The Hoods

[chris]

So Harry Goldberg or his family (under his outspoken request, if he was already dead) lied about his death date (about 10 years)?
We're not talking about a little discrepancy, man!

I'm not saying that.  During the 1970s, Sergio Leone had several meetings with Harry Grey and he had kept in touch with him sufficiently so that a few weeks before filming began, he was able to phone his home.  At this stage it's very much guesswork but if the sponsorship on the Palm Springs star walk is genuine and was not done tongue in cheek, my guess is that the sponsor is mistaken regarding some of the facts.  I'll have another look at Harry Goldbergs born about 1901 and death dates 1981 to 1982.

 
 

[Harry Goldberg]

I'm not saying that.  During the 1970s, Sergio Leone had several meetings with Harry Grey and he had kept in touch with him sufficiently so that a few weeks before filming began, he was able to phone his home.  At this stage it's very much guesswork but if the sponsorship on the Palm Springs star walk is genuine and was not done tongue in cheek, my guess is that the sponsor is mistaken regarding some of the facts.  I'll have another look at Harry Goldbergs born about 1901 and death dates 1981 to 1982.

 
 

It's not about the genuinity of the sponsorship, here we're talking about 10 years of life difference, it's a little more, no? If, as you say, this star results from a serious work and not "tongue in cheek", their man is the right one and yours is not, obviously: we can't have two different men who are the same one, this is clear.

Anyway, i really appreciate your elaborate research, really, but in my opinion we should adhere preferably to what an official source says, instead of Sergio (all my respect).

[cigar joe]

It's not about the genuinity of the sponsorship, here we're talking about 10 years of life difference, it's a little more, no? If, as you say, this star results from a serious work and not "tongue in cheek", their man is the right one and yours is not, obviously: we can't have two different men who are the same one, this is clear.

Anyway, i really appreciate your elaborate research, really, but in my opinion we should adhere preferably to what an official source says, instead of Sergio (all my respect).

Some of this discrepancy can be the result of mis-quotes, mis-translations, or even deliberate deception to protect the identity of the author at the time. Instead of him dying right before the filming, he may have died right before the process of developing the screenplay would that coincide with the length of time
Leone had the project in the pipeline?  Just a thought. 

[chris]

...in my opinion we should adhere preferably to what an official source says, instead of Sergio (all my respect).

It's yet to be proven just how 'official' or reliable the information from the star sponsor is.  It's also not about being right or wrong, 'their' man or 'my' man or favoring one person over another.

I have about 40 Harry Goldbergs who may be our guy, including the Palm Springs Herschel, the Harry in the Jewish home and sons of Israel Goldbergs but to progress things further I need more definite information.

 

[chris]

I've done further searches and there are no records for a Herschel Goldberg, Harry Goldberg or Harry Grey born about 1901 and death 1973.

 
Meanwhile however I think I've found our guy.   Looks very promising.   Further details to follow...


 

[Harry Goldberg]

I've done further searches and there are no records for a Herschel Goldberg, Harry Goldberg or Harry Grey born about 1901 and death 1973.

 
Meanwhile however I think I've found our guy.   Looks very promising.   Further details to follow...


 

Did Palm Springs lie?

[chris]

Did Palm Springs lie?

No. I've received a lot of biographical information from Palm Springs including children and wife details and a date of death which is later than SimRob reported and is closer to the start of filming.

[chris]

If the Palm Spings star is a hoax, it's quite an elaborate and costly one.  A lot of information has been given by the sponsor, who claims to be the son of Harry Grey, and it should be fairly easy to check some of the details against official records.  The usual charge for sponsoring a star is US$7,500.

In 'The Hoods' Harry Grey mentions that his kid brother was a newspaper reporter.  Grey's son says that this was Hyman Goldberg, who was a syndicated columnist and food critic for the New York Post, authored a cookbook called "Our Man in the Kitchen", a compilation of recipes from his column as "Prudence Penny" and appeared on CBS for years in one of the first cooking shows.

Quite a lot is known about Hyman Goldberg.  He was born in 1908 and and as a boy helped his father in a Bronx restaurant.  At the age of 16, he decide to become a newpaperman and and went to work as a copy boy for the New York Sun.  For a while he was a New York Police reporter covering fires, murders, gang wars and went on to interviewing stars of the stage, screen and TV.  In later years he became famous for writing the "Prudence Penny" cookery column which appeared in The Journal-American, The Mirror and The New York Post.  He also wrote several books.




