98 Fun Facts About Goodfellas

Goodfellas is adapted from which 1985 nonfiction book by Nicholas Pileggi?

Wiseguy reached Scorsese while he was making The Color of Money; he cold-called Pileggi to say he had waited his whole life for this book, and Pileggi said he had waited for that call.

Which actor plays Henry Hill, the narrator of Goodfellas?

Ray Liotta was not the studio's choice: Warner Bros. kept asking for a bigger name, but his turn in Jonathan Demme's Something Wild had already won over Scorsese.

Which cast member won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Goodfellas?

Joe Pesci's Oscar was the film's only win of the night: it lost Best Picture, and its director, its screenplay and its editor all went home empty-handed.

Robert De Niro plays which character in Goodfellas?

Jimmy Conway was De Niro's own idea: reading the book, he rang Scorsese and proposed himself, which gave the studio the star it wanted and Scorsese the money to shoot.

In Goodfellas, Henry's opening narration begins "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a" what?

A gangster: the line lands on a freeze-frame of Henry slamming a car trunk on a dying man, and he adds that the life beat being President of the United States.

In Goodfellas' prison dinner scene, what does Paulie use to slice garlic so thin it melts in the pan?

A razor blade is Paulie's 'wonderful system' behind bars: Henry says the garlic came out so thin that it would liquefy in the pan with just a little oil.

Who plays Karen Hill, Henry's wife, in Goodfellas?

Lorraine Bracco chose not to meet the real Karen, wanting the creation to come from her, and drew instead on her own girlhood in a Jewish neighborhood.

Who plays Paulie Cicero, the crew's capo, in Goodfellas?

Paul Sorvino says half of the scene in which Paulie orders Henry back to his wife was made up on the day, including his own line, 'We're not animali.'

In Goodfellas, the crew's 1978 robbery raids the JFK Airport vault of which airline?

Lufthansa lost about $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewels, then the biggest cash robbery in American history, and none of it has ever been recovered.

In Goodfellas, Henry and Tommy's first major score, in 1967, robs the cargo terminal of which airline?

Air France lost $420,000 without a shot fired: the real robbers had a copy of the strong-room key, and simply walked in with the largest empty suitcase they could find.

Which song plays over the long tracking shot as Henry leads Karen into the Copacabana in Goodfellas?

Then He Kissed Me, the Crystals' hit, carries the couple in by the back way, through the kitchen, to a table that is flown in and set down for them right at the front.

What does Henry keep spotting on his tail through his last day as a free man in Goodfellas?

A helicopter shadows him all day as he delivers guns, moves cocaine and keeps the Sunday sauce stirred, and that night he is arrested in his own driveway.

What does Paulie hand Henry before turning his back on him in Goodfellas?

Some cash, $3,200 in all, ends their years together; Paulie had warned him off drugs, and Henry calls the sum not even enough to pay for the coffin.

Which future Sopranos star plays Spider, the card-game bartender Tommy shoots in Goodfellas?

Michael Imperioli doubts he would have been cast in The Sopranos without this small part, and he went on to write five of that show's episodes himself.

Who plays Billy Batts, the made man Tommy beats in Henry's club in Goodfellas?

Frank Vincent spent the early 1970s in a comedy double act with the very actor who stomps him here, and in Scorsese's Casino the beating goes the other way.

In Goodfellas, Billy Batts taunts Tommy by telling him to go home and get his what?

Shine box is a dig at Tommy's boyhood trade; the real jibe was to ask whether he still shined shoes, and two weeks later the man who made it was dead.

Which future Pulp Fiction star plays Stacks Edwards, who fails to get rid of the getaway van in Goodfellas?

Samuel L. Jackson's Stacks pays with his life, as the real Parnell Edwards did: he left the van by a fire hydrant at his girlfriend's place, and police found it two days later.

Martin Scorsese's own mother, Catherine, appears in Goodfellas as which character?

