Nicholas Pileggi

Nicholas Pileggi (/pɪˈlɛdʒi/, Italian: [piˈleddʒi]; born February 22, 1933) is an American author, screenwriter and journalist. He wrote the 1985 non-fiction book Wiseguy and co-wrote the screenplay for Goodfellas, its 1990 film adaptation, for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Pileggi was born and raised in Brooklyn, the elder son of an Italian immigrant father, Nicola ("Nick") Pileggi from Calabria, a musician who played slide trombone in a cinema orchestra for silent films and subsequently also owned shoe stores, and an American-born mother, Susie.

In the 1950s, he worked as a journalist for the Associated Press and New York magazine, specializing in crime reporting for more than three decades.

Pileggi began his career as a journalist and had a profound interest in the Mafia. He is best known for writing Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family (1985), which he adapted into the movie Goodfellas (1990), and for writing Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas and the subsequent screenplay for Casino (1995). The movie versions of both were directed and co-written by Martin Scorsese. Pileggi also co-wrote the screenplay for the film City Hall (1996), starring Al Pacino. He served as an executive producer for American Gangster (2007), a biographical crime film based on the career of drug lord Frank Lucas. He also authored Blye, Private Eye (1987).

Pileggi co-wrote the pilot of the CBS television series Vegas, which first aired in September 2012.

Pileggi's first marriage ended in divorce around 1979. Pileggi was married to fellow author, journalist, and filmmaker Nora Ephron from 1987 until her death in 2012. Journalist Gay Talese is his first cousin.