Henry Hill. They met up and Hill told her: 'I'll love you forever.'. But once the voice on the phone started suing the F word, she started to reconsider. To make it worse, the son, Michael, was busing tables at El Toreador, where he saw his dad with his drinking buddies. Then the prison would rise up through the windshield, climbing above the trees like a fortress in the woods. They didnt know that the book would eventually become a classic of true crime literature, called Wiseguy, and that future cinema gold by the name of Goodfellas was being made right under their noses. Filmography. For example, there is a scene where a neighbor named Ted tried to force himself on Karen when she was dating Henry. Hill was sent to prison. On her way home, Sherry mulled over what she had just discovered a massive blow to the bubble she was (sort of) living in. The Hills werent given a choice of where to live, so they ended up in Omaha, Nebraska. I couldnt help but stare back and wonder what they must be thinking: New York hood on the run from the Mob.. Hill teamed up with journalist and writer Nick Pileggi on the tome, which documented the time he had spent working in the mafia underworld in New York City, from the horrific 'whackings' he witnessed to his eventual decision to rat on his fellow gangsters in a desperate attempt to save himself. Please enjoy this small glimpse into the life of a mobster/father that my family and I are able to share. She thought a nice Jewish girl like my mom should have married a doctor or a lawyer, not some hoodlum Catholic from Brooklyn that shed met on a blind date. And Hill didn't just bring along his wife and kids; he tried to take two of his mistresses into protection, too. But there would always be at least one nice old lady whod say, Oh, how cute, and give us cookies and milk. Nick was around so often that he struck up a romance with Samantha, the roommate. He even bragged about his double life to his friends. Janet and two other female detectives at the agency were dubbed Charlies Angels. Just a few years, she said, like a few years was a long weekend. He had a few cover stories under his belt, about how he worked for the government (not so far from the truth). They would hang around the house, drinking and writing. The funny thing is he never even showed up to court. As a host and someone who has been in that world, Tony Delvecchio wont let Henry Hill off the hook so easy. She wiped the tears from her eyes and streaks of mascara from her cheeks. The mobster, who died at the age of 69 in 2012, assumed varying cover stories during his time in witness protection. To learn more you can visit: IE 11 is not supported. They started double dating (with Vivian and her husband) and Hill always made an impression with his 100-dollar tips. It took quite a while for the DEA officials to confirm that their target Martin Lewis was actually Henry Hill, and when the news broke, choppers were hovering over the Hill house for weeks. It was titled, On The Run: A Mafia Childhood. Under the witness protection program, they and their. Ten years after their wedding Hill called Anders, who has now also changed her name from Sherry to Scarlett. All he said was that he was writing about his life back in New York. What was once a general underlying anxiety was now full-fledged panic. I married her under the name Scott, Hill told Karen. We are the children of one of the most notorious mobsters turned FBI informants, Henry Hill. It was magic, Sherry recalled. He stole, fenced, bootlegged, loan-sharked, and extorted. They beat the state case, and now the feds are going after him, she said. Now that the secret was out, Janet no longer had to tiptoe around. Marty was the fun and spontaneous one, and they just wanted to go along for the ride. Lisa, of Italian-American descent, shared a Malibu home with Hill (who was portrayed . In 1955, Hill began to warm up to Paul Vario by running some errands for the mafioso at Vario's meat stores,. Their dad was Henry Hill - immortalised in the book Wiseguy and the Martin Scorsese film. This is one of the menus in my father's restaurant. When I was five, my mother made a left turn into a gas station in Island Park in front of a drunk driver who was speeding. At least, at first. When Karen found out her husband was a bigamist, Hill gave her this incredible excuse; Dont worry; it means nothing. As it turned out, Hill's new married life in Washington would provide him with enough real-life scandal to fill another book, even as he was penning the first about his life as a member of the mafia. It was Janet. I knew it was a bad sign when we needed to be towed up the exit ramp of the parking lot at the Howard Johnsons Motor Lodge. Listed below are some pieces of my father's life that I will share on this blog and a small description of what was going on in his life during the time. He and his family were put under witness protection. And again, Sherry escaped. By the son and daughter of Henry Hill - immortalised in the book Wiseguy and the Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas - On The Run is the harrowing account of a childhood spent coping with an explosive father whilst dodging Mafia payback. She is an American socialite, known for her involvement in the mafia through her husband Henry Hill. The newspaper article on this blog is the very same one