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‘Goodfellas’ Fact Check: Just How Authentic Was Martin Scorsese’s Mafia Masterpiece?

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Goodfellas

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Take a seat on your white leather couch and cover your knees with your stolen zebra-striped throw: Netflix has started streaming Goodfellas.

Since 1990, the eminently rewatchable Martin Scorsese film has been giving viewers the vicarious thrill of carting home suitcases of untaxed cash, scoring front-row tables to Henny Youngman, and pummeling the jerks who remind us we once toted a shine box.

What you may not know about the movie and its basis, the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, is that they’re not the last word on Henry Hill’s trajectory from lower-middle-class electrician’s son to glamorous mafia associate to government turncoat.

Hill’s law-abiding kids wrote a book that offers the skinny on the real lives of the gangster and his cohorts and puts into context his ultimate decline into a semi-vagrant who made drunken calls to Howard Stern’s radio show before dying of heart disease in 2012.

You can also dig up a Biography Channel Mobsters episode about Henry Hill, a Penthouse interview with Karen Hill from June 1991, and a few other sources that help separate Goodfellas myth from reality.

Consider the following 10 statements and whether or not they have a hoof to stand on.

1

Henry Hill's father hated that his son worked for the mafiosi at a cab stand in Brooklyn.

goodfellas-cab-stand

Veracity: Will hold up in court

The real Henry Hill Sr. realized the cab stand guys were reprobate criminals, beat his son for skipping school, and wanted no part of the money earned from the mob job. “My father wouldn’t open a gift if Henry gave it to him,” Lucille Chrisafulle, Henry Jr.’s older sister, said on Mobsters.

2

Henry and Karen Hill had a love-hate relationship.

Veracity: Sustained.

“She made me feel great,” Henry Hill told Mobsters. “The chemistry was there. It was instant love.” He and Karen shared some good times even after entering the Witness Security Program, like the night they clinked wineglasses to toast Henry’s six-figure Wiseguy deal, according to On the Run: A Mafia Childhood by Gregg and Gina Hill (Warner Books, 2004). “They were either madly in love or fighting terrible,” said Chrisafulle. “And believe me, she gave as good as she got.”

3

Henry Hill converted to Judaism.

Veracity: Unanimously agreed upon.

That yarmulke Henry wears in Goodfellas‘ wedding scene wasn’t just window dressing. To please Karen Fried Hill’s family — particularly her orthodox grandmother — the Irish and Italian hood took rabbinical instruction and yes, underwent circumcision, multiple sources confirm. Henry’s Jewishness came in handy during prison terms because he got access to kosher food and time off for religious retreats. Hill’s mafia buddies never really busted his, well, you know, about converting to Judaism, according to the Goodfellas “Cop and Crook” DVD, which features commentary from the ex-gangster himself and Assistant U.S. Attorney Ed McDonald.

4

The Hills have two adoring daughters.

goodfellas-daughters

Veracity: Will fold under questioning.

Karen and Henry Hill actually had one daughter and one disapproving son. As a child, Gregg resented having to stash his dad’s triple-beam drug-weighing balance in his bedroom and sharing the family kitchen with garbage bags full of marijuana, according to On the Run. He envied his friends whose dads had boring 9-5 jobs. Gregg rebelled by being a straight arrow who got all As in school. Later, as Henry became physically abusive toward Karen, Gregg intervened by attacking him with a mace.

On the other hand, his sister, Gina, worshiped the father who called her Princess and sneaked a horse into the Witness Security Program because she dreamed of owning one. But even she had to take some steps away from him as his drug-fueled craziness escalated.

5

Except for his stint in a federal prison, Henry Hill always had lots of cash to throw around in his gangster days.

Veracity: Slippery as Morrie’s toupee.

Even during his heyday as a star earner for capo Paul Vario (called Paul Cicero in the film), Henry Hill had dry periods between hijacking loads of toaster ovens and Italian knit sweaters. Henry would sometimes borrow the cash his little son made from his busboy job and never pay him back, according to On the Run. And finances forced him to move his family in with his emasculating mother-in-law a number of times.

