Book On Goodfellas Explains Why The Names Of All The Wiseguys Were Changed

Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas by Glenn Kenny, which we finally got around to perusing, includes many fascinating tidbits about the acclaimed 1990 Martin Scorsese film as well as the real-life Luchese wiseguys and associates on whom the film was based. We also learned the answer to something we have long wondered about: Why did Scorsese change the names of the characters? “You got money for that fcking commercial of yours. You don't got my money? You don't got my fckin' money?” According to Made Men, Robert De Niro’s approach to the role of Jimmy Burke —renamed Conway—the Irish-American gangster with ties to the Luchese crime family through his association with Luchese capo Paul Vario , renamed Cicero for the film—included the kind of painstaking, multifaceted preparatory work for which the New Yorker has long been known. De Niro’s copy of the Goodfellas script—which is part of the De Niro archives at the Ransom Center at the University of Texas —includes handwritt...