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut.”
Hill did not heed those words. And many of his life- long friends went to prison after he turned state witness against him. Goodfellas told that story in remarkable style and the film remains near the summit of gangster movies amongst fans.
Goodfellas was inspired by Nicholas Pileggi in his biography of Hill, Wiseguy, that was published over 28 years ago.
Pileggi, a crime reporter for New York who wrote with Hill’s co-operation, did a superb job of re-creating the gangster’s career.
It traced his early days as a 12-year-old errand boy, to working with racketeer Paulie Vario in Brooklyn’s Brownsville East New York section, to his pivotal roles in a Boston College point- shaving scandal and the $6m Lufthansa heist at Kennedy Airport in 1978.
Goodfellas, which starred Liotta, Robert de Niro and Joe Pesci, showed how Hill was a criminal from an early age. And how, broke and addicted to cocaine, he testified against his old crew so he could escape a prison term and begin a new life with his family sometimes as Peter Haines, sometimes Martin Todd Lewis.
He went on to live, he said, in suburban boredom, mixed with several affairs and the purchase of horses.
His family, who were continually unsettled with the FBI living in their pockets, eventually ended up settling in Washington.
The FBI was living with Hill as he prepared to give state testimony against his former friends.
Ms Caserta told CBS News Hill was with family members when he died, adding he “went out pretty peacefully, for a goodfella”.
Born into an Italian-Irish family, Hill was as an associate of the Lucchese crime family in New York.
Hill lived the mob life for 20 years until 1980 when he was arrested on drugs charges and, to avoid prison, agreed to testify against his former mafia bosses.
In more recent years, Hill became a frequent guest on the radio programme The Howard Stern Show. He also marketed his own spaghetti sauce and opened a restaurant called Wiseguys.
In 2005, he served six months for possession of methamphetamines while working as a chef in Nebraska. By then, most of the old buddies he had betrayed were dead, but he said he still felt like a marked man.
“There’s always that chance that some young buck wants to make a name for themselves,” he told a reporter in 2010.
“I never thought I’d reach this wonderful age. I’m just grateful for being alive.”
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