by Glenn Kenny
“In a note on the front page of one of the scripts”: I examined many scripts annotated by De Niro, and related notes and correspondence, at the Ransom Center at the University of Texas in November of 2019.
“I was coughing on the floor”: Christie and Thompson, p. 87.
“I had a good time making it”: Author interview with Robert De Niro, September 21, 2019.
“On the first day of shooting”: Christie and Thompson, p. 99.
“I want to be a player”: “Goodfellas: Blood and Pasta,” Taubin, Amy, The Village Voice, September 19, 1990.
“I was in Canada”: Author interview with De Niro.
“Marty was very excited”: Author interview with Pileggi.
CHAPTER THREE
“2014 biography”: Levy, Shawn, De Niro: A Life, 2014, New York: Crown Archetype.
“De Niro dove”: Levy, p. 351.
“Notes on the character”: Levy, p. 352.
“Early approach to headshots”: Levy, p. 66.
“So when we first started with De Niro”: Author interview with Joseph Reidy, January 17, 2020. All Reidy quotes in this chapter derive from this interview.
“I worked with Sidney a lot”: Author interview with Barbara De Fina, May 14, 2019.
“We did it the way he suggested”: Christie and Thompson, p. 108.
“He expresses [...] defeat”: “The Restrained Genius of a Joe Pesci Performance,” Lucca, Violet, The New York Times, November 6, 2019.
“The producers introduced me”: Christie and Thompson, p. 99.
“In the case of the crucifixion”: Ebert, Roger, Scorsese by Ebert, 2008, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, p. 192–93.
“He was always friendly and happy”: Author interview with De Fina, May 14, 2019.
“[A] 1999 interview with the Guardian”: “I guess I’m a whore, a masochist and a whore,” Pulver, Andrew, The Guardian, August 12, 1999.
“Griffon withdrew $2,000”: Author interview with Bob Griffon, January 18, 2020.
“The sequence took six hours”: Author interview with Griffon.
“Well, we were comfortable”: Author interview with De Fina, May 14, 2019.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Their insulation was a form of self-governance and self-protection”: For more on this topic, see “How Italians Became ‘White,’” Staples, Brent, The New York Times, October 12, 2019.
“Persico himself privately bragged of them”: “Carmine Persico, Columbo Crime Family Boss, Is Dead at 85,” Raab, Selwyn, The New York Times, March 8, 2019.
“Apparently they’d been looking to cast young Henry”: Author interview with Christopher Serrone, September 27, 2019.
“Goodfellas ‘cheats’ a lot”: The website Movie-Locations.com has reliable detail on such matters: https://www.movie-locations.com/movies/g/Goodfellas.php
“Geoffrey Macnab”: “I Was in a Bad Place,” Macnab, Geoffrey, The Guardian, July 6, 2006.
“Going and finding locations is one of the things I love to do most”: Author interview with Kristi Zea, October 16, 2019.
“It was ancient”: Douglas, Illeana, I Blame Dennis Hopper, 2015, New York: Flatiron Books, p. 136.
“Dingy and dirty”: Author interview with De Fina, June 19, 2019.
“I don’t remember fleas”: Author interview with Reidy.
“2010 oral history”: “Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas: A Complete Oral History,” GQ Staff, GQ, September 21, 2010.
“Word got around that I was working on the picture”: Manca, John, and Vincent Cosgrove, Tin for Sale: My Career in Organized Crime and the NYPD, 1991, New York: William Morrow and Co., p. 280.
“Joe Pesci comes from that world”: Christie and Thompson, p. 158.
“Entertainers were like booze”: Tosches, Nick, Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams, 1992, New York: Doubleday, p. 151.
“Terry Semel came to visit”: Author interview with Winkler.
“We ended up shooting it in Queens”: Author interview with De Fina, May 14, 2019.
“The real Tommy was six-foot-something”: Kelly, Mary Pat, Martin Scorsese: A Journey, 1991, New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, p. 263.
“Before I thought about taking over The Suite”: Pileggi, Nicholas, Wiseguy, 1985, New York: Simon and Schuster, p. 151.
“She had violet eyes”: Pileggi, p. 85.
“Michael was one of those cinematographers”: Author interview with De Fina, June 19, 2019.
