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Wiseguy (book)
''Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family'' is a 1985 non-fiction book by crime reporter Nicholas Pileggi that chronicles the life of Henry Hill, a Mafia associate turned informant. The book is the basis for the 1990 Oscar–winning film '' Goodfellas'' directed by Martin Scorsese. Summary Henry Hill began his life of crime at age 11 in 1955, by working as a go-fer for Paul Vario, the local boss of Hill's working-class Irish/Italian neighborhood. Vario quickly "promoted" Hill to selling loose cigarettes and other stolen goods on his behalf. In 1959, Hill was arrested for the first time for using stolen credit cards. Hill refused to cooperate with the police, earning the respect of Vario and Vario's close associate, hijacker and fence Jimmy Burke. In 1960, when Hill was 17, he enlisted in the United States Army, to the surprise of his peers. When questioned about his decision by Vario, Hill explained that he wanted to please his father, who disapproved of his son's association with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Pileggi
Nicholas Pileggi (, ; born February 22, 1933) is an American author and screenwriter. He wrote the 1985 non-fiction book ''Wiseguy (book), Wiseguy'' and co-wrote the screenplay for ''Goodfellas'', its 1990 film adaptation, for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Early life Pileggi was born and raised in Brooklyn, the elder son of an Italian immigrant father, Nicola ("Nick") Pileggi from Calabria, a musician who played slide trombone in a cinema orchestra for silent films and subsequently also owned shoe stores, and an American-born mother, Susie. In the 1950s, he worked as a journalist for Associated Press and ''New York (magazine), New York'' magazine, specializing in crime reporting for more than three decades. Career Pileggi began his career as a journalist and had a profound interest in Italian-American Mafia, the Mafia. He is best known for writing ''Wiseguy (book), Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family'' (1985), which he adapted in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of the longest-running newspapers in the United States, the ''Times'' serves as one of the country's Newspaper of record, newspapers of record. , ''The New York Times'' had 9.13 million total and 8.83 million online subscribers, both by significant margins the List of newspapers in the United States, highest numbers for any newspaper in the United States; the total also included 296,330 print subscribers, making the ''Times'' the second-largest newspaper by print circulation in the United States, following ''The Wall Street Journal'', also based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' is published by the New York Times Company; since 1896, the company has been chaired by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, whose current chairman and the paper's publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Bentvena
William "Billy Batts" Bentvena (February 22, 1933 – June 11, 1970), also known as William Devino, was an American mobster with the Gambino crime family who was a longtime friend of John Gotti in the 1960s. After spending six years in prison for narcotics trafficking, Bentvena was murdered by Lucchese crime family associate Tommy DeSimone, with the help of fellow Lucchese associates James Burke and Henry Hill. Life Born in Manhattan as the second child out of four to a first generation Sicilian Italian-American father and an Irish immigrant mother on February 22, 1933, little is known about Bentvena's early life other than that he grew up in the same area in Brooklyn as DeSimone and Hill. By 1940, Bentvena and his family had moved to the Arverne, Queens. In September 1958, Bentvena married Queens-born Patricia McGovern in Union City, New Jersey. In 1959, Bentvena became an associate with the Gambino crime family and in 1961 became a full member. Bentvena was a protégé stre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elopement (marriage)
Elopement is a marriage which is conducted in a sudden and secretive fashion, sometimes involving a hurried flight away from one's place of residence together with one's beloved with the intention of getting married without parental approval. An elopement is contrasted with an abduction (e.g., a bride kidnapping), in which either the bride or groom has not consented,Ayres, Barbara "Bride Theft and Raiding for Wives in Cross-Cultural Perspective,” Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 3, Kidnapping and Elopement as Alternative Systems of Marriage (Special Issue) (July 1974), p. 245 or a shotgun wedding in which the parents of one (prototypically the bride's) coerce both into marriage. Controversially, in modern times, ''elopement'' is sometimes applied to any small, inexpensive wedding, even when it is performed with parental foreknowledge. The term ''elopement'' is sometimes used in its original, more general sense of escape or flight, e.g. an escape from a psychiatric in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Five Towns
The Five Towns is an informal grouping of villages and hamlets in Nassau County, United States on the South Shore of western Long Island adjoining the border with Queens County in New York City. Although there is no official Five Towns designation, "the basic five are Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere, Hewlett and Inwood." Barron, James"If You're Thinking Of Living In: Five Towns" ''The New York Times'', July 10, 1983. Accessed March 24, 2022. "The basic five are Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere, Hewlett and Inwood. But the area also includes some unincorporated communities and two tiny villages, Hewlett Bay Park and Woodsburgh, that are not added to the final total." Each of these "towns" has a consecutive stop on the Far Rockaway Branch of the Long Island Rail Road. All five communities are part of the Town of Hempstead. Woodmere is the largest and most populous community in the Five Towns, while Inwood is the second largest community in the Five Towns. The area also includes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jews
