Henry Hill, the mafia ‘rat’ immortalised in Scorsese’s Goodfellas has died in LA, aged 69.
Hill was born to an Irish father and Sicilian mother in New York in 1943 and joined the Lucchese crime family, one of the city’s Five Families. He excelled at his chosen profession, hijacking trucks, fixing basketball games, collecting gambling debts, dealing drugs and “breaking heads”.
Goodfellas, based on Nicholas Pileggi’s book “Wiseguy”, details how following the 1978 Lufthansa heist at JFK airport, then the largest cash robbery on US soil, he “turned rat” and sent a string of Mafia figures to jail.
And he got to live out the rest of his life like a schnook.
Goodfellas Inspiration Henry Hill Dies (Telegraph)
(Hat tip: Aaron Macallorum)