Donnie Brasco and Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero

In the movie, Johnny Depp shows he is worrying about Lefty`s life, because he stood up for him to join the mafia my question is...

In the real life, did they become real friends while Pistone was Donnie Brasco?

Has he ever really worried about Lefty`s life?even though he testified against him later...

Did Pistone try to save him from being whacked by the Mafia?


I wanna know about the relationship between Pistone and Lefty when the Donnie Brasco operation was working.

I know Pistone was just working as an undercover agent and he was not supposed to care about anyone in the Mafia, but I wanna know, or at least your opinion, about the Pistone`s personal feelings for Lefty.

Excellent question, DPN! You've hit on major differences between the movie and the book:
In the movie, Lefty is portrayed as the Mafia's schlemeil--a loser who always winds up on the bottom. But Brasco seems to like, admire and protect him, even offering him money to quit the Mob.
In the book (presumably real life), Pistone portrays Lefty as quite successful--a good earner, with enough clout in the family to beat out Tony Mirra in a sit-down over who would "own" Brasco. But the real life Pistone had no affection for Lefty, whom he portrayed as a whiner and a freeloader. The guy that the real life Pistone seemed to like and admire was Dominic (Sonny Black) Napolitano, Lefty's boss.
According to Pistone, once he was withdrawn from his undercover role, he had no further contact with Lefty or Sonny. FBI agents called on Sonny at his club to inform him of "Brasco's" true identity. The agents (not Pistone) snatched Lefty off the street later, one step ahead of his being whacked. But Sonny got whacked first. The movie shows Lefty leaving his watch, wallet, etc., behind before he goes off to his "last meeting." In real life, Sonny Black was the one who knew that the meeting would be his last, and left his valuables behind.
The real life Pistone

I'm not sure but i thought DOnnie had dinner with Sonny Black's wife after his real identity became known (i thought i read that in the book)..

Yes that was in the book.

I once read an interview with Pistone,and he said it's impossible to do undercover work for such a long time,and not develop a friendship with the targets,he said you can't do the job,if you don't have some kind of sympathy for those guys.But he didn't feel guilty about it,he said they would have killed him immediately if they would have known he was a cop,so he did his job,without remorse.

After founding out that a dead body the police found was the body of Sonny Black Joe Pistone said this in his book:
I felt sorry it had to be Sonny, but i'm glad it wasn't me.

This is translated from Dutch. Maybe someone who has the English version can post the sentence. It's the last sentence of the 20th chapter.

"I was sorry it was Sonny. I was glad it wasn't me."

Pistone didn't care much for Lefty and occasionally hated him. He befriended Napolitano. The film is one revolting lie, not worth even going over - it would be easier to find truth in the "Hitler diary" or the "Jack the Ripper diary" forgeries than Newell's awful mess.

The film may be inaccurate, but I would hardly call it a mess.

Nor I. The film wasn't as good as the book, IMO, but it was plenty entertaining, with very good performances all around.