“When you’re doing a take that’s this long in duration”: Author interview with Larry McConkey, November 8, 2019.
“It was quite a feat”: Author interview with Zea.
“Cheesy TV commercials”: The creation of this hilariously cheesy fake spot was chronicled in admirable detail on the Tumblr website Mr. Godfrey: https://mrgodfrey.tumblr.com/post/157186647808/morries-wigs-behind-the-curtain
“The situation was exacerbated by the fact that Jimmy was a part-time insomniac”: Pileggi, p. 255–56.
“Exhilaration is an apt term”: Author interview with Kevin Corrigan, October 6, 2019.
“[She] was a very strong, demanding person”: Pileggi, p. 181.
“They’re very ornate on the outside”: Author interview with Griffon.
“My show business knowledge”: Author interview with Illeana Douglas, July 3, 2019. Illeana is paraphrasing material that’s also in her book.
“[A] bloodcurdling scream”: Douglas, p. 119.
“Word was spreading”: Douglas, p. 139.
“Marty would talk to me about what was going on”: Author interview with Douglas.
“They had missing teeth”: Pileggi, p. 98.
“We’ll come up with something” and “We just all bonded”: Author interview with Douglas.
“I was never afraid of my father’s friends”: Hill, Gregg, and Gina Hill, On the Run: Escaping a Mafia Childhood, 2004, London: Arrow Books, p. 56.
“They work more hours a day than if they had a nine-to-five job”: Kelly, p. 274.
“On Shannon’s classic”: “A Chat with Frank Vincent,” Harris, Will, Bullz-Eye.com, July 11, 2007.
“1996 profile of Vincent”: “Frank Vincent’s Two-Limo Night,” Lewine, Edward, The New York Times, February 18, 1996.
“You’re doing a film”: Author interview with De Niro.
“Now don’t forget”: Kelly, p. 44.
“Tiger Mom”: Author interview with De Fina, June 19, 2019.
“Scrambled eggs”: Kelly, p. 271.
“For most wiseguys”: Pileggi, p. 176.
“He did not like getting into costume”: Author interview with De Fina, June 19, 2019.
“Everybody was at a different rhythm”: Author interview with Reidy.
“Every take was different”: Author interview with Michael Imperioli, August 8, 2019.
“Sometimes on the set”: Author interview with De Niro.
“Jimmy just made Tommy dig the hole”: Pileggi, p. 168.
“I have pretty much every firearms license imaginable”: Author interview with Griffon.
“I was supposed to turn myself in at nine a.m.”: Hill, Henry, and Gus Russo, Gangsters and Goodfellas: The Mob, Witness Protection, and Life on the Run, 2004, Lanham: M. Evans, p. 83.
“My old girlfriend Linda”: Hill and Russo, p. 255.
“The real trick”: Christie and Thompson, p. 151.
“Semel was not around the set”: Author interview with De Fina, June 19, 2019.
“Hustled like he had never hustled before”: Pileggi, p. 204.
“Now take me to jail”: The influence of Goodfellas extends far and wide, even into the world of pornography; “Now take me to jail” is spoken, in the back of a limo, by Tori Black at the end of After Hours, an extravagant 2018 adult video directed by Kayden Kross.
“They wanted me to become an ophthalmologist”: Pileggi, p. 214.
“Crew names”: Author interview with Griffon.
“The reality behind one very carefully thrown-away line”: Marcus, Greil, Mystery Train, 1976, New York: E. P. Dutton, p. 95.
“Bobby Germaine”: Pileggi, p. 241.
“Nothing is more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity”: Nabokov, Vladimir, and Alfred Appel, Jr., editor, The Annotated Lolita, 1991, New York: Vintage, p. 315.
“One of the most satisfying things I did on the movie”: Author interview with Zea.
“[A] really nice guy whom I liked a lot”: Hill and Hill, p. 57.
“Christmas Day at the funeral parlor”: Hill and Hill, p. 66.
“[A] longish story”: Explained a bit more in “Eh, What’s Up, Doc?” Kenny, Glenn, The New York Times, February 9, 2018.
“Williams recalls on his website”: Its URL is: http://www.johnnyroastbeef.com/bio/
“I had a front-row seat watching Robert De Niro”: Douglas, p. 135.