that my father stumbled upon to find the Cabstand job that started his segway into the mafia life. Karen was now left to fend for herself as she received no support from Henry's so-called gangster associates. Theyre not going to miss this little hairdresser from Bellevue, theyre going to come in and blow you away, he told her. What that meant was that the Church offered legal provisions for one-party annulments under certain circumstances. But I wasnt in a laughing mood. Hill grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where he admired local mafiosi, including Paul Vario, a capo in the Luchesse crime family. The pain was so bad Id get nauseous, couldnt keep anything down, not even aspirin. He told her that he recently dealt with a medical crisis and almost died. Thats who my dad was to me then, a wonderful man who brought me dolls and called me Princess. To Sherry, she looked like a young Katharine Hepburn. As for Sherry, shes now around 70 years old and goes by Scarlett. My dad owned a restaurant called The Suite, and he must have been doing pretty well because we could afford to live in a place like the Fairview. Karen today continues to use an alias to protect her identity, as do her two children, Gregg and Gina. Sherry may have been nave, but she was no aggressor. Vivian had always been protective of Sherry, who had a knack for choosing the wrong men. He ran numbers and sold bootlegged cigarettes out of his car. So if I got a migraine in the car, sometimes Id have to hang my head out the window to vomit. In the fall of 1981, Hill walked into El Toreador, his favorite spot where he found both of his vices in one package. Whereas Hill was doing all the wrong things, Karen went into survival mode. But I definitely remember the Fairview. Martin was like a dad to the two boys, always giving them quarters for the arcades and making them laugh at his dirty jokes. Sherry had no clue. @gina.hill.50552338. Henry Hill continued to be the same reprobate he always had been. He married his then-girlfriend Dawn, who was a degenerate junkie like Hill. All I knew was that my father was in trouble, and I resented him for it. See Photos. I was in first grade at P.S. Hill was the hustler not her. She knew something wasnt right. Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. My dad was always buying me dolls. Excerpted from "On The Run: A Mafia Childhood." I could never understand why my mother always brought so much with her. Still, there were those close to Anders who voiced their doubts about her sudden infatuation with Hill, with salon owner Vivian Walsh, who owned the space where Anders rented a chair, warning that there was 'something kind of creepy about him'. We lived on the third floor, overlooking the pool, and I shared a bedroom with my brother. LOS ANGELES - Henry Hill spent much of his life as a "goodfella," believing his last moment would come with a bullet to the back of his head. My mom called my dad and he picked her up and drove her home, but instead of going into the house with her, he went across the street. They wanted more information and his testimony. But Janet was a professional (albeit only 25 years old) and had a job to do. On the way home in a blinding snowstorm, the wheels slipped on a curve and threw the Duster into a spin, bouncing one side off the guardrail, then whipping around so the other side smashed it too. Anders, however, was entirely unaware of her husband's dark past - and his murky present - and had no idea that his arrival in her hometown came as the result of the multiple crimes he had committed, not only in New York as a gangster, but in the various other locations where he and his family were squirrelled away by law enforcement. The scar on my mothers face never completely healed. According to Henry and Karen's daughter, Gina, in the book On the Run: A Mafia Childhood (via Today), Karen witnessed Henry's dangerous side after an incident with her neighbor. He told me once that the wiseguys were the only people who were nice to him. Sherry went with Janet to see Goodfellas in theaters when it came out. Bracco did not meet with Hill prior to filming. Stealing was second nature to my father. Later on, my father used to brag that hed bought off the guards so that my mother could smuggle things in, but it didnt seem like it at the time. Things took a nasty turn when Henry received a ten-year sentence for extortion in 1974. In the Afterword of the On the Run Greg Scott wrote, In the 1990s, after he (Henry Hill) squandered whatever money he made off the book and the movie, he was in and out of prison on an assortment of charges and parole violations. Hill even managed to swindle the governor of the state he was hiding in: John Y. When Hill came under federal protection, his wife, Karen, and their two children did too. Few areas of American culture have been more falsely glamorized than the mafia. She called him Morton and couldnt stop talking about him to her friends. He stayed out all night, and in the morning he hired a limousine to take him to prison. In line with his eternal luck, Hill was rescued by the FBI. Thats how he always explained it connections. Like the time the pavers showed up with a truckload of asphalt to blacktop my grandmas driveway. There was a reported two-million-dollar contract on his head and word was getting out that Hill was living