Former 'Goodfellas' gangster Henry Hill dies in LA

The Associated Press, Wednesday, June 13, 2012, 10:24am (PDT)

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Henry Hill, whose life as a mobster and FBI informant was the basis for the Martin Scorcese film "Goodfellas," has died.

Hill's girlfriend Lisa Caserta says he died in a Los Angeles hospital after a long illness. He was 69.

An associate in New York's Lucchese crime family, Hill was a small-time gangster who became a big-time celebrity by telling detailed, disturbing and often hilarious tales of mob life, first in the 1986 book "Wiseguy" and later in 1990's instant classic "Goodfellas," starring Robert Deniro, Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta as Hill, a young hoodlum who thrives in the mafia but later turns on his friends and enters witness protection.