Goodfellas

ROBERT DE NIRO is not the easiest interview in the business. Ask him a question that has nothing to do with his personal life, and he is likely to tell you that it is a personal matter. He'll answer some questions, but he is just as likely to shrug, look at his audience and bring a particular line of interrogation to a halt.He is appearing in the new film ''GoodFellas,'' based on the book ''Wiseguy'' by Nicholas Pileggi, one of our leading authorities on the Mafia. Martin Scorsese directed.

Hickory used to be just a bump in the road, a sleepy crossroads.But urbanization -- the great migration that turns farmland into suburban housing developments and shopping centers -- has shaken the little Harford County community awake to a traffic nightmare.During evening rush hours, those who moved to the cornfields of the north county to escape city congestion find themselves in traffic backups that can stretch for a mile -- from the old crossroads of U.S. 1 and Route 543 in Hickory to the Bel Air roller rink.

Martin Scorsese, in New York to do publicity for his Mafia opus, ''GoodFellas,'' said he had just returned from the Florida Everglades where he was planning to do his next film, a remake of the 1962 ''Cape Fear'' in which Robert Mitchum was the ex-con who menaced the lawyer who had sent him to prison.''It's not the usual place to do a film,'' said Scorsese, who added that Robert De Niro, who has already done six films with Scorsese, will be playing the ex-con in the remake.Scorsese has been talking to Robert Redford about doing the role of the lawyer, played originally by Gregory Peck.

Rockin' Dopsie Sr.Zydeco music originatorOPELOUSAS, La. -- Rockin' Dopsie Sr., an originator of the fusion of Cajun music and rhythm and blues known as zydeco, who played on Paul Simon's "Graceland" album, died Thursday of a heart attack."

TODAY, CLASS, WE take a break from Black History Month to celebrate what I'm dubbing Italian- American History Day. The observance is inspired by the perpetual ignorance of non-Italian Americans -- who probably warmed up to "Goodfellas" -- about the real contributions of Italian-Americans to the nation. I've said it before. Here's the nutshell Hollywood version of Italian-American history again: There's never been an Italian who wasn't also a Mafiaso. The real record might shock and delight you. Here it is: First, let's make clear that America's Italian immigrants weren't always considered white.

John Gotti is a thug and a racketeer. He is the head of the largest organized crime gang in greater New York and probably in the country. Federal prosecutors say he is a murderer. He is also an anachronism.Which is not to brush aside Mr. Gotti's trial on murder, conspiracy, extortion, racketeering, gambling and loansharking. It's a lot more than "GoodFellas" or "Bugsy" without the popcorn. Mr. Gotti commands a force of perhaps 400 hoodlums, one of the five notorious Mafia families in New York.

Once in a while, a movie adaptation creates a character that is drawn so well it becomes an  archetype, a measuring stick for all other similar characters. Think John Wayne, the western tough in "True Grit," which was adapted from the Charles Portis novel. Or Ray Liotta, the New York hood in "Goodfellas," adapted from the book "Wiseguy. " News comes today of the death of Henry Hill, the real-life gangster-turned-informant who was the lifeblood of "Wiseguy" and Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas.

THE MOB BOX -- Sony / $34.95 / More than the underworld connects the movies in The Mob Box, due out Tuesday. Barry Levinson had a hand in producing 1991's Bugsy (which he also directed) and 1997's Donnie Brasco (which Mike Newell directed, 10 years before Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). In Donnie Brasco, a solidly acted, stolidly written, real-life crime saga, Johnny Depp plays an FBI agent who goes undercover as a jewel broker. In the facetious Brit "laddie" film/gangster film Snatch (2000)

When Ray Liotta first worked on Broadway, he wasn't anywhere near the stage. "I put the candy out, sold it before the show and during intermission, and then went home with $7 in my pocket," says the Hollywood veteran. "I used to do what that guy's doing," he says, motioning to a concession salesman in the Plymouth Theater, where, more than two decades after manning the M&Ms, Liotta is making his Broadway debut in Match. "It was a great job to have, because you got to watch people on stage, and you learned," says Liotta, 48. After growing up in New Jersey and graduating from the University of Miami in 1977, Liotta moved to New York to get started in acting.

Gangster movies are back and so are sideburns. Could there be a connection? Kathy Weaver thinks so."It's gangster chic," said Weaver, director of education for the Supercuts chain of hairstyling salons.She predicts that fashion-conscious young men will be sporting the look that's big in the latest spate of gangster movies, including "Goodfellas," "Godfather III" and Dustin Hoffman's "Billy Bathgate."Essentially, the hair is long and slicked back on top, but fairly short at the back and sides except for those sideburns on the cheeks.