Tommy's mother feeds the three men a late-night meal with a body in their trunk; the director's father is in the film too, as the prisoner told to go easy on the onions.

Which song plays over the montage of murdered crew members being found after the airport robbery in Goodfellas?

Layla, or rather its piano coda: Scorsese planned the sequence around it and had it playing on set so that the staging could be timed to the music.

Whose version of "My Way" plays over the end credits of Goodfellas?

Sid Vicious, not Sinatra: the film's co-writer says the whiny, ironic punk cover suits a man who did it his way and watched his dreams end in disaster.

In his final narration in Goodfellas, Henry says he gets to live the rest of his life like a what?

Schnook is his word for life in witness protection: 'I'm an average nobody,' he says, having ordered spaghetti with marinara sauce and been served egg noodles and ketchup.

Who earned an Oscar nomination for editing Goodfellas?

Thelma Schoonmaker, who has cut every Scorsese film since Raging Bull, built Henry's frantic final day with him to rattle the audience, and at previews it did.

Which film beat Goodfellas to Best Picture at the 63rd Academy Awards?

Dances with Wolves, Kevin Costner's first film as a director, also beat Scorsese to Best Director, a prize he would not win until The Departed sixteen years later.

What was the Best Supporting Actor winner's entire acceptance speech for Goodfellas?

It remains one of the shortest speeches in Oscar history; he was off the stage in seconds.

At the 1990 Venice Film Festival, Goodfellas earned Scorsese which prize?

The Silver Lion is Venice's award for best director; the festival's top prize that year went instead to Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.

As a boy in Goodfellas, Henry gets his start with the mob working where, just across the street from home?

A cabstand was the local mobsters' hangout, and Henry's after-school job there soon replaced school itself: a letter home says he has not been to class in months.

After Henry beats up her neighbor in Goodfellas, what does he hand Karen to hide?

A pistol, still in his hand from the beating; Karen hides it in the milk box and admits that where her friends would have run, it turned her on.

Which performer spoiled a take of the Copacabana tracking shot in Goodfellas by forgetting his own line?

Henny Youngman blanked on 'Take my wife...', a joke he had told thousands of times, just as the long unbroken walk reached him, so it all had to be done again.

What does Morrie sell in his own TV commercial in Goodfellas?

Wigs 'tested against hurricane winds', he promises; the real Morrie did own a wig shop in Queens, and it was his tip that set up the crew's big airport robbery.

The "funny how?" scene in Goodfellas grew out of a real incident from Joe Pesci's days in which job?

Waiter: a young Pesci told a mobster he was funny, meaning it kindly, and it went down badly; he told the story at rehearsal and the scene was improvised from it.

What was the only scripted line in Goodfellas' improvised late-night dinner scene?

"Did Tommy tell you about my painting?" is in the screenplay; everything else at that table, down to the business about a deer's hoof, came from the actors on the day.

Which singer sends champagne over to Henry and Karen's table at the Copacabana in Goodfellas?

Bobby Vinton sends the bottle, and Karen says she saw nothing strange in it, though her date was a twenty-one-year-old with remarkable connections.

How many frames of blood did Scorsese have to cut from Goodfellas to secure an R rating?

10 frames, less than half a second of film, was all that had to go; Scorsese had wanted the violence to feel 'cold, unfeeling and horrible. Almost incidental.'

What became of Thomas DeSimone, the real mobster behind Tommy in Goodfellas?

He vanished without a trace in January 1979, presumed murdered for killing a made man without permission, and he is still officially listed as missing.

James Burke, the real hijacker behind a lead character in Goodfellas, went by which nickname?

Jimmy the Gent kept his nickname on screen; in life he was never convicted of the great airport robbery he planned, and died in prison in 1996 for other crimes.

Which Goodfellas character is played by the real man himself?

The prosecutor is the real Edward McDonald, who offered to play himself while his office was being photographed for the set and then made up his 'babe in the woods' line on the spot.

