On the Run: A Mafia Childhood is the authors' account of their childhood as the son and daughter of Henry Hill, the infamous mobster and informant whose story was the basis of Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi and the movie Goodfellas by Martin Scorsese.. Did she know of his past, his family, his involvement as an informant? Then we went up a set of wide stone steps into the building, where we got in line with everyone else who had a father or a brother or a son locked up in Lewisburg. But I definitely remember the Fairview. After her marriage with Henry Hill she had two children, Gregg Hill and Gina Hill. We are the children of one of the most notorious mobsters turned FBI informants, Henry Hill. He married his then-girlfriend Dawn, who was a degenerate junkie like Hill. Henry Hill, Karen, Gregg, Gina. Hill went so far as to threaten Sherry with her life if she didnt sign the divorce papers. And like all gangsters, he acted like he owned the world. With this, Karen went into panic mode. The script for the film was based on the book Wise guy written by Nicholas Pileggi. When Sherry said no, she got violent again. And she did it with style, too, riding her horses in heels and white clothes. In On the Run we discover that in 1980, after being shuttled from one hotel to another for several months while the Feds got as much information as they could from Hill, the family ended up on the outskirts of Omaha, Neb. He had a better ride through the Pennsylvania farmlands than I ever did. I got smacked at home, I got smacked at school, he said later. Healthy Lifestyle Coach at Kyani Nitro Nutrition GinaHill.Kyani.com. Reprinted by permission of Warner Books. 2022 History by Day all rights reserved, This Man Dug a Hole in His Backyard. He was 13 and his sister Gina was just 11 and in only seconds their lives were changed forever. or. 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. Karen first met her future husband, Henry through mutual friends. Not much later, Karen returned to the house to scream at Sherry and demand that she sign the papers. And Hill was everywhere she couldnt hide from him. 'My attempt at bigamy was a complete failure. All the while, Anders was blissfully unaware that her new husband was leading a double life and had another wife and two children of his own at home. Although he had converted to Judaism for Karen, he was a born Catholic. Yet again, he was saved by the government. I began this blog to simply tell part of my father's story through my eyes. Hill, who died in LA in 2012, was taken into witness protection with his wife Karen and their two children, Gina and Gregg, in 1980, after helping the FBI to arrest several of his fellow gangsters. 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. He was eventually removed from the general inmate population. While Tony wasnt a member of any crime family, he refused to turn states evidence on any of his friends and associates, even when staring jail time square in the face. Jimmy Burke usually tucked a fifty in the guys shirt pocket for his trouble; thats where he got his nickname, The Gent. Sherry refused to sign them. Gina flew to Florida, and although Justin was already in a foster home, Gina was able to obtain custody. Theyre not going to miss this little hairdresser from Bellevue, theyre going to come in and blow you away, he told her. They were so young, my dad twenty-two and my mom just nineteen. Ever since the family came out of the Witness Protection Program due to various criminal activities performed by Henry while still in the program, Karen has not appeared in public much. Dont you ever f***ing come back here! she screamed. She usually fell back on a gambling charge if she got specific at all. 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. It was only a matter of time. It began to snow and soon enough, all of his stuff was buried under the white. Im probably leaving out a few things too, like arson. Her children released a book in 2004, titled 'On the Run: A Mafia Childhood', which was about their own experience with the Mafia. @page { margin: 2cm } p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; direction: ltr; line-height: 120%; text-align: left; orphans: 2; widows: 2 }. The real-life mafia turncoat who was immortalized by late actor Ray Liotta in his breakout role in Goodfellas was a bigamist who repeatedly cheated on his wife while in witness protection, before leaving her and their children to wed a Mormon hairdresser he had known for just seven weeks. Hills last major job with his gang was the Lufthansa heist at John F Kennedy airport in New York in December 1978, which netted them a then-record $5.875 million. My head hurt so bad I didnt care how I looked to anyone driving by. Just a temporary situation. My mom used that expression for everything bad that happened. Born on June 11, 1943, in the tough Brownsville area of New York, Hill was the fifth of seven children and the first son to his Sicilian mother Carmella and his father, also called Henry. Goodfellas didn't leave Henry's personal life behind and included his wife, Karen Hill (Lorraine Bracco), in the story. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. Eight years old, and I had to get past an armed guard to see my father. I married her under the name Scott, Hill told Karen. While Henry . Whereas Hill was doing all the wrong things, Karen went into survival mode. Profile. Soon, Janet was asking Sherry personal questions. Thats who my dad was to me then, a wonderful man who brought me dolls and called me Princess. Karen was now left to fend for herself as she received no support from Henry's so-called gangster associates. By the time they made close friends and felt comfortable enough to spill the beans, their friends disappeared from their lives too spooked to keep up the friendships. Henry Hill died of a heart attack in 2012 eight years after On the Run was written. 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. But Karen thought it was a sexy thing to do. He stole everything and from everyone. But then federal prosecutors indicted them for extortion, which they could do because my father had crossed state lines. They started double dating (with Vivian and her husband) and Hill always made an impression with his 100-dollar tips. I guess I had my dads charm. She wanted to meet, and Sherry agreed. 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. She was crying just a little. Against his fathers wishes Hill got in with the mafia crowd aged 11 when he started hanging around with the infamous Lucchese family. It was almost as if he had come to believe his own hype, bought into his own scam, convinced himself that, yeah, it was really like a movie.. Book Review On the Run by Gregg and GinaHill. , updated I looked around the apartment. Gregg ultimately became a successful attorney. Read an excerpt. 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. Source: ABC News "It was like another country," Henry later said. For as much as Dad might have irritated my grandma, she wasnt one to throw her daughter into the street. He was on a mission to apologize to all those whom he had wronged in his life. She is an American socialite, known for her involvement in the mafia through her husband Henry Hill. The marriage was finally over. 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. The book covers both the remembrances of the Hill children prior to their entry into WITSEC and their subsequent . But under witness protection, everything changed. Filmography. The Hills werent given a choice of where to live, so they ended up in Omaha, Nebraska. Wed tell people we were Girl Scouts and ask for cookies. As for Nick, the co-writer, he knew of the danger of his involvement with the mobster. Finally, after Hill, against the governments rules, decided to let writer Nick Pileggi pen his autobiography, the government dropped Hill and his family from the Witness Protection Program. She then dragged him out of the bed by the crotch and beat him with a telephone. All he said was that he was writing about his life back in New York. It was Janet. Janet meant real trouble for her family. 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. He was always on the phone, walking around the house, dragging the long spiral cord behind him. I think sometimes my grandparents liked my dad in spite of themselves. Gina Hill. I just married him. But Karen repeated herself: No, hes my husband. Thats when Sherry said, We need to talk. Sherry followed the car to the familys ranch-style home. In the book, Gregg and Gina discuss how their maternal grandparents, and Karen's two younger sisters, Cheryl and Ellen, helped take care of them, when Karen and Henry were out dealing in crime.Henry died in 2012. He called her his Sherry Amour (My Cherie Amour) and told her she was the love of his life. Her instincts proved spot on when one day an unfamiliar woman walked in to the hair salon. Despite being under the supervision of the Feds, Hill became a violent drug addict and began dealing drugs to support his habit. As for Sherry, she went back to the Hill home to take back the horse she had sent for Hills daughter. 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. According to his son, it was his fathers decision to get them out of Nebraska. The two women who were married to the same man talked. So he grew up to be a gangster. Once a migraine started, I was done for the day. He told Sherry of the Thoroughbreds he owned and raced and showed her a photo of a recent victory. 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