He died from a heart ailment in September 1970 aged 62.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1898&dat=19700921&id=ITAiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=93UFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1039,3122037

 

[Harry Goldberg]

If the Palm Spings star is a hoax, it's quite an elaborate and costly one.  A lot of information has been given by the sponsor, who claims to be the son of Harry Grey, and it should be fairly easy to check some of the details against official records.  The usual charge for sponsoring a star is US$7,500.

In 'The Hoods' Harry Grey mentions that his kid brother was a newspaper reporter.  Grey's son says that this was Hyman Goldberg, who was a syndicated columnist and food critic for the New York Post, authored a cookbook called "Our Man in the Kitchen", a compilation of recipes from his column as "Prudence Penny" and appeared on CBS for years in one of the first cooking shows.

Quite a lot is known about Hyman Goldberg.  He was born in 1908 and and as a boy helped his father in a Bronx restaurant.  At the age of 16, he decide to become a newpaperman and and went to work as a copy boy for the New York Sun.  For a while he was a New York Police reporter covering fires, murders, gang wars and went on to interviewing stars of the stage, screen and TV.  In later years he became famous for writing the "Prudence Penny" cookery column which appeared in The Journal-American, The Mirror and The New York Post.  He also wrote several books.




He died from a heart ailment in September 1970 aged 62.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1898&dat=19700921&id=ITAiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=93UFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1039,3122037

 

Where did you get the information that facts about Herschel Goldberg (our Noodles) were given by one man who claims to be his son?
And, furthermore, where did you read Hyman is Herschel's brother?

Anyway, for having further evidences Hyman is real Harry Grey's brother, could you please looking for birth - death and obituary records? Thanks, from heart!

[chris]

There's quite a lot of evidence from reliable official sources that the information given by the son of Harry Grey/Goldberg is genuine.  Obviously the sponsor had to play down Harry's criminal activities and emphasize the good things that he did to enable him to be accepted for a star.

In the 1960s Hyman wrote a detailed article revealing more about his father and mother (Israel & Celia), his brothers (Barney & Harry "Noodles") and his sisters (Bessie & Sue/Sarah).

"I was brought up in restaurants and hotels. My father, a blacksmith, became a restauranteur by accident.  He had a one-man Smithy in the Bronx when he became ill and had to go to the hospital for an operation.

With no money coming in, my mother, with five children to take care of, began cooking meals for men in the neighborhood who were saving money to bring their families to America from Europe.

By the time my father came out of the hospital he found, to his astonishment but also great pleasure, that my mother had a flourishing business going.

He promptly rented the flat next door, broke down the walls separating them and installed more tables. After a few years he was able to rent a store with a street entrance and opened it as a restaurant seating about 75 people.

My two brothers, two sisters and I all helped."









Hyman was buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery, Flushing, Queens, New York.  Others buried there include:


Louis 'Lepke' Buchalter - part of Murder Inc. - executed in Sing Sing

Emanuel 'Mendy' Weiss - part of Murder Inc. - executed in Sing Sing

Martin (Meyer) 'Buggsy' Goldstein - part of Murder Inc.  - executed in Sing Sing

Waxey (Irving) Gordon (Wexler) - prohibition-era alcohol smuggler

Louis 'Louis Cohen' Kerzner - contract killer - parolled in 1937 and murdered in 1939

Abraham Landau - member of the Dutch Schultz gang - killed with Dutch in 1935

Other families from Odessa


I'll try to wrap up the mass of information I've got about Harry in my next post.  
  

[cigar joe]

thanks

[Harry Goldberg]

There's quite a lot of evidence from reliable official sources that the information given by the son of Harry Grey/Goldberg is genuine.  Obviously the sponsor had to play down Harry's criminal activities and emphasize the good things that he did to enable him to be accepted for a star.

In the 1960s Hyman wrote a detailed article revealing more about his father and mother (Israel & Celia), his brothers (Barney & Harry "Noodles") and his sisters (Bessie & Sue/Sarah).

"I was brought up in restaurants and hotels. My father, a blacksmith, became a restauranteur by accident.  He had a one-man Smithy in the Bronx when he became ill and had to go to the hospital for an operation.

With no money coming in, my mother, with five children to take care of, began cooking meals for men in the neighborhood who were saving money to bring their families to America from Europe.

By the time my father came out of the hospital he found, to his astonishment but also great pleasure, that my mother had a flourishing business going.

He promptly rented the flat next door, broke down the walls separating them and installed more tables. After a few years he was able to rent a store with a street entrance and opened it as a restaurant seating about 75 people.

My two brothers, two sisters and I all helped."









