Gangster film legends Pesci, De Niro, Pacino and Keitel unite for ultimate mafia blockbuster from Martin Scorsese

MAFIA hitman Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran picked up the phone to hear a simple comment from a familiar voice: “I heard you paint houses.”

The phrase — code for the way blood splatters the walls during a slaying — became the title of a 2004 true crime novel after Sheeran confessed on his deathbed to unsolved murders.

Now Hollywood director Martin Scorsese has recruited a cast of gangster film legends to make a big-screen version, The Irishman — and it promises to be the greatest Mob movie ever.

Scorsese, who made Mean Streets and Goodfellas, has secured £70million of funding at the Cannes Film Festival for the project, which will star Robert De Niro from The Godfather Part II, Scarface’s Al Pacino and Reservoir Dogs’ Harvey Keitel. Filming is due to begin next January.

Scorsese is also confident he can lure Joe Pesci out of semi-retirement for the film — although Pesci, who appeared in Goodfellas with De Niro — is resisting.

De Niro and Scorsese have made nine films together. Pacino and De Niro have starred together.

But Scorsese has never directed Pacino. Nor have De Niro, Pacino and Pesci ever all worked together.

The film will centre on Sheeran, who is believed to have been behind 25 gangland killings. Before he died in 2003, he confessed to shooting notorious union boss and crime figure Jimmy Hoffa — the man who rang him that day to ask if he painted houses.

Sheeran also sensationally claimed to have had a role in the 1963 shooting of President Kennedy, by supplying high-powered rifles to a Mafia hit squad who passed them to assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

His confidante, former homicide investigator and lawyer Charles Brandt, wrote his stunning revelations into the 2004 best-seller.

Brandt — who sold the film rights to Scorsese and De Niro — told The Sun: “It will be the ultimate Mob movie. Frank Sheeran was a fascinating character and one of the most colourful in the Mafia.

“I am excited this movie is finally happening. It is a big part of world history and it is finally the truth.”

Sheeran was born into an Irish family in a working-class neighbourhood in Pennsylvania in 1920 and joined the army at 21.

During World War Two, the 6ft 4in soldier developed a callousness for taking life, with enemy kills in Germany, France and Italy.

After being discharged in 1945 he became a close associate of crime family head Russell Bufalino, known as “The Old Man”, who is claimed to be the inspiration for Marlon Brando’s Godfather character.

Bufalino had Mafia gangs running rackets across the US East Coast, including New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and South Florida.

Sheeran earned a reputation as a tough but fair mobster heavy who would do anything to protect his family and was feared in the local community.

His daughter Irene was once shouted at by a shop owner for knocking over an item — causing Sheeran to march straight to the store and break the man’s hands. But despite his cruel streak, he claimed most people would not have suspected he was a hitman.

Sheeran told Brandt how he would pose as the driver of a broken-down truck and ask to use the gents’ when carrying out killings.

He used this tactic to gun down New York gangster “Crazy” Joe Gallo in a Manhattan diner in 1972 in one of the most notorious Mob murders.

He was not suspected of the hit until Brandt’s book, including the confession, was published 30 years later, prompting a witness in the diner that day to identify Sheeran from an image in the book.

It was while working for Bufalino that Sheeran met union boss Hoffa, who worked closely with the Mob.

Brandt, 74, who lives in Delaware with his wife Nancy, 71, said: “Frank and Russell were at a mobsters’ tavern in Philadelphia and Russell got a call.

“He handed the phone to Frank and said, ‘Say hi to Jimmy Hoffa.’

“Frank takes the phone and Hoffa, in his first words uttered, says, ‘I heard you paint houses’. The next day Frank was with Hoffa, helping him eliminate rivals.

“Everybody in America recognised Hoffa’s voice. He appeared on TV so often that we all knew who he was. He was as famous as Elvis.”

In July 1975 Hoffa mysteriously disappeared and was officially declared dead seven years later.

The FBI drew up a list of nine suspects — including Sheeran — but no one was ever charged. In 1980 Sheeran was prosecuted for fraud, labour racketeering and taking bribes and was jailed for 18 years.

But despite pressure from the FBI, he refused to rat on his Mafia bosses.

In jail he developed a serious spinal disease and in 1991 made contact with Brandt, who recalled: “I got a call from a representative of the Philadelphia Mob, who wanted to get Frank Sheeran out of jail on medical grounds.

“He had severe spinal stenosis and needed surgery. So I represented him and got him out. Afterwards his associates took my office out for lunch at an Italian restaurant. It was straight out of Goodfellas. I felt like I was in a gangster movie.

“I had written a detective novel. Frank said he was tired of being written about in articles and that he had read my book in prison.

“He wanted to tell his side of the story about what happened to Hoffa — and he wanted me to tell it. I knew he wanted to confess.”

In recorded interviews, Sheeran said he had been strong-armed by Bufalino to murder Hoffa, whose erratic behaviour was causing problems for the Mafia.

He shot the union leader — his one-time friend — twice in the head with a .22 pistol at a house in Detroit where he had taken him under the pretence of attending a meeting. Brandt’s recordings of the confession were subpoenaed by the FBI and remain in the hands of investigators.

Meanwhile he remained wary of Mob threats and said: “The new Bufalino crime family boss, Billy D’Elia, was suspicious of me.

“A message was got to my family that said Billy was not happy with me. My wife was concerned but I didn’t care — Billy’s name wasn’t in the book.”

I Heard You Paint Houses sold 100,000 copies in the US and in 2007 De Niro got in touch with Brandt, leading to a meeting two years later with him and Scorsese.

Sheeran died with a long kill list and a bloody reputation, but Brandt wants the film to help reveal who he really was. He said: “I had a four-hour meeting with Scorsese, De Niro and screenwriter Steve Zaillian, who won an Oscar for Schindler’s List. They flew me to New York and I was really impressed. They really understood Frank Sheeran and did not view him as yet another Mafia thug.

“He was a colourful character. They understood that he was a complicated man.”

In the film he will be played by De Niro, while Pacino, Keitel and Pesci will look to fill the roles of Hoffa, Bufalino and Joe Gallo.

In a Cannes interview De Niro joked: “I think I’ll just kill a few people to get into the part.”

It was obviously an offer he couldn’t refuse.

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