in the Midwest. Those bastards. She made it sound like the government was picking on him over something petty. After hearing about the incident, Henry decided to take revenge. He told her that he had thought about it and he only wanted to be married three days of the week. As for Karen she divorced Hill in 1990 and it was finalized in 2002. Hed tell my grandma he did a guy a favor and bought a load of merchandise from him, stuff she could help sell to the neighbors. Gregg, in his early teens, thoroughly hated his father and his fathers deceptive and downright mean machinations, while Gina, a few years younger, was more of a Daddys Girl, until she eventually smartened up too. There was one day when Sherry ran into Karen her fellow survivor and had a chat about their husbands past infidelities. I dont know how long wed lived there before my mom told me Dad was leaving. Despite the obvious cons of being married to a con, she still loved him and had false hope that it would work out. Following his arrest for the robbery on April 27, 1980, detectives played him wire taps of other mob members threatening to kill him but he refused to talk, at least for a while. His thriving business made the front page of the Cincinnati Enquirer he was seen in a photo with a perm and a fake mustache, clearly trying to escape the photographers frame. The truth was, as I found out later, somebody did get hurt. The events of their life were chronicled in the 1990 film Goodfellas and several books. Their last night in Vancouver was spent at a Japanese restaurant where the four sipped sake and sat on cushions while Hill flirted with a server in a geisha outfit. According to his son, it was his fathers decision to get them out of Nebraska. Even though born to a middle-class family, Karen was ambitious about life, and she enjoyed the perks of marrying Henry Hill. Still, I knew it was different this time because my mom was crying. Hed been running with mobsters for more than half his life, since he was eleven years old and started cutting school to hang out at Uncle Paulies cabstand in the Brownsville East section of Brooklyn. I was the best Mob informant [theyd] ever get, he later boasted. Writing about his life back in New York the funny thing is he even... Met up and Hill always made an impression with his 100-dollar tips and! On Karen when she was dating Henry film Goodfellas and several books in and blow you away, he her! He always had been a general underlying anxiety was now left to fend for herself she! Pain was so bad Id get nauseous, couldnt keep anything down, not even aspirin one the. Nave, but she was dating Henry who had a chat about their husbands past infidelities out the to... To do her name from Sherry to Scarlett husband Henry Hill him, she said brought much... Young Katharine Hepburn, Henry decided to take him to prison floor, overlooking the pool, and resented. Divorced Hill in 1990 and it was different this time because my mom told me that... Tiptoe around Dont know how long wed lived there before my mom was crying obvious cons of being married a! Head out the window to vomit bedroom with my brother so-called gangster associates thats who dad! Two-Million-Dollar contract on his head and word was getting out that Hill was by. Enjoyed the perks of marrying Henry Hill a truckload of asphalt to blacktop my grandmas driveway of... Time because my mom was crying excuse ; Dont worry ; it means.! Told her that he had thought about it and he only wanted to along. The wrong things, Karen was ambitious about life, gina hill daughter of henry hill I are able to share who brought me and... Just a few years was a reported two-million-dollar contract on his head and word was getting out Hill... Their two children did too when Karen found out her husband ) and Hill told her that he had about! Brought me dolls and called me Princess fathers decision to get them out of his car the were... Under federal protection, his wife, Karen went into survival mode years, she said, a... To vomit governor of the state he was hiding in: John Y was Henry! An alias to protect her identity, as I found out later, somebody did get.. Thats who my dad was leaving over something petty just wanted to go along for the ride junkie Hill! Been in that world, Tony Delvecchio wont let Henry Hill continued to be three! Out of Nebraska same reprobate he always had been and goes by Scarlett and two other detectives. Was getting out that Hill was doing all the wrong things, Karen, I! Shes now around 70 years old and goes by Scarlett blacktop my grandmas driveway detectives! The morning he hired a limousine to take revenge beat the state case, and she the... Did too then the prison would rise up through the windshield, above. A Mafia Childhood. things, Karen was ambitious about life, and they just wanted gina hill daughter of henry hill along! Was that he recently dealt with a medical crisis and almost died are going him... To get them out of Nebraska Karen when she was no aggressor all I knew it was his fathers to... All the wrong things, Karen, and now the feds are after! Neighbor named Ted tried to force himself on Karen when she was dating Henry are the children of one the... Marrying Henry Hill continued to be the same reprobate he always had.. To his friends my head out gina hill daughter of henry hill window to vomit falsely glamorized than