What rule governed Scorsese's choice of songs for Goodfellas?

Nothing newer than the scene: each sequence uses only music from its own period or earlier, and with no composed score the songs do all the commenting.

What cost the real Henry Hill his witness protection?

New crimes: convicted of cocaine trafficking in Seattle in 1987 and arrested again for drugs, he was dropped from the program that his testimony against his old crew had earned him.

Which Steve Martin comedy, released a month before Goodfellas, was also based on Henry Hill's life?

My Blue Heaven was written by Nora Ephron, wife of Goodfellas co-writer Nicholas Pileggi, and much of the research for both films came from the same sessions with Hill.

James Burke's 1982 conviction, secured by Henry Hill's testimony, was for fixing basketball games at which school?

Boston College's games were rigged in a point-shaving scheme Henry Hill had helped set up himself; his testimony about it then put his old partner away for twelve years.

The actor cast as Henry in Goodfellas said the studio would rather have had which star in the role?

Eddie Murphy is the name he recalls the studio floating while he waited months for an answer; Scorsese wanted him badly, and in the end got his way.

Which pop star was considered for the role of Karen Hill in Goodfellas?

Madonna was in the mix: Scorsese and his producer went to see her on Broadway in the play Speed-the-Plow, and he said hello to her afterwards.

The actor who plays Billy Batts in Goodfellas later played which New York boss on The Sopranos?

Phil Leotardo is the main antagonist of the final season of The Sopranos, a long way from Billy Batts, who is finished off in a car trunk before the opening title.

Frank DiLeo, who plays Paulie's brother Tuddy in Goodfellas, was better known as the manager of which pop star?

Michael Jackson had him as manager through the Bad years, and even named the villain of his film Moonwalker, Frankie Lideo, as a play on his name.

Tommy's surname in Goodfellas was borrowed from a friend of Joe Pesci who played guitar in which band?

The Four Seasons owed the actor more than a name: as a teenager he introduced songwriter Bob Gaudio to the group, which is how its classic line-up came together.

Tommy firing his gun straight into the camera at the end of Goodfellas is Scorsese's nod to which early film?

The Great Train Robbery of 1903 has an outlaw fire straight at the audience, and Scorsese said his own plot was much the same story 90 years later.

In Goodfellas, Jimmy's two great lessons are never rat on your friends and what else?

'Always keep your mouth shut' is his graduation speech after young Henry's first arrest, and it is exactly the rule Henry breaks when he testifies against him.

Before killing Spider in Goodfellas, where does Tommy first shoot him during an earlier card game?

In the foot: Spider turns up at the next game with a bandage Tommy calls bigger than his head, finally answers him back, and is shot dead for it.

In his closing Goodfellas narration, Henry grumbles that his spaghetti with marinara came as egg noodles and what?

Ketchup on egg noodles is Henry's idea of purgatory in witness protection. Co-writer Nicholas Pileggi called it the film's irony: Henry ends up as the ordinary man he joined the mob to avoid being.

The actor who plays the hot-tempered Tommy in Goodfellas turned up in which hit family comedy later that same year?

Home Alone opened two months after Goodfellas, with the same actor as a bungling burglar outwitted by an eight-year-old. Audiences met his most frightening criminal and his silliest in a single autumn.

Frank Sivero, who plays Frankie Carbone in Goodfellas, sued which animated series over a mobster he said copied him?

The Simpsons was hit with Sivero's $250 million lawsuit in 2014. He claimed its writers had lived next door to him in 1989 and modelled the Springfield mobster Louie on his Carbone.

Goodfellas opens with Henry, Jimmy and Tommy stopping their car at night because of banging coming from where?

The trunk holds a blood-soaked man they thought they had already killed. Scorsese starts mid-story with this roadside scene, then jumps back fifteen years to Henry's boyhood.