“Leo McCarey understood people”: Sarris, Andrew, The American Cinema, Directors and Directions 1926–1968, 1968, New York: E. P. Dutton, p. 100.
“Well, yes”: Author interview with De Fina.
“The scene was even shot to fit the song”: Wilson, p. 168.
“Marty just had a shot”: Author interview with De Niro.
“He sat down at my piano”: Coolidge, Rita, Delta Lady, 2016, New York: Harper Collins, p. 121.
“What crane do you have?”: Author interview with McConkey.
“The fact that Tommy gets killed that way”: Christie and Thompson, p. 158.
“They were good friends”: Author interview with De Niro.
“On the day I finally got arrested”: Pileggi, p. 295.
“I just loved Something Wild, I wanted to be that kind of actor”: Author interview with Corrigan, August 8, 2019.
“I was doing work at the Actors Studio”: Author interview with Isiah Whitlock, Jr., December 9, 2019.
“Did I KNOW?”: Author interview with Corrigan.
“There were some compensations for the agents”: Volkman, Ernest, and John Cummings, The Heist, 1986, New York: Franklin Watts, p. 228.
“Well, it simply adds depth”: Missy Robbins, in an email to the author, December 9, 2019.
“The state of anxiety and the way the mind races when on drugs”: Christie and Thompson, p. 158.
“—and I still wasn’t happy”: “De Niro and Me,” Scorsese, Martin, Projections 7, in association with Cahiers du Cinéma, 1997, London: Faber and Faber, p. 46.
“I went in to read for Ellen Lewis”: Author interview with Welker White, May 21, 2019.
“The interior of that house”: Author interview with Reidy.
“First real break”: Pileggi, p. 328.
“Henry didn’t have too much school spirit”: Pileggi, p. 356.
“There was a researcher who came to my office”: Author interview with Edward McDonald, April 25, 2019.
“Most amazingly, it concludes with a point-of-view shot”: Adair, Gilbert, Flickers, 1985, London: Faber and Faber, p. 22.
CHAPTER FIVE
“For me, it’s very, very serious”: “Jerry Vale Sounds Like Family to Martin Scorsese,” LeDonne, Rob, The New York Times, December 17, 2019.
“The man who cannot stop hurting himself”: I wrote on this theme relative to 2010’s Shutter Island in an essay on my weblog, Some Came Running: https://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2010/02/shutter-island.html
“These days every damn movie in America”: Christie and Thompson, p. 110.
“Mitch and I came to an understanding”: Bennett, Tony, The Good Life, 2010, New York: Simon and Schuster, p. 124.
“The most brilliant, and the classiest”: Tosches, Nick, The Unsung Heroes of Rock ’n’ Roll, 1984, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, p. 101.
“Aside from Sinatra, Tony Bennett was the authority”: The New York Times, December 17, 2019.
“In France the song is known as ‘La mer’”: Ocean Crossing,” Friedwald, Will, Vanity Fair, November 2002.
“Sometimes we put the lyrics of songs between lines”: Christie and Thompson, p. 161.
“A lot of music is used in movies today just to establish a time”: Christie and Thompson, p. 161.
“After one particularly difficult night when nothing was happening”: Shapiro, Harry, Jack Bruce: Composing Himself, 2010, London: Jawbone, p. 97.
“Tom Dowd” and “psychedelic hogwash”: “Sunshine of Your Love,” Churruca, Jason, Churruca Guitar website, September 19, 2019.
“I had to admit it sounded stunning”: Coolidge, p. 132.
“That’s not something that should happen even once”: Coolidge, p. 97.
“There was no light, it was pure darkness”: Coolidge, p. 94.
“What nobody knew at the time about Jim”: Coolidge, p. 94.
“If I sound bitter, I’m not”: Coolidge, p. 134.
“Paul Anka deemed it ‘sincere’”: “Paul Anka: One Song the Sex Pistols Won’t Be Singing,” McCormack, Neil, The Telegraph, November 9, 2007.
CHAPTER SIX
“Mary Patrick Kelly”: Kelly, p. 50.
“He had much more”: Kelly, p. 51.
“Anecdote recounted by Roger Ebert”: “An Interview with Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader,” The Chicago Sun-Times, March 3, 1976, reprinted in Scorsese by Ebert, p. 42.
