Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas is based on Nicholas Pileggi’s nonfiction book Wiseguy, which chronicles the life of Lucchese crime family associate turned FBI-informant, Henry Hill. Unlike the book, the gangster movie features several fictional characters and uses fake names for a few characters based on actual people.
It also cheats on the source material by including several improvised scenes, notably when Joe Pesci’s Tommy makes a fellow mobster sweat by pretending he is offended by his compliment.
So, which mobsters in the Oscar-nominated flick existed in the real world? There are eight confirmed characters, so much so that Scorsese retained their first names while only altering their surnames. There is also speculation about the inspiration for a few other characters, especially those who make quick cameos in the Bamboo lounge scene, but this list will leave them out and only focus on the established ones.
8 Jimmy “The Gent” Conway
Based on Jimmy Burke
“You learn two great things in your life. Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut.” Such is the great advice that Jimmy “The Gent” Conway gives to his protégé, Henry Hill, early in the movie. Unfortunately, Hill later does the opposite thing.
Jimmy is introduced early in the movie as a high-ranking associate of the Lucchese crime family. Because he isn’t of Italian descent, he is denied the honor of becoming a “Made Guy,” yet he is still a key driver of the organization’s money-making schemes.
A Master Planner
No major creative liberties were taken with Jimmy in the movie. He is believed to have planned the 1978 Lufthansa heist, the biggest cash robbery in U.S. history at the time. He does the same thing on screen while serving as a mentor to Hill and Tommy.
Perhaps the only thing that’s missing about him in the film is information about his life after he got a 12-year sentence for his involvement in the 1978–79 Boston College basketball point-shaving scandal. The real Jimmy ended up dying of cancer at the Wende Correctional Facility in New York.
7 Tommy DeVito
Based on Thomas DeSimmeone
Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) is the lord of loose cannons. He is extremely temperamental and has a high appetite for violence. Some of his most shocking actions in the movie include shooting the bartender, Spider, for no reason, and beating the recently-paroled gangster Billy Batts to death for insulting him.
Out of the three principal characters, Tommy is the only one eligible for “Made Guy” status as he is the only one with two Sicilian parents. He keeps dreaming of the day it will happen, only to get killed on what he believes to be his graduation day.
Pesci’s Magic
The screen version of Tommy is best remembered for saying one of the most iconic lines in gangster movies: “Funny how?” Well, the real Tommy never said such a thing. The scene was entirely improvised by actor Joe Pesci. However, he killed Batts as shown in the movie. The scene featuring Spider also happened exactly as shown, according to Henry Hill’s court testimony.
Overall, Tommy is as perfect as a gangster movie character can get. Regrettably, audiences never got to learn much about his earlier years. He got involved with the mob as early as the age of 15 and was involved in yet another major heist, the Air France robbery.
6 Paul “Paulie” Cicero
Based on Paul Vario
“Paulie may have moved slow, but it was only because Paulie didn’t have to move for anybody.“ This is how Henry describes Paulie (Paul Sorvino) via a voiceover early in the movie. The Lucchese crime family capo is depicted as quiet and wise. He rarely uses private phones and enjoys advising mobsters who are going astray. Additionally, he has an onion-cutting talent, enabling him to come up with translucent slices.
Nicer on the Screen
Paulie Cicero never loses his cool in the movie, but according to Wiseguy, Paul Vario is extremely hot-headed and vengeful. He once sent men to assault the staff of an entire restaurant after the maître d’hôtel accidentally poured a drink on his wife’s dress. Perhaps, in Scorsese’s wisdom, it wouldn’t have made sense to have two angry characters (Tommy as the other one) in the movie.
Plenty of information about Paulie also gets cut from the film. For example, he lost a son to a fire incident. Apart from being a capo, he served as a consigliere to the Lucchese crime family boss Carmine Tramunti.
5 Morrie Kessler
Based on Marty Krugman
Henry Hill’s associate, Morrie Kessler owns a wig shop among other businesses. He is heavily in bed with the mob, and he is the one who provides crucial intel about the Lufthansa loot. After the heist, Morre messes himself up by making unreasonable financial demands. This causes Jimmy to become paranoid, believing he might become an informant. Jimmy thus organizes for Morrie to be whacked.
