Henry Hill, the Brooklyn-born Lucchese mobster whose experiences were immortalized in the film Goodfellas, has died at age 69. His girlfriend and manager Lis Caserta told The Post and TMZ that he died at a hospital in Los Angeles. Caserta said to the Post, "He had a heart attack around the 27th of May, and he went into the hospital and it was really touch-and-go for a long time," noting that "[he] had been suffering from bad circulation due to smoking." Hill joined infamous Lucchese capo Paul Vario's gang and his colorful life was detailed in Nicholas Pileggi's "Wise Guy: Life in a Mafia Family," which Pileggi later adapted for Martin Scorsese's film, Goodfellas. From the 1986 Times review of the book: In 1955 an 11-year-old of Irish-Sicilian parentage walked across the street from where he lived in Brooklyn into a dingy, mob-run cab company looking for after-school work. His energy, intelligence and what seems to have been a general likableness quickly started him on his way to becoming the kind of tough thief New Yorkers euphemistically call a ''wise guy.'' Henry Hill had both driving ambition and a talent for staying alive. He eventually became one of a group who, in his words, ''walked in a room and the place stopped. Everyone knew who we were, and we were treated like movie stars with muscle.'' Mr. Hill's version of the American dream is told in Wise Guy by Nicholas Pileggi, a contributing editor of New York magazine, who has covered crime and politics for many years ...
Comments