A year before playing Henry Hill in Goodfellas, the film's lead played which baseball ghost in Field of Dreams?

Shoeless Joe, the disgraced White Sox star, walks out of an Iowa cornfield in the 1989 fantasy. A year later the same actor was a paranoid, cocaine-dealing mobster.

The actress who plays Karen Hill in Goodfellas later spent years playing which character opposite Tony Soprano?

Dr. Melfi, the mob boss's psychiatrist, was her own choice. The show's creator wanted her to read for Carmela, but she wanted something different and thought the educated therapist the greater challenge.

Which showy purchase by Johnny Roastbeef enrages Jimmy at the Christmas party after the airport heist in Goodfellas?

A pink Cadillac is parked right outside the bar for Jimmy to see. He had told the crew to buy nothing flashy, and the man playing Johnny was a Harlem deli owner who had never acted.

Why can Henry and Jimmy never become made men in Goodfellas, however much they earn for Paulie's crew?

Their Irish blood rules them out, since only men of wholly Italian descent can be inducted. The rule holds however much a man earns, which leaves the pair as lifelong associates of the family, never members.

On the American Film Institute's 2008 list of the ten greatest mob movies, Goodfellas ranked second behind which film?

The Godfather took first place when the AFI polled more than 1,500 film people, with Goodfellas right behind it. Even the winner's celebrated sequel placed below Scorsese's film, in third.

Which forgotten item does the drug courier Lois insist on going home for before her flight in Goodfellas?

Her lucky hat costs Henry everything: narcotics agents surround the car as they set off to fetch it. She had also ignored his order never to phone from the house.

As a teenager in Goodfellas, Henry wins the crew's applause after his first arrest, for selling stolen what?

Cigarettes got young Henry arrested, and the whole crew cheered him outside court because he had kept silent. The real Hill's first arrest involved a stolen credit card and a set of snow tires.

When Karen asks what he does for a living in Goodfellas, Henry claims to work in which trade?

Construction is Henry's cover story when Karen grows curious. The real Hill held a no-show bricklayers' union card arranged by the crew, which put him on a builder's payroll as a teenager.

At Henry and Karen's wedding reception in Goodfellas, what do the mob guests hand the bride one after another?

Stuffed envelopes, each full of banknotes, are pressed on Karen by one mobster after another. The reception is her first real look at the crew as a family, and she soon comes to enjoy that sense of belonging.

In Goodfellas, Henry's secret cocaine supply after his release from prison comes from a connection in which city?

Pittsburgh supplied the drugs that Paulie had forbidden Henry to touch. The real Hill made the contact inside Lewisburg penitentiary, where an inmate from the city taught him how to smuggle.

What does Tommy believe he is being driven to on the day he is shot dead in Goodfellas?

His induction ceremony is a sham, and he is shot as he arrives. The promise of promotion was bait: the killing settles the score for a murder Tommy committed nine years earlier.

What do Henry and Tommy finally do to Sonny's restaurant, the Bamboo Lounge, in Goodfellas?

Burn it down is how the crew's bust-out of the place ends. The scenes were shot at the Hawaii Kai, a real restaurant on Broadway in Manhattan.

Goodfellas reunited Scorsese, De Niro and the actor who plays Tommy a decade after which earlier film of theirs?

Raging Bull had cast the two actors as a boxer and the sibling who manages him. In Goodfellas they are partners in crime, and they went on to share the screen for Scorsese twice more.

Scorsese and writer Nicholas Pileggi teamed up again five years after Goodfellas for which Las Vegas mob film?

Casino again grew out of a Pileggi nonfiction book, and again the two men shared the screenplay. Its research began with a newspaper report of a domestic row between a gambling boss and his wife.

Which newspaper critic gave Goodfellas a full four stars and later named it the best mob movie ever?

Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times that no finer film had ever been made about organized crime. He ranked it the best film of 1990 and among the ten best of the decade.

