Goodfellas followed Henry Hill’s (Ray Liotta) rise and fall as a mob associate, starting when he ran errands for Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino) and his crew when he was a teenager, along with a young Tommy DeVito, but did the real Henry Hill and Tommy DeSimone work together as teenagers? Based on the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas tells the true story of mob associate Henry Hill, from becoming a close friend of Paulie, Jimmy “The Gent” Conway (Robert De Niro), and Tommy, to cooperating with the FBI as an informant, leading to the arrest of his former friends.
Throughout Goodfellas, Henry is shown working closely with Jimmy and Tommy in a variety of illegal activities, from serving as a fence for Jimmy when Henry was still a teenager to being key in the planning of the Lufthansa heist years later. Henry and Tommy were shown working as a fence for Jimmy, which eventually led to Henry’s first arrest, with Tommy escaping from the police to tell Paulie that Henry had been caught. Henry and Tommy’s friendship continued as they grew up, but their real story was different, as even though they met when they were young, they didn’t exactly work together as teenagers as shown in Goodfellas.
The Real Henry Hill Was Older Than Tommy DeSimone
In Goodfellas, young Henry is instantly fascinated by Jimmy when he saw him arrive at a party where Henry was in charge of food and drinks, and from then on, they worked together. Jimmy introduced him to Tommy, who is shown to be around the same age as Henry, and that was the beginning of a friendship that lasted until Tommy’s mysterious death. This part of Henry’s life isn’t entirely accurate, as even though Henry and Tommy did meet when they were young, Henry was actually seven years older than Tommy.
Tommy was introduced to Paul Vario when he was 15 years old, and by then, Henry was already working for Paulie and his crew. Henry described Tommy in Wiseguy as a “skinny kid who was wearing a wiseguy suit and a pencil mustache”, similar to how young Tommy DeVito is portrayed in Goodfellas (minus the mustache). Tommy also worked under Paul, Jimmy Burke, and Henry, so Henry and Tommy did work together when they were young but not as shown in Goodfellas, though they were involved in truck hijackings, fencing stolen property, and more, just like in the movie.
What Happened To The Real Henry Hill & Tommy DeSimone?
Of Henry’s closest circle in Goodfellas, Tommy was the first one to die. Just like in the movie, the real Tommy was tricked into believing he was going to be made, but he disappeared, and to this day, his remains haven’t been found, and it’s unclear what happened to him and who was responsible for it. There are different theories on what happened to Tommy DeSimone, but it’s generally accepted that his disappearance was in retaliation for the murder of Billy Batts and Ronald Jerothe, both close associates of John Gotti, so it’s believed that Gotti himself could have killed Tommy and even that Paul Vario told the Gambino crew that Tommy killed Batts and Jerothe.
As for Henry, he was expelled from the witness protection program in 1987 after various arrests, and his wife Karen filed for divorce in 1990. After that, Henry wrote books, opened his own restaurant (though it didn’t last long as it closed a month later after a fire), and made various public appearances after the release of Goodfellas. Henry Hill died of complications related to heart disease on June 12, 2012.