As a boy, he grew to admire the local mobsters. The son of an Irish American electrician father and an Italian American mother, Hill was born in Brooklyn on June 11, 1943. “I’ve been on every drug humanly possible, and I can’t get a handle on alcohol,” he told the Associated Press in 2009 after an arrest for a drunken disturbance in St. Hill had a number of run-ins with the law in his later years, including a charge of disturbing the peace in 2003 and charges of possession of cocaine and methamphetamine in 2005.ĭespite attending substance-abuse classes, he continued to struggle with alcohol. “A Goodfella’s Guide to New York” followed in 2003 and “Gangsters and Goodfellas: The Mob, Witness Protection, and Life on the Run,” written with Gus Russo, was published in 2004. Hill also made a few forays into book publishing: “The Wiseguy Cookbook,” a mix of recipes and personal history, was published in 2002. 3: YANKEE CLIPPER: “Baseball-batting the person to death, while taunting.”

It even offered a tongue-in-cheek, David Letterman-style Top 10 list of mob hits, including No. The site included autographed memorabilia, including a signed “GoodFellas” poster and autographed copies of “Wiseguy.” “You want to enter my site?” visitors were asked. Over the years, Hill was in demand as a lecturer and as a commentator on television shows and documentaries examining organized crime - as well as making phone-in appearances on Howard Stern’s radio program. “I was the money man,” said Hill, whose criminal past included the 1967 robbery of $420,000 from the Air France cargo terminal at the Kennedy Airport. Petersburg Times in 2011.Īnd, as the movie portrayed, he said he never whacked anybody. The movie, which also starred Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, “was 99.9 percent dead-on,” Hill told the St. The former mobster’s celebrity profile received an even bigger boost with the release of director Martin Scorsese’s 1990 movie “GoodFellas,” which was based on Pileggi’s book and starred Ray Liotta as Hill. Hill’s criminal career in the mob - it included extortion, truck hijackings, auto theft, illegal gambling, armed robbery and time in prison - was chronicled in journalist Nicholas Pileggi’s bestselling 1987 biography “Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family.” While still in the witness protection program, he was convicted of burglary, assault and three DWIs, according to a 2001 Associated Press story, which said he was tossed from the program in 1987. It was the first of numerous moves to different locations across the country, where Hill lived under a variety of assumed names. (Both died in prison.)Īfter entering the witness protection program, Hill, his wife Karen and their two children were relocated to Omaha. Hill’s testimony on the 1978 heist, murders and other crimes led to about 50 convictions, including those of Burke and Paul Vario, a Lucchese crime family captain.

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