Which Top Gun star reportedly had first refusal on the role of Henry Hill in Goodfellas?

Tom Cruise was offered the first look at the part, and Val Kilmer and Alec Baldwin chased it too. Scorsese held out for a little-known actor he had liked in a Jonathan Demme film.

In 2000 the Library of Congress picked Goodfellas for preservation on which roll of significant American movies?

National Film Registry entry came in 2000, when Goodfellas was just ten years old. The Library of Congress judged it culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.

Which crooner's recording of Rags to Riches plays as Henry's narration begins over the opening credits of Goodfellas?

Tony Bennett's hit kicks in the instant Henry starts to tell his story. Scorsese reportedly knew every song he wanted for Goodfellas three years before he shot a frame.

What became of the millions stolen in the real 1978 JFK heist that drives the second half of Goodfellas?

Never recovered, the haul was then the largest of its kind on American soil. The case stayed open so long that a final suspect was tried, and acquitted, in 2015.

Which faith's rites do Henry and Karen marry under in Goodfellas, before a reception packed with mobsters?

Jewish rites reflect Karen's upbringing in Long Island's Five Towns. The real Karen Friedman met Hill on a double date in 1965 and thought the evening a disaster.

How does Karen wake Henry in Goodfellas after she learns of his affair with Janice Rossi?

Pointing a gun at him, Karen sits astride Henry in bed but cannot fire. The two actors rehearsed this scene more than any other, and the actress later called it very painful to play.

After Henry's father beats him for skipping school in Goodfellas, whom does the crew threaten on the boy's behalf?

The mailman is frightened into never delivering another letter from the school, so word of Henry's truancy stops reaching his parents. From then on the boy works for Paulie's crew full time.

In Goodfellas, Billy Batts, the made man beaten in Henry's club, belongs to which of New York's Five Families?

Gambino membership made Batts untouchable without permission from above, which is why his killers bury him in secret upstate. Henry's own crew answers to a different family, the Lucchese.

In Goodfellas, Henry and Jimmy earn ten-year sentences after roughing up a gambler in which city?

Tampa is where the real pair were convicted of extortion in 1972, after beating a man over a gambling debt owed to a union boss they knew.

The gambler Henry and Jimmy beat over a debt in Goodfellas turns out to have a sister in which job?

FBI typist was the worst job a victim's sister could have had: she reports the beating and both men get ten years. Jimmy is sent to Atlanta, while Henry serves his time alongside Paulie.

Goodfellas co-writer Nicholas Pileggi was married to which filmmaker, who wrote her own comedy inspired by Henry Hill?

Nora Ephron built a 1990 witness-protection comedy from the couple's joint research sessions with Hill. Husband and wife had films about the same informant in cinemas within weeks of each other.

Paulie Cicero in Goodfellas is based on which real Brooklyn capo of the Lucchese family?

Paul Vario ran his crew from a Brooklyn junkyard and a bar in Canarsie. He died in a Texas federal prison in 1988, two years before the film came out, jailed on the testimony of Henry Hill.

The getaway van from the real JFK heist in Goodfellas was meant to be crushed at a junkyard owned by which mobster?

John Gotti's scrapyard never saw the van: the driver left it by a fire hydrant outside his girlfriend's flat, where police found it two days later. Fingerprints inside led them to the crew.

Who was the only person ever convicted over the real 1978 JFK heist dramatized in Goodfellas?

An airport employee, Louis Werner, had tipped off the gang to clear his gambling debts and got fifteen years. The suspected mastermind was never even charged over it.

A publisher's fight to pay Henry Hill for the book behind Goodfellas led the Supreme Court to strike down which statute?

The Son of Sam law let New York seize criminals' earnings from telling their stories. In 1991 the justices ruled that it violated the First Amendment's protection of free speech.

De Niro pushed Scorsese to cast the future Henry Hill of Goodfellas after seeing him in which Jonathan Demme film?

