Billy Bathgate is a 1991 American biographical gangster film directed by Robert Benton, starring Loren Dean as the title character and Dustin Hoffman as real-life gangster Dutch Schultz. The film co-stars Nicole Kidman, Steven Hill, Steve Buscemi and Bruce Willis. Although Billy is a fictional character, at least four of the other characters in the film were real people. The screenplay was adapted by British writer Tom Stoppard from E.L. Doctorow's 1989 novel of the same name. Doctorow distanced himself from the film for the extensive deviations from the book. It received negative reviews and was a box-office bomb, grossing a mere $15.5 million against its $48 million budget.
Original Theatrical Poster
Dutch Schultz was an American mobster based in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. Schultz made his fortune in organized crime-related activities, including bootlegging and the numbers racket. Schultz's rackets were weakened by two tax evasion trials led by prosecutor Thomas Dewey, and also threatened by fellow mobster Lucky Luciano.
Schultz's 1931 mugshot
The headstone of Dutch Schultz in Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Hawthorne, New York