Hyman was buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery, Flushing, Queens, New York.  Others buried there include:


Louis 'Lepke' Buchalter - part of Murder Inc. - executed in Sing Sing

Emanuel 'Mendy' Weiss - part of Murder Inc. - executed in Sing Sing

Martin (Meyer) 'Buggsy' Goldstein - part of Murder Inc.  - executed in Sing Sing

Waxey (Irving) Gordon (Wexler) - prohibition-era alcohol smuggler

Louis 'Louis Cohen' Kerzner - contract killer - parolled in 1937 and murdered in 1939

Abraham Landau - member of the Dutch Schultz gang - killed with Dutch in 1935

Other families from Odessa


I'll try to wrap up the mass of information I've got about Harry in my next post.  
  

You are a GENIUS, seriously, i'm not emphasizing, you are a GENIUS, Chris.

God bless you.

But another point is: who told you it was Harry Grey's son to reveal information about his father's life? Perhaps Palm Spring staff?
Then, where did you know Hyman wrote about his brother HARRY? And finally, if PS star is reliable, as you confirmed, this should ensure Noodles' death date is really 1973, which would completely contradicted with what Leone testified (1982), no?

There's only one way, in addition to checking death and obituary records: try to find Harry's son/nephew and ask him.

Anyway, only entering Celia, Israel and Harry on Ancestry.com I FOUND OUR MAN, undoubtedly, but the website wants my personal details even before i can use Free 14 days trial, and i absolutely don't want to give the website my credit card number, fuck!

You'll find Harry Goldberg was born in 1902 (so Palm Springs softly lies, maybe according to Noodles' son volition), obviously that his name was Harry and not Herschel, then i'm not sure about his death, and also according to what Hyman says, Israel Goldberg didn't die in 1916, it seems, don't you think?

Chris, you have the final word!

There are even images about Hyman, Harry and Barney in ancestry.com, i think!

[chris]

Due credit should go to SimRob. He was the one who discovered the Palm Springs star and logically followed it through.  Palm Springs gave me a death date of 1979 but the true date is October 1980.

Harry Grey said that the sole liberty he took with the truth was Max's death but Sergio Leone thought that the only truly authentic parts of the book were those concerning Grey's childhood.  Grey didn't like the way gangsters were portrayed in films and wanted his book to tell events just as they had happened. Sergio Leone was thrilled at meeting the real "Noodles" but thought that the book was full of citations, gestures and words seen and heard thousands of times on the big screen.

Parts of "The Hoods" are true, some parts have been unconsciously reworked by the author, some may be fiction.  Some events such as the disappearance of Supreme Court Judge Joseph Force Crater are easily identifiable and it is unlikely that Max and Noodles participated in the disposal of the body as described in the book.  By the 1950s very few gangsters had dared to tell their life story and Harry Grey makes it clear in the book on the best way of writing the story:

"As a factual, biographical piece? Nah, no good. The actual facts would land me and everybody else in jail. I'll treat it as escapist stuff, omitting time and slightly camouflaging the place. That's it. I'll sort of blend factual happenings into fiction. After I write it, I guess I'd better keep it for twenty years or so. By that time probably the alert newspapers will finally get wind of this fantastic Combine, and I won't really be spilling the beans."

_ _ _


There is a star dedicated to Harry "Noodles" Grey in Palm Springs which was sponsored by Harry's son Simeon.  Simeon has provided the following information:

Brief Biographical Sketch - Harry Grey

Born January 1 1901 in Kiev, Russia. Parents emigrated to USA four years later. Early schooling on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, dropped out, later received honorary degree in literature and art, and was a frequent guest speaker for the BBC on the Roaring Twenties and Thirties. When his father took seriously ill, his mother cooked in her tenement apartment for local immigrant men with no families. Soon the business took off, and his Mother opened a store-front restaurant.

Harry ran the family wholesale grocery business, Embassy Food Corporation, a firm that grew to handle all exclusive accounts, i.e. Waldorf Astoria, West Pointe, etc. He ran dockside storage facilities, dealt with unions, longshoremen, food importers. Harry was physically strong and tough, and able to deal with the myriad teamsters and gangsters that controlled the waterfront and territories in New York.

He married Mildred Becker, (the "Maybelline" girl and a Hunter College graduate in English Literature) had three children, Beverle, Harvey and Simeon. After being hospitalized by an accident in his fifties and rehabilitating in the Las Palmas area in Palm Springs (as the story goes he was hit by the tail gate of a Mack truck) and being prompted by cronies Charlie Bronson and family members, Harry decided to write about life in the twenties and thirties and those syndicates who controlled the various businesses that were the life blood of the City.

