Goodfellas is based on true stories and real-life gangsters, but the names of many of them were changed, leaving the audience confused as to which characters are based on real people and which are not. The character of Morrie Kessler (Chuck Low) is among those that the audience wonders if he was based on a real person or not, and here’s the story behind the character. The gangster genre is very popular with the audience, and one of the most important names in this realm is Martin Scorsese, who has made a couple of gangster movies but the one that continues to be regarded as his best is Goodfellas.
Based on the book Wiseguy, by Nicholas Pileggi, and released in 1990, Goodfellas chronicles the life of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), from his days as a teenager fascinated by the mafia presence in his neighborhood and running errands for Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino) and his crew, to his full involvement with the Lucchese crime family and his decision to become an FBI informant years later. During his time in the mob, Henry became acquainted with various big names, as were Jimmy “The Gent” Conway (Robert De Niro) and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), and one of the crew’s associates who plays an important role in the arcs of these three characters is Morrie Kessler, the owner of a wig shop and who had some unfinished businesses with Jimmy Conway.
The conflict between Morrie and Jimmy is one of the most important subplots in Goodfellas, as he owed Jimmy money and the latter was not going to let him get away with that. Morrie was also key in planning the Lufthansa heist, as he got the tip about it and let the crew know. Because of his involvement in planning the heist, he asked Jimmy for a big cut of the money, but that didn’t sit well with Jimmy. Morrie insisted a bit too much on getting that money, and Jimmy ended up getting him killed. Like many other associates of the Lucchese family depicted in Goodfellas, Morrie was based on a real-life gangster, though not one as prominent as Hill, Conway, and DeVito.
Goodfellas’ Morrie Kessler was based on Martin Krugman, an associate of Jimmy Burke (Conway in Goodfellas) and Hill and who just like Morrie owned a wig shop and men’s hair salon in Queens. Very much like his fictional counterpart, Krugman was the first to tip off Hill and through him Burke about the potential for a major heist at the Lufthansa terminal and was part of the crew involved in the heist. Now, due to the recklessness of some members of the Lufthansa team, most notably Parnell “Stacks” Edwards (played by Samuel L. Jackson), Burke grew paranoid that one of them would rat them out, so he decided to kill anyone who could be a threat, starting with Edwards (who forgot to dispose of the van they used, thus pointing authorities to Burke and company). Krugman grew nervous and angry as he demanded his $500,000 cut from the robbery, which only made Burke think that Krugman could easily inform the FBI, and so he got him killed.
Henry Hill claimed that Krugman’s remains (as he was dismembered by Burke and Angelo Sepe) were buried in the club Robert’s Lounge, along with those of a friend of Burke and Michael “Spider” Gianco (played by Michael Imperioli), but his body was never found. Morrie’s murder in Goodfellas is one of the moments that best exemplifies how dangerous Jimmy Conway was, and how far he could go in order to keep the authorities away from him as his crew.