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found this article/interview from 2007 which talks about the guy he nearly killed:
From the same article he definately tries to downplay the ****:
It is the autumn of 1938. Franklin D. Roosevelt is President, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is on general release, the Munich Pact has just been signed and the Great Depression is eating away at the fabric of American society. The 17-year-old La Motta is living with his family in a rat-infested tenement building in an immigrant Bronx slum and, despite his youth, has already forged a reputation as a violent small-time hoodlum.
The youngster has spent the day figuring out how to mug Harry Gordon, a local bookie, who always carries a few bucks in his pocket after doing the rounds in the neighbourhood. Gordon tends to take the same route home and, as the clock ticks past midnight, La Motta is poised in a dark corner with a length of lead piping wrapped in a newspaper.
Gordon appears, walking slowly, and La Motta creeps up behind. He whacks his quarry around the back of the head with the lead pipe; Gordon staggers but stays on his feet. La Motta is so enraged that his victim has not lost consciousness that he loses control, bludgeoning Gordon again and again across the skull until he crashes to the ground. La Motta then reaches inside his coat pocket, removes his wallet and vanishes.
The story in one of the next day’s newspapers is depicted as follows: Harry Gordon, 45, with a record of bookmaking arrests, was found beaten to death in an alley off Brook Avenue in the Bronx at 4 o’clock this morning.
“Harry Gordon played on my mind for a while,” La Motta says. “For more than ten years I thought I had killed the fella. It kind of messed me up a bit. I felt that I had done something I hadn’t paid for. I was in stir as a youngster at Coxsackie [a notorious reform school in New York] but for something else [the attempted burglary of a ***ellery store]. I guess it felt like a safe place to be whilst the cops were looking for the murderer.
“It was only in 1949 that I found out what really happened. I was celebrating after beating Marcel Cerdan for the championship and this man with scars on his forehead comes over. It was Harry. ‘You remember me?’ he says. It was like a ghost had turned up. Turns out Harry was so bashed up when he got to the hospital that the newspaperman thought he was a goner. We didn’t know any better because he moved out of town as soon as he was released from hospital. He’d decided the Bronx was too rough.”
How did Harry react when he found out that it was you who half-killed him that night? “He never found out,” La Motta says. “I didn’t damn well tell him and by the time my book came out he was dead.”
The youngster has spent the day figuring out how to mug Harry Gordon, a local bookie, who always carries a few bucks in his pocket after doing the rounds in the neighbourhood. Gordon tends to take the same route home and, as the clock ticks past midnight, La Motta is poised in a dark corner with a length of lead piping wrapped in a newspaper.
Gordon appears, walking slowly, and La Motta creeps up behind. He whacks his quarry around the back of the head with the lead pipe; Gordon staggers but stays on his feet. La Motta is so enraged that his victim has not lost consciousness that he loses control, bludgeoning Gordon again and again across the skull until he crashes to the ground. La Motta then reaches inside his coat pocket, removes his wallet and vanishes.
The story in one of the next day’s newspapers is depicted as follows: Harry Gordon, 45, with a record of bookmaking arrests, was found beaten to death in an alley off Brook Avenue in the Bronx at 4 o’clock this morning.
“Harry Gordon played on my mind for a while,” La Motta says. “For more than ten years I thought I had killed the fella. It kind of messed me up a bit. I felt that I had done something I hadn’t paid for. I was in stir as a youngster at Coxsackie [a notorious reform school in New York] but for something else [the attempted burglary of a ***ellery store]. I guess it felt like a safe place to be whilst the cops were looking for the murderer.
“It was only in 1949 that I found out what really happened. I was celebrating after beating Marcel Cerdan for the championship and this man with scars on his forehead comes over. It was Harry. ‘You remember me?’ he says. It was like a ghost had turned up. Turns out Harry was so bashed up when he got to the hospital that the newspaperman thought he was a goner. We didn’t know any better because he moved out of town as soon as he was released from hospital. He’d decided the Bronx was too rough.”
How did Harry react when he found out that it was you who half-killed him that night? “He never found out,” La Motta says. “I didn’t damn well tell him and by the time my book came out he was dead.”
From the same article he definately tries to downplay the ****:
When I ask him about his **** of a young woman in New York, which is harrowingly described in his book, La Motta reverts to type, attempting first to deny and then to evade responsibility.
“****?” he says. “I never really ****d anybody.” “But what about the woman you describe in your autobiography?” I ask. La Motta pauses for a long moment. “Well, I suppose I gave her a little push or something,” he says. “You know what it’s like to give a little extra pressure. It often happens when women get their first sex, they pretend that they didn’t want it to happen. It’s a game to them.”
“****?” he says. “I never really ****d anybody.” “But what about the woman you describe in your autobiography?” I ask. La Motta pauses for a long moment. “Well, I suppose I gave her a little push or something,” he says. “You know what it’s like to give a little extra pressure. It often happens when women get their first sex, they pretend that they didn’t want it to happen. It’s a game to them.”
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