L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 8 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 L'Italo-Americano N o r a E p h r o n o n c e w r o t e , "The secret to life, marry an I t a l i a n . " S h e was referring to her husband, journalist and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi. Ms. Eph- ron, who in her own right was a best-selling author and filmmaker, married Pileggi in 1987 and was with him until s h e s a d l y p a s s e d a w a y i n 2012. Despite his profound loss, Nicholas Pileggi conti- nues to work at the age of eighty-seven and remains one of the most influential writers in the 21st century. As we continue to live in the middle of a pandemic and confront so many unk- nowns for the next several months, I wondered how the legendary writer was spen- d i n g h i s t i m e . " W r i t i n g scripts. Writers are naturally quarantined, it is part of our l i f e , " P i l e g g i r e p l i e d . B y nature writers tend to go underground, so to speak. Most authors are creatures of habit and spend a large por- tion of the day writing in soli- tude. No matter the crisis, Pileggi's routine as a writer has remained the same for over fifty years. Nicholas Pileggi, born in 1 9 3 3 , w a s r a i s e d i n B e n - s o n h u r s t , B r o o k l y n . T h e area served as a foundation t o h i s i n t e r e s t i n w r i t i n g about organized crime. He noticed that the men from h i s n e i g h b o r h o o d n e v e r w o r k e d a n d w e r e a l w a y s impeccably dressed. Those street observations proved useful in Nick's early career as a police reporter. He was determined to fol- low a different path than his father. Nick's dad Nicola was an emigrant from Calabria. H i s f a t h e r w a s a c i n e m a musician and a proprietor of a shoe store. Nick's mother, Susan Defaslo, and father stressed the value of educa- tion. They wanted their son to have endless opportuni- ties. Nick graduated from New Utrecht High School and attended Long Island Uni- versity in New York City. W h i l e i n c o l l e g e h e w a s immediately interested in j o u r n a l i s m . " D u r i n g m y junior year at LIU in 1956, I worked for the AP as a night- time copyboy. Many of the reporters and editors helped me learn and I was hired a f t e r I g r a d u a t e d , " s a i d Pileggi. Long before his NY Times bestseller Wiseguy (1985), which turned into one of the a l l - t i m e A m e r i c a n m o v i e classics Goodfellas (1990), Nick Pileggi was already an established journalist. At the time, there was a cadre of reporters who over a period of time grew tired of the edi- torial constraints with news articles. Many wanted to write lon- ger articles like acclaimed authors Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, David Halberstam and Gay Talese, who hap- pens to be Nicholas Pileggi's first cousin. "Actually," said, Talese, "We're double-first cousins: our mothers were sisters; and our fathers first- cousin emigrants from Cala- bria." The cousins saw one another frequently as the Talese family travelled from Ocean City, NJ to Brooklyn, NY. Like Talese, Nick was a v o c i f e r o u s r e a d e r a n d influenced by the literary g r e a t s . P i l e g g i j o k i n g l y remarked, "I was influenced by the usual boring list of writers. From Melville to Fitzgerald to TS Eliot and Salinger and on…" The two cousins entered the field of journalism around the same t i m e i n d e p e n d e n t l y f r o m each other. Pileggi worked for AP and Talese, the New York Times. According to Talese, who is a year older t h a n h i s c o u s i n , i n t h e i r younger days they "roomed together for more than a year until I was drafted into the Army in 1955." When I asked Gay (who is also glued to his computer writing extensively during this global pandemic) about why he thought his cousin and he followed the same profession, the author explai- ned, "I think that, during that t i m e p e r i o d , c h i l d r e n o f immigrants—Jews, Italians, Irish, some blacks—found journalism a first step up socially as well as professio- nally. In those days, none of us had "elite" college degrees. We were lucky to get degrees of any kind. With the recent passing of Peter Hamill —he n e v e r w e n t t o c o l l e g e — i t occurred to me that we less- formally-educated journalists had something over these elite news people we have today." For Pileggi, whom I find to be a man of few words who gets right to the point, journalists during his time "were not the enemy of the people. They reported on the enemy of the people to the people, as reporters still do today." There has always been a level of respect that most reporters share for one another. W h e n y o u n g a n d o l d writers hear the name Nick Pileggi, the same level of respect enters their mind. He moved on from the Asso- ciated Press to New York Magazine in 1968. One of the primary reasons for the change was to have more freedom to write longer fea- ture articles and to have time to write books. Aside from his book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family, he wrote Casi- no: Love and Honor in Las Vegas (1995). The book became the basis for the box-office hit Casino w h e r e P i l e g g i w r o t e t h e screenplay with movie direc- tor Martin Scorsese. Along with Mario Puzo, Nick Pileg- gi's name is associated with some of the greatest mob movies ever created in Ame- rican film. In my opinion, another contributing factor to Nick Pileggi's legacy is the way he changed the language of journalism in the 21st cen- tury. Pileggi's stories have cer- tainly influenced news edi- tors when covering organized crime figures. In New York City there are two tabloid newspapers, the Post and the N Y D a i l y N e w s . B o t h u s e intertextuality, or what is cal- led wordplay headlines in order to grab the readers' attention. For example, it is n o t u n c o m m o n f o r t h e s e periodicals to print wordplay headlines based on the movie title Goodfellas or his book Wiseguy. One headline read, Sobfel- la when a mobster was whi- ning about his prison condi- tions, as another published Criesguy. No doubt Pileggi's writing has influenced news h e a d l i n e s . H i s u s a g e o f words like whacked, wiseguy, and goodfella (told to him by his contacts in the mob, but m a i n s t r e a m e d b y h i m ) appear regularly in our lexi- con. Ironically, Nick's uncle J o e ( G a y T a l e s e ' s f a t h e r ) would always yell at him and say, "Why don't you write about Michelangelo or Leo- nardo da Vinci instead of organized crime," Pileggi's response was always consi- stent, "Find me an editor w h o w a n t s t o k n o w m o r e about Michelangelo or da Vinci and maybe I will." N i c k u n d e r s t o o d h i s uncle's concern about the image of Italian Americans but also added, "I'm still t r y i n g t o f i g u r e o u t h o w being Italian American has impacted my life" and promi- sed, "When I find out I will t e l l y o u . " T w o t h i n g s w e know for certain about the legendary Italian American N i c k P i l e g g i i s h o w N o r a Ephron revealed her secret for a happy marriage in a six word autobiography, and why he is greatly respected in the field of journalism. The legendary Nicholas Pileggi LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE ALFONSO GUERRIERO Nick Pileggi with his wife, Nora Ephron (Photo: Laurence Agron/Dreamstime)

• Cover