She even ended her friendship with Samantha, whom Hill told her he slept with one night (he never did). Every time Hill was busted by local authorities, he and his family had to relocate so as to keep them off the mafia radar, and within the first year of their time in the program, the Hills had moved from Omaha, Nebraska, to Independence, Kentucky, then to the sleepy town of Redmond, Washington. It helps, but is not necessary, to have read Wiseguy (I haven't) or seen Goodfellas (I have, multiple times). She and Hill eventually parted ways, last living together in Rockville Centre. He told her how much he still loved Sherry and managed to convince her to let him in the house. Take that, middle America. People named Gina Hill. Meanwhile, his book with Nick Pileggi, Wiseguy, was published. She said Hill had recently made his peace with his family, but I dont think he ever got over his demons. Mafia turncoat Henry Hill and his two children are interviewed. I am a Teacher who started creating online content for my students from 2016 so that they can get access to free knowledge online. On the Run is a terrific read, but quite disturbing. Most girls would have been terrified, but my mom said she thought it was sexy. Through the 1970s, the Hill family was involved in organized crime, through which they became very wealthy and lived extravagantly. Then my dad came trotting back across the street, all sweaty and red, and gave my mom the gun and told her to hide it. Their divorce was finalized in 2002. Lured by power and money, Hill gradually became more entrenched with the family and while his half-Sicilian genes his father was Irish meant he could never be a fully-fledged member of the family, he was able to be an associate. When Hill (played by Ray Liotta) said that Karen (played by Lorraine Bracco) looked just like Elizabeth Taylor, Sherry felt chills down her spine as Hill had used the same line with her. To make it worse, the son, Michael, was busing tables at El Toreador, where he saw his dad with his drinking buddies. 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. 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. Frankly, On the Run could have been entitled Daddy Dearest. She stormed out of the house as her daughter called out to her, Mom, what are you doing?. Of course, not. She wiped the tears from her eyes and streaks of mascara from her cheeks. 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. Henry Hill continued to be the same reprobate he always had been. But then federal prosecutors indicted them for extortion, which they could do because my father had crossed state lines. Announcing his death, Hills girlfriend Lisa Casserta said he struggled with alcoholism. 'But I moved in with her for a short period of time; it didn't last long because I kept going home to Karen and the kids. G.M. And then my mom told me he was going away. Throughout his time spent working for the infamous Lucchese crime family, Hill, who wed his first wife Karen in 1965, was known to have had multiple mistresses. Usually, though, we were in our beat-up Oldsmobile Toronado, the car we got after my father accidentally dropped a lit cigarette in the front seat of our 1969 Chrysler Newport, causing it to go up in flames. Wed leave at eleven oclock, sometimes even later, and drive west into Pennsylvania. She ended up seeing Hill one last time (she has always called him Martin). You want to have some fun? Sherry asked Karen. It seemed like this woman knew who her husband was. She called him Morton and couldnt stop talking about him to her friends. I was already used to my dad being away. It was like another country, Henry later said. Brown, the former owner of the Boston Celtics who bought KFC from Colonel Sanders and became the governor of Kentucky. Janet meant real trouble for her family. You can imagine the look on Hills face when he came home to see both his wives talking at the kitchen table. In an attempt to keep their true identities hidden from everyone around them, the family changed their names - with Hill becoming Martin Lewis, a name that he borrowed from two of his favorite actors, Hollywood heartthrob Dean Martin and comedian Jerry Lewis. They poked through everything with their batons, and they glared at us, like we were the criminals instead of the men inside. Hed say, Whaddya want, Princess? and Id say, Barbies swimming pool! or something like that, and the next day or the day after, hed bring it home. I was in first grade at P.S. Today, Karen and her two children, Gina and Gregg continue to use an alias to protect their identity. Now, almost 25 years later, Gregg and Gina Hill are breaking their own silence in a new book called "On the Run: A Mafia Childhood. The siblings were invited to discuss the book on Today. Heres an