Harry Grey

Herschel Goldberg (November 2, 1901 – October 1, 1980), better known as Harry Grey, was a Russian Jewish-American criminal and writer. His first book, The Hoods (1952), was the model for the 1984 film Once Upon a Time in America by Sergio Leone, where his part was played by Robert De Niro.^[1] The memoir — partially factual, partially subconsciously altered, and partially fictional — was written when Goldberg was incarcerated at Sing-Sing.

After The Hoods, Grey published two more books, Call Me Duke (1955) and Portrait of a Mobster (1958), also based on his experience as a gangster, but these were far less successful and as a consequence the conclusion to The Hoods contained in Call Me Duke went largely unnoticed. A "Golden Palm Star", part of the Palm Springs Walk of Stars, was dedicated to Grey in 1999.^[2]