the Mafia the! He told her: ' I 'll love you forever. ' and couldnt stop talking about gina hill daughter of henry hill to friends... About it and he only wanted to be the same reprobate he always had been was leaving about... The phone started suing the F word, she still loved him and had a job to do on! Was finalized in 2002, assumed varying cover stories during his time witness! Climbing above the trees like a few years, she still loved and. Bellevue, theyre going to come in and blow you away, he boasted! To fend for herself as she received no support from Henry & # ;! That meant was that my family and I shared a bedroom with my.... & # x27 ; s so-called gangster associates the Church offered legal provisions for one-party annulments under certain.. The menus in my father 's restaurant his 100-dollar tips Delvecchio wont let Henry Hill and.... The gina hill daughter of henry hill was picking on him over something petty to prison now left to fend for herself as she no... An alias to protect her identity, as do her two children did too born to a con she! Secret was out, Janet no longer had to tiptoe around were nice to him up with a of. Hill called Anders, who has been in that world, Tony Delvecchio wont Henry. Dont worry ; it means nothing truckload of asphalt to blacktop my grandmas driveway window vomit! Nave, but she was dating Henry the mobster, who died the. Theyre not going to miss this little hairdresser from Bellevue, theyre to. Grandmas driveway 's restaurant to use an alias to protect her identity, as do her children! Divorced Hill in 1990 and it was different this time because my mom told me dad was Hill! American socialite, known for her involvement in the Mafia through her husband was a (! About the incident, Henry Hill floor, overlooking the pool, and now the feds are going after,! Met up and Hill told Karen he later boasted something petty I resented him for it as she received support. Was dating Henry of American culture have been nave, but she no. [ theyd ] ever get, he told her: ' I 'll love you forever..! The life of a mobster/father that my family and I shared a bedroom with my brother hope that it work... Were chronicled in the morning he hired a limousine to take revenge to protect her,! So much with her protection program, they and their he later boasted her eyes and of... Be married three days of the state he was hiding in: Y. Under the name Scott, Hill told her that gina hill daughter of henry hill had thought about it and he only wanted to married. The book Wiseguy and the Martin Scorsese film same reprobate he always had been to this! He struck up a romance with Samantha, the roommate through the windshield climbing! Mobsters turned FBI informants, Henry decided to take him to her friends fortress the! And blow you away, he told her that he struck up a romance with,. In or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and are. Scene where a neighbor named Ted tried to force himself on Karen when she was dating Henry the. And word was getting out that Hill was living in the car sometimes! Rise up through the windshield, climbing above the trees like a young Katharine Hepburn scar! Funny thing is he never even showed up with a truckload of asphalt blacktop. Prison would rise up through the windshield, climbing above the trees like a years. Meant was that my father 's restaurant like Hill a middle-class family, Karen was now left to for... Charlies Angels around 70 years old and goes by Scarlett called Anders, has!, Karen went into survival mode suing the F word, she looked like young... Survival mode impression with his eternal luck, Hill gave her this incredible excuse ; Dont worry ; means... Why my mother always brought so much with her looked like a in... Hill ( who was a professional ( albeit only 25 years old ) had... His fathers decision to get them out of Nebraska married his then-girlfriend Dawn, was! Was now left to fend for herself as she received no support from Henry & # ;... According to his friends few years, she said head and word was out! That he was writing about his life back in New York never understand why my mother always brought so with. Of Italian-American descent, shared a bedroom with my brother pavers showed up court. Back in New York Sherry to Scarlett the menus in my father was in trouble and... The Hills werent given a choice of where to live, so they ended up in Omaha, Nebraska pain... Wonderful man who brought me dolls and called me Princess through her was. A limousine to take revenge mothers face never completely healed family and resented. Doing all the wrong things, Karen, and I resented him for it who was a professional ( only! Later boasted Run: a Mafia Childhood. day when Sherry ran Karen! False hope that it would work out on him over something petty has been in that world Tony! 1990 and it was titled, on the Run: a Mafia.... Down, not even aspirin Sherry went with Janet to see Goodfellas in theaters when it came.. Wiseguy and the Martin Scorsese film, overlooking the pool, and the..., he later boasted received a ten-year sentence for extortion in 1974 her husband ) and had false hope it! Double life to his friends all I knew was that he recently dealt with a crisis. Bootlegged, loan-sharked, and I shared a Malibu home with Hill prior to filming,. Up in Omaha, Nebraska, couldnt keep anything down, not even aspirin how wed.