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly interrelated, as Judaism is their ethnic religion, though it is not practiced by all ethnic Jews. Despite this, religious Jews regard Gerim, converts to Judaism as members of the Jewish nation, pursuant to the Conversion to Judaism, long-standing conversion process. The Israelites emerged from the pre-existing Canaanite peoples to establish Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), Israel and Kingdom of Judah, Judah in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age.John Day (Old Testament scholar), John Day (2005), ''In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel'', Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 47.5 [48] 'In this sense, the emergence of ancient Israel is viewed not as the cause of the demise of Canaanite culture but as its upshot'. Originally, J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karen Friedman Hill
Karen B. Friedman Hill (; born January 16, 1946) is an American woman known for her involvement in the American Mafia through her husband Henry Hill, who was an associate of the Lucchese crime family. The events of their lives were chronicled in the 1990 film ''Goodfellas'' and several books. Early life She was born in New York City and raised on Long Island in Lawrence, Nassau County, New York, part of the Five Towns, the daughter of Jewish parents. In 1965, Karen Friedman met Henry Hill through Paul Vario, who insisted that Hill accompany his son on a double date at Frank "Frankie the Wop" Manzo's restaurant, Villa Capra. According to Friedman, the date was disastrous, and Hill stood her up at the next dinner date. Afterwards, the two began going on dates at the Copacabana (nightclub), Copacabana and other nightclubs, where Friedman was introduced to Hill's outwardly impressive lifestyle. The two later got married in a large North Carolina wedding, attended by most of Henry H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas DeSimone
Thomas James DeSimone (June 6, 1946 – disappeared January 14, 1979) was an American criminal associated with New York City's Lucchese crime family who is alleged to have participated in both the Air France robbery and the Lufthansa heist. He also committed numerous murders, including killing William "Billy Batts" Bentvena in 1970. DeSimone went missing in 1979 and is believed to have been murdered. DeSimone's career in the Lucchese family is explored in the book '' Wiseguy'' by Nicholas Pileggi, and inspired the character of Tommy DeVito, portrayed by Joe Pesci, one of the main characters of the 1990 film '' Goodfellas''. Early life DeSimone was born in New York City, in the South Ozone Park area in the borough of Queens, on June 6, 1946. The youngest of eight children born to Robert Anthony DeSimone and Camilla Passerelli. He had four elder sisters and three elder brothers. Despite the incorrect fact that there was a belief that two of his brothers were associates of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive with a respective county. The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the United States by both population and urban area. New York is a global center of finance and commerce, culture, technology, entertainment and media, academics, and scientific output, the arts and fashion, and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations, international diplomacy. With an estimated population in 2024 of 8,478,072 distributed over , the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York City has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Carolina
North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the southwest, and Tennessee to the west. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th-largest and List of U.S. states and territories by population, 9th-most populous of the List of states and territories of the United States, United States. Along with South Carolina, it makes up the Carolinas region of the East Coast of the United States, East Coast. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the state had a population of 10,439,388. Raleigh, North Carolina, Raleigh is the state's List of capitals in the United States, capital and Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte is its List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous and one of the fastest growing cities in the United States. The Charl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fort Bragg
Fort Bragg (formerly Fort Liberty from 2023–2025) is a United States Army, U.S. Army Military base, military installation located in North Carolina. It ranks among the largest military bases in the world by population, with more than 52,000 military personnel. Covering more than , Fort Bragg is home to the Army's XVIII Airborne Corps and serves as the headquarters of the United States Army Special Operations Command, U.S. Army Special Operations Command, which oversees the 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne) and the 75th Ranger Regiment (United States), 75th Ranger Regiment. Additionally, it hosts the 82nd Airborne Division, U.S. Army Forces Command, U.S. Army Reserve Command, and Womack Army Medical Center. Fort Bragg also operates two airfields: Pope Field, where the United States Air Force, U.S. Air Force stations global airlift and special operations units, as well as the United States Air Force Combat Control Team, Air Force Combat Control School, and Simmons Army Airf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United States Constitution (1789).See alsTitle 10, Subtitle B, Chapter 301, Section 3001 It operates under the authority, direction, and control of the United States Secretary of Defense, United States secretary of defense. It is one of the six armed forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. The Army is the most senior branch in order of precedence amongst the armed services. It has its roots in the Continental Army, formed on 14 June 1775 to fight against the British for independence during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784 to replace the disbanded Continental Army.Library of CongressJournals ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
