Asthma Saved Scorsese From Mob Life

The director was raised in Little Italy in the 1940s and 50s, when the Manhattan neighborhood was ruled by the mob.

And he admitted to Michael Ballhaus, his director of photography on movies Goodfellas, The Departed and Gangs of New York, that he would have turned to crime had a bout of asthma not forced him to stay indoors.

Instead, Scorsese spent hours watching television and cultivating his love of film.

Ballhaus tells GQ magazine, "(Scorsese's) best friend was the son of the Mafia boss there. When he was a kid, he had asthma, so he couldn't go on the streets. He went home and watched movies on television, hours and hours.

"He told me once that if he were a big guy like his friend, 'I probably would have been one of them.'"