In the film, Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta, becomes involved in the mafia at a young age: as he says in the beginning of the film; "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster." As a boy, Henry idolized the Lucchese crime family gangsters in his blue-collar, predominantly Italian New York City neighborhood in East New York, Brooklyn, and in 1955 quit school and went to work for them at a local cab stand. The local Lucchese mob capo, Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino) (based on the actual Lucchese mobster Paul Vario) and Cicero's close associate Jimmy Conway (De Niro) (based on actual associate, Jimmy Burke) help cultivate the boy's developing criminal career. From left to right: Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, Robert De Niro as Jimmy "The Gent" Conway, Paul Sorvino as Paul Cicero, and Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito....Henry and his associate Tommy (played by Joe Pesci in a widely acclaimed and Academy Award-winning performance) conspire with Conway to steal some of the billions of dollars of cargo passing through Idlewild Airport (later JFK). They help out in a key moneymaking heist, stealing over half a million dollars from the Air France cargo terminal in 1967 and paying Cicero his percentage of the take as per the mafia's code of tribute.