To protect himself and family he changed the family name and from Herschel Goldberg became Harry Grey. Harry's brother, Hyman Goldberg, was a syndicated columnist and food critic for the New York Post, authored a cookbook called "Our Man in the Kitchen", a compilation of recipes from his column as "Prudence Penny" and appeared on CBS for years in one of the first cooking shows.

Harry authored several best sellers, among them, "Call Me Duke", "Portrait of a Mobster" and "The Hoods", all translated into foreign languages and instant successes both at home and abroad.

"Portrait of a Mobster", depicting the life story of Dutch Schultz, became a successful motion picture. "The Hoods" became the epic movie, "Once Upon A Time In America", starring Robert DeNiro, playing loosely Harry's life as "Noodles". The stellar cast included James Woods, Joe Pesci and Tuesday Weld.

_ _ _


It's possible that Simeon has played down his father's criminal activities to enable him to be accepted for a star.  The following details are from official records:
 




According to Hyman Goldberg, when the family were living in the Bronx, Israel was a blacksmith. Israel became seriously ill and had to be taken to hospital for an operation. During his stay there Celia began cooking meals for men in the neighborhood who were saving money to bring their families to America from Europe. When Israel came out of hospital he found that Celia had a flourishing business and Israel started a restaurant. All the children helped out.

It's probable that Celia died in about 1933.  Israel is shown as a widower in the 1940 census and there are several recorded deaths for Celia Goldbergs in the 1930s.

In 1932 Harry married Mildred Becker and by 1940 he had moved to 1205 College Ave Bronx.  
Daughter Beverly was born in 1934 and son Harvey in 1938.
The 1940 census shows that Harry reached grade 7 whilst Mildred reached H4. Harry was described as wholesale grocery salesman.
In November 1940, a further son, Simeon, was born.

According to Simeon, Harry had an accident in the 1940s, decided to write 'The Hoods' and to protect himself and his family, changed his surname to Grey. The 1940 census, which is the last one published, and Harry's obituary in the New York Times from October 1980 provide confirmation of the change of name.


1940 census




Obituary NY Times October 1980




At one of Leone's meetings with Grey, Grey invited Leone to his house and they had a meal of spaghetti, badly cooked by Grey's wife.  She was, as Leone remembered, tired of everything and silent - an elderly ex-schoolteacher who had lived her whole life waiting for him, shaking with nerves every time the phone or the doobell rang. There is some evidence that Eva, Mildred's sister attended Hunter College and was a schoolteacher.

During the early 1970's, Leone introduced writer Medioli to Harry Grey, who confirmed that he had been associated with Frank Costello and the sole liberty he had taken in the Hoods was Max's death.  Max had survived and was now 70 years of age.  He still accepted one or two contracts a year to pay the rent but according to Grey, Max still had big ideas.  So, at seventy years of age, Max proposed to Grey that they do a hold-up together.  Harry's wife said to him: "If you dare do that, at seventy, after all these years I've waited for you, I will leave you." And so Grey turned down the proposal, Max attempted the job himself and was subsequently arrested.  The arrest was broadcast on TV.

When Sergio Leone had a date for filming to commence, he tried to contact Harry Grey to let him know the good news.  Grey's wife told Leone that her husband had died a few weeks earlier.




_ _ _

I think SimRob was trying to get in touch with the sponsor of the star and it will be interesting to find out if he has made any progress.  Simeon provided Palm Springs with a PO Box address and I may send a courteous letter there, hopefully to get a photo or other information.

 

[Harry Goldberg]

Damn.. was Noodles born in Kiev (Ukr) and not in Odessa? I would have never thought so..

So, Chris, in your impression, has Harry Goldberg ever been a mobster or he just pretended to be that in his fictional book (it doesn't seem he was poor and indigent)?

Then: Did Leone lie us about his death date? And did Noodles lie us too about his father's death?

[Harry Goldberg]

Damn.. was Noodles born in Kiev (Ukr) and not in Odessa? I would have never thought so..

So, Chris, in your impression, has Harry Goldberg ever been a mobster or he just pretended to be that in his fictional book (it doesn't seem he was poor and indigent)?

Then: Did Leone lie us about his death date? And did Noodles lie us too about his father's death? And towards Sergio too? What an intrigue!

And finally, could i ask you to give me your opinion about decoding The Hoods dedication "my true and loyal mob M, B, S, H (it's Mildred, Beverly, Simeon and Harvey)?