A Californian with a truly checkered past, Henry Hill is known for having ratted on the Mafia--something not just anyone can get away with doing.
Hill grew up poor in Brooklyn and in his teens fell in with the Lucchese mob. His Irish ancestry kept him from being a "made man." He did Army service as a member of the 82nd Airborne and then returned to New York and an extensive criminal career with the Mob.
Hill was imprisoned for extortion for six years and, having been sprung, differed with his bosses over the matter of selling drugs, which his crime family opposed but he supported and practiced. After being arrested on drug charges, he feared his former associates would have him killed, became a very valuable informant, and in 1980 went into the Witness Protection Program.
He was unable to shake his proclivity for crime, however, and was kicked out of the program sometime after 1990. He then went into the restaurant business in two or three different states.
Americans got to know much more about Hill when the book Wiseguy and the movie Goodfellas dramatized his criminal career. In the movie, he was played to ever-menacing perfection by actor Ray Liotta.
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