excerpt: GINA: One of my earliest memories of my dad was my mom telling me he was going away. Karen Friedman Hill (born January 16, 1946) is an American socialite, known for her involvement in the mafia through her husband Henry Hill, who was an associate of the Lucchese crime family. We moved a lot when I was little. Aside from betting at the tracks, he started operating a horse-drawn trolley tour of Cincinnati (making sure to show his passengers the fountain featured in the opening credits of WKRP in Cincinnati). According to Gina and Gregg, Hill spent his days at the racetrack gambling and his nights drinking. Gina Hill. While Henry . There was a doorman at each of the three different sections of the complex and a big circular driveway out front, and we had a small terrace that overlooked the park. I came back, and I had a second chance, he told her. Janet, who thought Hill was a Shmuck, noticed the terror in Sherrys eyes when they met. 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. Due to his numerous crimes while in witness protection, the family was expelled from the program in the early 1990s. After he and Karen divorced, Karen went off the grid. Charlie Lankston For Dailymail.com In "On the Run: A Mafia Childhood," Gregg and Gina Hill tell their story of life as the children of "Goodfellas" mobster Henry Hill. In line with his eternal luck, Hill was rescued by the FBI. Sherry and her roommate were seated at a table in the Mexican restaurant. It helped that a bona fide journalist named Nick Pileggi whom he introduced as his co-writer would come by often. Self - Henry Hill's Daughter. He's my husband. He told others that he was an insurance investigator for arson cases (completely fake, but he had some experience with torching places down). Hill was sent to prison again and his book Wiseguys was released, while Anders lost their baby. My mom had a lot of things on her mind that day. The two met for the first time at a, Karen Friedman Hill was mostly unaware of her husbands illegal, Things took a nasty turn when Henry received a ten-year sentence for, Henrys children officially released a book titled On the Run: A Mafia Childhood, in the year 2004 that gives the readers an insight into the family's life. Back in Washington, Sherry had to get back to work. Wed 13 Jun 2012 11.51 EDT 50 Henry Hill has died - of natural causes. But nobody got hurt, and those bastards just kept coming after him until they convicted him of something.. Henry Hill died of a heart attack in 2012 eight years after On the Run was written. My father had a hard time in school because he was dyslexic he didnt learn to read until he was sent to prison, and he still cant recite the alphabet without singing that song kindergarteners learn and he had a harder time at home because of his troubles at school. Hill was sent to prison. My father was one of them. Hes MY husband, Sherry told her. ', One night the two wives are even said to have walked arm in arm into the club Hill was in. Ted was taken aback by Karen's behavior, and he gave up the attempt to force her. See Photos. The driver looked a few years older than her, weathered but attractive. She managed to flee by car. Whenever she drove, it was like she was being chased, speeding down back streets and constantly checking her mirrors. 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. As for Sherry, shes now around 70 years old and goes by Scarlett. It is thought that during the first year Hill and his family spent in witness protection, he continued to enjoy several illicit affairs, all the while continuing his criminal dealings - which forced the FBI to repeatedly move them around to different locations. She also didnt know that anyone who became close to him was a walking target. She knew nothing about who Martin Lewis really was about his double life, his wife and two teenage kids. It was titled, On The Run: A Mafia Childhood. Nearly broke, Sherry had no choice but to take her son to her hometown and move in with her parents. In fact, in his 2004 bookGangsters and Goodfellas: The Mob, Witness Protection, and Life on the Run, Hill recounted a conversation he had with a friend about his second marriage - in which he insisted that it didn't count as 'bigamy' because he had tied the knot, not as Henry Hill, but as Martin Lewis. In 1980 Hill left the life, entered the witness protection program and testified against the mob. He told her that he had thought about it and he only wanted to be married three days of the week. 2022 History by Day all rights reserved, This Man Dug a Hole in His Backyard. That was still better than the Plymouth Duster with the bald tires we had to rent one time from some low-budget lot. Everyone in Redmond just figured it was a joke, of course. The book covers both the remembrances