Compiled and written by Rockaway from Nicholas Pileggi's WiseGuy. Edited by Derek Soviak.
The Early Days
For the big card games, the sandwiches were supplied by the local deli. That is until Henry decided to make them himself and keep the profits. In the end, the shopkeeper started paying Henry a percentage so they could start supplying the card games with sandwiches again. Henry was just thirteen.
In the film, Henry is seen setting fire to a bunch of cars on a lot. In WiseGuy there was a cab company called The Rebel Cab Company run by a country bumpkin who, for whatever reason, decided to compete with Tuddy's Cab Stand for business. It didn't work out...
At sixteen, Henry was arrested for the first time. He was caught trying to use a hot credit card in a gas station to buy a couple of tires for Tuddy's wifes car, not for selling untaxed cigarettes with young Tommy as in the film.
On the day of Henry's first court appearance, Paulie was away in prison for contempt, and couldn't be there. It was actually Tuddy who kept saying, "You broke your cherry."
In June 1960, at seventeen, Henry joined the US Army Paratroopers and was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He stayed in the Army until 1963 but always stayed in touch with Tuddy and Paulie.
All Grown Up
Not long after leaving the army, Henry was given a job as a maitre d', in a high class restaurant called The Azores (Off the record, the place was owned by Thomas Lucchese the boss of the whole family).
One of Henry's benchmark scores was the Air France heist. To get inside the vault in the Air France terminal, Frenchy, Tommy, and a "female escort", entertained the security guard who was the only person with the key to the vault. While they were in an exclusive steam room, Henry stole his keys from his trousers and had them copied at a nearby store. The prize: $480,000 dollars.
At one stage of his criminal career, Henry was sending dozens of stolen cars all the way to Haiti. He used local neighborhood guys to steal them, while he sorted out the paperwork and organized the false shipping documents. Then he would fly down to Port-au-Prince to collect his money (using stolen travelers checks and credit cards, of course).
Henry took over The Suite Night Club after talking it over with Paulie. He liked the idea so much that he ordered the rest of the crew to stay away from the joint, to keep the place clean. One by one the guys would drop by, and soon it turned into a regular hangout.
The FBI agent who is seen at the end of the film persuading Henry and Karen to go into the Witness Protection Program actually was the agent in real life who convinced them they had no real choice and it was the right thing to do.
For the big card games, the sandwiches were supplied by the local deli. That is until Henry decided to make them himself and keep the profits. In the end, the shopkeeper started paying Henry a percentage so they could start supplying the card games with sandwiches again. Henry was just thirteen.
