I found a really fascinating collection of characters. “I ran copy for the city desk, went for coffee and delivered paychecks to reporters working the beats at City Hall, the courts and police headquarters.
In his sophomore year at Long Island University, he got a night job at the Associated Press. In homage to his father, who “came from Calabria far down in the boot of Italy and spoke with an accent,” Pileggi set out to do the family proud by becoming an English professor.
But unlike Henry Hill, his eponymous “Wiseguy,” he showed no inclination toward a mob career. gangster flicks starring Bogey, Cagney and Edward G. Growing up in the mean Brooklyn streets fought over by the Profaci and Colombo crime families, Pileggi identified with those Warner Bros. “That might stretch the marriage contract beyond the limit,” Pileggi concedes with the impish grin that won him his first job in the crime-watch profession. So far they have not experienced rival nominations in the same year. Win or lose, both enjoy dressing to the nines and climbing into a studio limo together to attend the Oscar awards. “Nora’s writing is much more elegant than mine,” he admits, “and from her stint at Esquire, she is a really savvy editor.” They do not engage in professional collaboration, but Nick and Nora do edit each other and, he attests, “are thick-skinned enough to swap some very blunt criticism” without fomenting marital strife. She writes downstairs in the apartment, while he is topside in that den near the elevator shaft, lined wall to wall with his “library of louses”-tomes such as “Mafia Wife,” “Fascism and the Mafia,” “The French Connection,” “Brothers in Blood” and “The Luciano Project.” He is tall and courtly, with the charming manners and restrained wardrobe of a consigliere, while she is pert and sassy and in the know. Nick and Nora might seem like a Hollywood remake of the Thin Man series. Several floors below his rooftop atelier, Nick Pileggi resides in a luxury apartment with his wife, Nora Ephron, author of bestsellers such as “Heartburn” and the Oscar-nominated screenplays for “Silkwood” and “Sleepless in Seattle.” But the inhabitants of Nick’s world are real, even if they have Runyonesque names like Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, Carmine “The Snake” Persico, Albert “Mad Hatter” Anastasia, Anthony “Gas Pipe” Casso and the brothers Albert “Kid Blast” and “Crazy Joe” Gallo, who are credited with 15 gangland slayings in the service of Joe “The Olive Oil King” Profaci.
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