Henry Hill, who inspired Martin Scorsese’s incredible 1990 gangster film “Goodfellas”, has died at the age of 69.
“His heart just stopped. He had been sick for a long time,” Nate Caserta, Hill’s fiance’s son, confirmed to ABC News.
Caserta wrote in remembrance of Henry Hill on his Facebook page, saying:
“RIP Henry “GoodFella” Hill. I love you. You will never be forgotten.
I will never be the same. I lost someone I cared about a lot. Someone who loved my family and helped me a lot with life. You truly lived a life no one could live. You touched so many peoples lifes. Your spirit lives forever with me.
Adding ,
” It breaks my heart knowing I will never get to talk to him again.”
Henry Hill was closely associated with New York’s notorious Lucchese crime family throughout the 1960’s where he began running errands for crime boss Paul Vario at age 11 in the Brooklyn area of New York. He then spent the next 20 years living a life of crime until an arrest in 1980 on drug trafficking charges that led him to become an FBI informant.
Hill spoke with Good Morning America in 2004 regarding his lifestyle as a mobster, saying that “It’s an intoxicating lifestyle that sucks you in. Then you get too scared, and too in love with the money, to leave,” adding that,
“All people do is fear you – and that’s intoxicating. It’s a strange lifestyle.”
Hill was inducted into the Museum of the American Gangster in New York City two years ago and will forever be an iconic name in the history of American Gangsters.
The film “Goodfellas”, directed by Martin Scorsese, was nominated for six Academy Awards for it’s portrayal of the life of the famed mobster.
What do you think about the life of Henry Hill?
