Gangsters and Goodfellas was an event at Fire It Up Pizza in Henderson. It was a gathering of people associated with the mob. Henry Hill, who was one of the main characters of Goodfellas was there. Frank Cullotta was on the bill. Dennis Griffin that wrote several books on the mob and Cullotta was there. The guy who was a stunt double for Joe Pesci in the movie Casino in the scene where they were buried him in the cornfield was there. The guy who played the cowboy gangster in Casino was there. There were several other family members and body guards there. There were law enforcement folks on hand. It was a fun time eating pizza and listening to stories by these people.

The guy who played the cowboy told the story of how they were getting ready to film one of his scenes in the Riviera and a
couple of nice old blue haired ladies came by and asked what was going on. They said they filming a Disney movie. As you might know, the cowboy had a fairly intense role to play in that scene. Those little old ladies were expecting Disney type acting. Also, the scene was done so well that Riviera security came running over because they didn't realize it was all acting.

Heny Hill was a hoot too. Briefly, Henry was best known for the old Lufthansa heist at JFK airport which was the biggest robbery on American soil at the time. I guess his funniest story was when they robbed Estee Lauder. They got about 4 or 5 million dollars worth of jewelry. They took the jewelry to an old Cuban jeweler, held a gun to his head and made him dismount the jewelry, so it could be sold in pieces. That jeweler was so scared that he damaged about 80% of the goods taking it all apart. Someone asked if they whacked him, and he said no, that the guy was so scared that he couldn't have a steady hand and really tried to do a good job. Heny said he had to give back the jewelry he still had when he turned informer...well maybe he kept a few pieces.

Sounds like a fun event!
Joe, how do you find out about all these things. I would think things like this would be mobbed with people? Is there really that little interest that they can hold things like this in a pizza shop?

Some people don't like the mob. Some people are in denial. Some people don't care about history. These guys are much more interesting than anyone would think. Most of the locals there probably heard about it through the mob tour, Denny Griffin, posters at the Pizza joint, heard Henry or Lisa on Howard Stern, or bought Henry Hill art from eBay. It did not get any front line press that I know of.

There were at least a couple of off duty Henderson cops there. An on duty cop stopped by to see why there were so many people standing out in front of the Pizza joint. A few people gathered around her car and told her everything was cool. Then Henry went to the cop car to pose for some pictures. (He still gets thrown in jail alot for drugs and booze) The on duty cop was worried about being photographed which could be considered posing for pictures while on duty. She got real mad and left in a petulant frenzy, which was a better photo op than just a picture of Henry in front of a police car. Henderson cops don't have a great reputation, and this lady nailed it.