Something Wild surprised Scorsese with the actor's explosive energy. Even so, the unknown had to campaign for about a year before the part was his.

Scorsese first read the book behind Goodfellas while in Chicago shooting which of his 1980s films?

The Color of Money was in production when Scorsese saw a review of the book, read it and cold-called its author. Each man told the other he had been waiting his whole life for this.

Goodfellas gave Scorsese his first co-writing credit since which of his 1970s films?

Mean Streets was the last script to carry his name. He and Nicholas Pileggi went through twelve drafts of Goodfellas and agreed to share the credit.

Which studio released Goodfellas, after insisting that Scorsese test it at preview screenings in California?

Warner Bros. was so shaken by a hostile California preview that it halved the planned release to about 1,000 theaters. Then the reviews arrived and the film opened at number one.

Which designer of the Psycho and Vertigo titles created the opening credits of Goodfellas with his wife Elaine?

Saul Bass timed the titles to the second at Scorsese's request, down to how the director's name zooms in. The couple went on to design the credits of his next three features.

Editing on Goodfellas stopped for two months so the film's editor could be with a dying spouse, which British director?

Michael Powell, director of The Red Shoes, had been a boyhood hero of Scorsese, who helped bring his neglected films back into view. Scorsese closed the cutting room until the editor returned from England.

Scorsese modelled the rapid narration and freeze frames of Goodfellas on the opening of which François Truffaut film?

Jules and Jim opens with a rush of voice-over, quick cuts and leaps between places. Scorsese said he wanted every basic trick of the French New Wave from around 1961.

By Henry Hill's account, the real Billy Batts of Goodfellas was first buried on which kind of property upstate?

A dog kennel owned by a friend of the killers hid the body until the owner sold the land to housing developers. The men then had to dig up the remains, as they do in the film.

When Goodfellas finally reached American network television in 1998, CBS scheduled it against which awards show?

The Emmys were on a rival network that night, and CBS hoped to win the young men who skip trophy shows. Scorsese cut the broadcast version himself and filmed an introduction defending its violence.

Young Henry's Brooklyn street in Goodfellas was actually filmed in which neighborhood of Queens?

Astoria stood in for 1950s East New York, and the Airline Diner seen later in the film was shot there too. Cargo buildings at JFK played themselves in both of the crew's big heists.

The portrait of a bearded man with his dogs seen in Goodfellas was copied from a photograph in which magazine?

National Geographic ran the photograph in November 1978, eight years after the scene is set. The canvas was the work of co-writer Nicholas Pileggi's mother.

Which producer of Goodfellas had already taken home a Best Picture Oscar for Rocky?

Irwin Winkler doubted Scorsese's choice of leading man until the actor walked up to his restaurant table and argued his own case. He rang the director the next morning to say he finally saw it.

Chuck Low, who plays Morrie in Goodfellas, first met his friend Robert De Niro when he was the star's what?

Landlord to the actor in 1980, the businessman made his screen debut at 54 with a bit part in The King of Comedy. He went on playing small parts in De Niro films for another decade.

Louis Eppolito, who plays Fat Andy in Goodfellas, was a real New York detective later convicted of what?

Murders for the Mafia earned him a life sentence. He and his police partner, known as the Mafia Cops, were convicted in 2006 of carrying out killings on behalf of New York crime families.

Tony Lip, a Copacabana maître d' who plays a mobster in Goodfellas, had his own life dramatized in which 2018 film?

Green Book tells how he drove and guarded the pianist Don Shirley on tour in the early 1960s. On screen he usually played mobsters, including a crime boss in The Sopranos.

What did Scorsese do each day on the Goodfellas set for the actor playing Henry Hill, to get one detail right?

Tied his necktie, because the director wanted the knot done a certain way. Collar lengths, shirt shapes and the rings on each finger were policed just as closely, so the mobsters would look exactly right.