Short end of the Stick
Morrie’s fate mirrors that of Krugman. As the person who came up with the idea, he ought to have been heavily compensated. Still, he can be blamed for not stating his terms clearly early on. Hill’s testimony mentions that Kruger was killed and buried at Robert’s Lounge on Rockaway Boulevard, Queens. However, his body was never found. This particular arc was partially sampled in The Sopranos in a plot where Paulie does the heavy lifting during a heist only to be given a tiny sum.
4 Henry Hill
Based on Henry Hill
Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) is the movie’s key character and narrator. The Irish-American gangster quickly becomes an influential member of the Lucchese crime family after befriending Jimmy. He, too, is denied the opportunity to become a “Made Guy” because he is not Italian. When he gets arrested for narcotics trafficking, he becomes paranoid, believing he will get whacked. Consequently, he turns into an informant and goes into witness protection.
Life after Ratting
Hill did indeed want to be a gangster as early as the age of 11. Goodfellas sufficiently covers the real gangster’s story while making him appear even cooler, thanks to great lines of dialogue, and an incredible performance by Liotta. What the movie leaves out is his fate after he ratted. Hill only stayed in the witness protection program for about seven years.
After that, he was all on his own. Surprisingly, he was never subjected to a revenge-killing, despite providing information that led to the conviction of so many mobsters. The leniency surprised Hill too, but he continued watching over his shoulder. He eventually died of heart disease complications in 2012.
3 Billy Batts
Based on Biilly Bentvana
Billy Batts (Frank Vincent) is a perfect reminder that being a bully never pays. He is introduced as a recently paroled “Made Guy” from the Gambino Crime Family who has a deep loathing for Tommy DeVito. He is especially bothered by the fact that Tommy has risen so fast in the underworld.
During his welcome home party, he insults Tommy by telling him to “go home and get your f****g shine box!” a reference to the Lucchese member’s days as a shoeshiner. This causes Tommy to beat him unconscious before later killing him.
The Real Tommy was Patient
Tommy kills Batts the same night he insults him in Goodfellas. However, the attack happened a fortnight after the insult. Tommy traced Bentvana to a nightclub and after everyone had left, he pistol-whipped him to death. Given Tommy’s personality, the choice to have him kill Batts the same night made sense. After all, immediate retribution is a common trope in gangster movies.
It’s widely presumed that Tommy’s murder of Bentvana is what caused him to work, but there is no confirmation of this. It has been widely speculated that members of the Gambino family never even knew who killed Bentvana. It’s also speculated that John Gotti may have sanctioned a hit on Tommy for the murder of his friend, Jerothe.
2 Karen Hill
Based on Karen Friedman
Henry’s wife, Karen (Lorraine Bracco), experiences the good and the bad side of being a mob wife. She is initially wooed via a fancy dinner date at the Copa Cabana, and after a few weeks of dating, the two have a big wedding. Soon, cracks begin to form in their marriage, with her disgruntlement mainly stemming from his constant absenteeism and his infidelity.
Henry’s View
In Goodfellas, picking a side in the frequent fights between Henry and Karen is easy. The mobster is always shown to be the unreasonable one. But that’s not the entire truth, according to the real Henry. In his 1994 book, Gangsters and Goodfellas, he claims Karen cheated on him with Paulie.
The two were so deeply in love that when Tommy allegedly tried to rape Karen (not shown in the movie), Paulie ratted on him to the Gambino crime family for his involvement in Batts’ death. Whether Henry indeed stated the truth or not is debatable.
1 Stacks Edwards
Based on Parnell Steven Edwards
Way before Samuel L. Jackson became a Hollywood A-lister, he had a minor role as Stacks Edwards in Goodfellas. During the Lufthansa heist, Stacks was tasked with being the designated driver, mainly because he was friendly to the mobsters in the night scene. Instead of dumping the van as instructed, he heads to his girlfriend’s house for merriment. When the van gets discovered by the police, Tommy and Frank visit Frank, and the former shoots him.
Costly Mistake
A&E reports that the real Stacks was a blues singer and credit card fraud expert. Just as narrated in Goodfellas, he was tasked with driving the van and getting rid of it. Compared to other Lufthansa heist participants who appeared on-screen, Stacks wasn’t properly flashed out, which is a shame, considering that the real character had a lot going on in his life. Even so, he still got to be part of one of the most iconic scenes in the movie.