6

Tommy (as played by Joe Pesci) was short and middle-aged.

ontherun_pic10
Tommy DeSimone, the real life mobster that Joe Pesci portrayed in Goodfellas. Photo: NY Post

Veracity:Counterfeit as Janice’s new antique lamp.

The real Tommy DeSimone was young and tall with curly black hair. Henry described him as “drop-dead handsome” in “Cook and Cop.” You can see his picture above, and On the Run notes his “boxer’s build.” (But according to all sources, he really was a psychopath who murdered with glee, and Karen Hill told Penthouse that he tried to rape her while Henry was in prison.)

7

Tommy murdered Billy Batts (Frank Vincent) because he embarrassed him publicly about polishing shoes as a kid.

goodfellas-billy-batts

Veracity: Sturdy as Paulie’s bulldog.

At his welcome home from prison party, Billy Batts really did enrage Tommy by ribbing him about his buffing and shining days. When Hill and his associates opened up the trunk with the bludgeoned but living Batts, he pleaded “Henry, Henry” for help, Hill recalled on “Cop and Crook.” Hill added that Jimmy Conway (who used the surname Burke in real life) was especially happy to be rid of Batts since his return from jail threatened Jimmy’s loan shark operations.

8

Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) was known for his gentlemanly ways and charisma.

GOODFELLAS, Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, 1990, (c) Warner Brothers/courtesy Everett Collection
Photo: Everett Collection

Veracity: A judge would affirm.

Despite his occasional habit of wrapping phone cords around the necks of people who frustrated him (like a maitre d’ who took too long to seat his party, according to On the Run), Henry’s kids recall him as a kind uncle who offered Gina moral support when she went into Weight Watchers. “He had the gift of gab,” Henry Hill said on “Cook and Cop.” McDonald, who helped to prosecute Conway, remembered Conway for greeting him warmly in court and having enough charisma to be “mayor of New York.” “And he would have killed you in a minute if he had the chance,” Hill replied.

9

Henry, in his youth, was handsome and magnetic.

Henry-Hill-mugshot
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Veracity: Totally legit.

“Ray Liotta was the Henry I had fallen madly in love with — good looking, well-dressed immaculately clean,” Karen Hill told Penthouse after seeing Goodfellas. “He would light up a room when he came in.” Their son said Henry could sit on a barstool anyplace in America and make friends within seconds. “I enjoy talking to him,” McDonald told Mobsters. “I get a kick out of him. He’s funny. There’s part of him that’s cunning and looking to take advantage of you, but at the same time, he’s a warm and charming person, and that’s genuine.”

10

Except for one drug bust, Henry Hill cleaned up his act and engaged in lawful entrepreneurship once his family entered the Witness Security Program.

"GoodFellas" Special Edition DVD Release
Henry Hill and Ray Liotta during "GoodFellas" Special Edition DVD Release at Matteo's Italian Restaurant in Los Angeles, California, United States. Photo: WireImage

Veracity: Phony as the books at a mobbed-up restaurant.

Hill’s name was about the only thing that changed once he went into Wit Sec. After the U.S. Marshalls settled the Hills into a hotel room on their first night in the program in 1980, Henry went downstairs to the bar and picked up a woman, according to his haphazardly written autobiography Gangsters and Goodfellas (M. Evans & Company, 2007), which offers up such TMI as his girlfriend’s bra size. He continued selling and using cocaine and other drugs, found sleazy new buddies wherever Wit Sec moved the Hills (Nebraska, Kentucky, and finally Washington state), and needed Karen to bail him out of jail countless times for petty drunken crimes. The family had to take in a boarder to make ends meet. The feds kicked him out of Wit Sec in 1982 for violating too many rules, like calling his old business associates back in New York and revealing his identity to impress barflies. Oh, and there was also his wagering problem, including the time he gambled away his daughter’s gold Pegasus necklace — and her real horse as well.


If after all this, Henry Hill still seems like a guy we’d like to chat up over anisette, it’s understandable. Even his son admitted that the guy made a killer pasta sauce.

Rebecca Reisner is a New York City writer and editor with a blog about Forensic Files and other true-crime entertainment.