“The Only Dull Part of Moviemaking”: Lumet, Sidney, Making Movies, 1995, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
“Raging Bull was my first feature!”: Kelly, p. 146.
“David Leonard”: Author interview, March 5, 2020.
“I don’t understand why people get so hung up on these issues”: “Interview: Thelma Schoonmaker,” Pinkerton, Nick, Film Comment, March 31, 2014.
“Thelma knows who I am”: Schickel, p. 335.
“Thelma is the woman I trust”: Schickel, p. 337.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“In his groundbreaking 1948 essay”: Warshow, Robert, The Immediate Experience: Movies, Comics, Theatre and Other Aspects of Popular Culture, 2001, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 97.
“Vehemently articulated by Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson”: Farber, Manny, and Robert Polito, editor, Farber on Film, 2009, New York: Library of America, p. 752.
“Great independent filmmaker who’s never made a film independently”: On the audio commentary for the twenty-fifth anniversary Blu-ray of Goodfellas, Warner Home Video.
“The studio knew what the movie was”: Author interview with De Fina, June 19, 2019.
“We were next door”: Author interview with Winkler.
“The strange thing”: Author interview with De Fina, June 19, 2019.
“Warner Brothers hadn’t been having a good year”: Salamon, Julia, The Devil’s Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood, 1991, New York: Houghton Mifflin, p. 377.
“Janet Maslin denigrated the Academy”: Wiley, Mason, and Damien Bona, Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards, 10th Anniversary Edition, 1993, New York: Ballantine Books, p. 812.
“There were so many people to thank”: Wiley and Bona, p. 809.
“The guys in that movie, the way they relate to each other, is the way comedians relate to each other”: Author interview with Bill Hader, September 30, 2019.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I’m not sure I completely buy into that”: Schickel, p. 189.
“The point isn’t whether or not he’s guilty or innocent”: Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, This Is Orson Welles, 1998, New York: Da Capo, p. 286.
“Experience told me what was happening”: Hill and Hill, p. 267.
“Henry was a schmuck”: Author interview with McDonald.
“‘Son of Sam’
laws”: A good overview is provided in “Highlights of the Ruling That Struck Down New York’s ‘Son of Sam’ Law,” The New York Times, December 11, 1991.
“He couldn’t not spend money”: Author interview with Pileggi.
“He rationalized living this way”: Author interview with Pileggi.
“Whatever money my dad got from the book”: Hill and Hill, p. 281.
“My father had an angle for everything”: Hill and Hill, p. 199.
“Henry Hill had become a famous character”: Hill and Hill, p. 363.
“When I signed on the deal for Goodfellas”: Hill and Russo, p. 223.
“Jimmy Burke’s fearsome daughter”: Hill and Russo, p. 224.
“De Niro was special”: Hill and Russo, p. 224.
“Henry had my number”: Author interview with Reidy.
“So he calls me”: Author interview with McDonald.
“I certainly don’t think Henry was remorseful”: Author interview with McDonald.
“We first had him on the show back in the mid-’90s:” Stern, Howard, Coming Clean, 2019, New York: Simon and Schuster, p. 394.
“I’m a scumbag”: Stern, p. 399.
“Quite what to say to that”: Author interview with McDonald.
CHAPTER NINE
“When you called about Goodfellas, in a way you just kicked a hornets’ nest for me”: Author interview with De Fina, June 19, 2019.
“Bad cop”: Author interview with Reidy.
“Winkler’s responses to De Fina’s assertions are polite and brief”: Author interview with Irwin Winkler, January 31, 2020.
“Peter Biskind contributed a set-visit feature”: “Slouching Toward Hollywood,” Biskind, Peter, Premiere, November 1991.
“Which Bertrand asked me to be in”: Christie and Thompson, p. 104
“He reassured that in me most of all”: Powell, p. xiii.
“That was all worked out beforehand”: Author conversation with Joe Hill, February 10, 2020. While Mr. Hill asked that I not record the conversation, he gave me permission to use quotes from my notes. Because of this provision I consulted with him about the accuracy of what I set down before finalizing my draft.
CHAPTER TEN
“I thought of it as being a kind of attack”: Schickel, p. 188.