Goodfellas gangster Henry Hill dies

HENRY Hill, who went from small-time gangster to big-time celebrity when his life as a mobster-turned-FBI informant became the basis for the Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas, has died at 69.

His girlfriend Lisa Caserta said Hill died of complications from long-time heart problems related to smoking.

An associate in New York's Lucchese crime family, Hill told detailed, disturbing and often hilarious tales of life in the mob that first appeared in the 1986 book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family, by Nicholas Pileggi, a journalist Hill sought out shortly after becoming an informant.

In 1990 the book, adapted for the screen by Pileggi and Scorsese, became the instant classic Goodfellas, starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta as Hill, a young hoodlum who thrives in the Mafia but is eventually forced by drugs to turn on his criminal friends and lead the life of a sad suburbanite.

The film became a pop cultural phenomenon that provided the template for the modern gangster story.

Unlike older Mafia tales, which focused on family and honour, Wiseguy and Goodfellas mostly dwelled on how utterly awesome it was to be in the mob - at least until the life caught up with you.

"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster," Liotta, as Hill, says in the movie. "For us to live any other way was nuts."

Born in Brooklyn to an Irish father and an Italian mother, Hill's life with the mob began at age 11 when he wandered into a taxi stand across the street in 1955 looking for work. He began running errands for the men that soon led to small-time crimes. He was first arrested at age 16 for using a stolen credit card in an attempt to buy tyres for the brother of gang leader Paul Vario, and impressed the gang leaders for refusing to squeal on them.

Far bigger crimes awaited, including the 1967 theft of $US420,000 ($423,323) in cash from the Air France cargo terminal at JFK airport in New York, among the biggest cash heists in history at the time.

And in 1978, Hill had a key role in the theft of $US5.8 million in cash from a Lufthansa Airlines vault, a heist masterminded by Jimmy Burke, the inspiration for De Niro's character in Goodfellas.

But the crew involved in the heist would soon turn on each other, and several would end up dead, leaving Hill paranoid he could be next, he later told Pileggi.

More afraid of his associates than prison, Hill decided he had no choice but to become an informant. He signed an agreement with a Department of Justice task force that would prove more fruitful than anyone imagined.

Hill's testimony did send dozens of men to prison, many for the Lufthansa heist, and he and his wife Karen, played by Lorraine Bracco in the movie, went into hiding together, spending years fearing retribution by a gun to the back of his head from his old colleagues.

In the early 1990s, after more drug arrests, Hill was booted from the witness protection program.

His fears for his life waned as many former associates died, and he led a more public life in later years, appearing in documentaries and becoming a popular call-in guest on Howard Stern's radio show.