of the Hill children prior to their entry into WITSEC and their subsequent adventures. Lisa, of Italian-American descent, shared a Malibu home with Hill (who was portrayed . Sherry asked the woman, Do you know Martin Lewis? She replied, Yeah, hes my husband.. It is not known where she is now. I began this blog to simply tell part of my father's story through my eyes. He called her his Sherry Amour (My Cherie Amour) and told her she was the love of his life. She suffered a miscarriage; likely due to the incredible amount of stress she was under. She walked into Sherrys home, which was unlocked, and went straight to the bedroom to find her husband sleeping. Her children released a book in 2004, titled 'On the Run: A Mafia Childhood', which was about their own experience with the Mafia. He was always on the phone, walking around the house, dragging the long spiral cord behind him. In time, I would grow to hate those words. Associated Press. He went out every night dressed in sharp suits and stayed out until dawn if he came home at all, and he always had money to throw around, twenty for the doorman, fifty for the waiter. 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. The mobster, who died at the age of 69 in 2012, assumed varying cover stories during his time in witness protection. Like a moth to a flame, Hill found his way to make money. In 1955, Hill began to warm up to Paul Vario by running some errands for the mafioso at Vario's meat stores,. My head hurt so bad I didnt care how I looked to anyone driving by. Not much later, Karen returned to the house to scream at Sherry and demand that she sign the papers. What he lacked in the looks department he made up for with his charisma. Dont you ever f***ing come back here! she screamed. First things first: she had to get her husbands marriage to Sherry dissolved. I feel so guilty at my life. One day, he even showed up to El Toreador in a T-shirt with the words Witness Protection Program on it. Hed been locked up a few times since Id been born, once for seventeen months; my mom took me to visit him in the Nassau County jail when I was about four. The rest of the book details how Hill kept on breaking the rules of the governments Witness Protection Program, and as a result, the Feds had to keep re-locating Hills family to different locations to keep them safe. Tony also probes Hill on the ultimate, moral penalty of terrorizing another human being, beyond the consequences of the law. At the same time Hill was being followed by a private investigator called Janet. Along the way he peddled cookbooks, travel guides, posters anything for a buck, anything to relive, just for an instant, his days of glittering infamy. The small and striking brunette, 31, was a beautician who grew up around horses and knew her way around the track. They knew Hill was going to go to a dance club, so Sherry and Karen walked in arm and arm. In 1981, he was arrested for getting into a fight with some woman, and a month later for passing bad checks. 'Isaid, "You know, I hope that's not a red flag, but there's something kind of creepy about him."'. Late gangster Henry Hill - who was portrayed by Liotta in Martin Scorcese's hit 1990 movie - was taken into the FBI's witness protection program with his wife Karen and their two children, Gail and Michael, in 1980 after helping to jail members of his infamous mafia gang. For a while, the four of them were like two pairs in a pod. Ten years after their wedding Hill called Anders, who has now also changed her name from Sherry to Scarlett. He wrote about the heist in a detailed form and from his point of view. Sherry had no clue. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. One day shes a dental assistant from a middle-class family on Long Island, and the next shes sipping from a bottle of champagne that Sammy Davis Jr. sent to Dads table at the Copa. He bought a foosball table for the basement and cooked everyone hearty Italian food. Goodfellas saw Henry Hill doing all types of criminal activities, but one his mob boss, Paul Cicero, wasn't on board with was drug trafficking - and here's why. Reprinted by permission of Warner Books. 2005 The Jane Pauley Show (TV Series) Self. Those who knew her well say that shes surrounded by nature, which makes her happy. After their first date, the two were inseparable. After hearing about the incident, Henry decided to take revenge. 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. Henry Hill, Jr. (June 11, 1943 - June 12, 2012) was a New York City mobster. The authors were Gregg Hill and Gina Hill, described as "Son and Daughter of 'Wiseguy' Henry Hill". He was going away children prior to their entry into WITSEC and their subsequent adventures involved organized! 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