Who Is Jimmy Hoffa and How Did He Die? What to Know About the Union Leader in ‘The Irishman’

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman.

In the final moments of The Irishman, the highly anticipated new Martin Scorsese film that is now streaming on Netflix, Robert De Niro laments that his young nurse (played by Orange Is the New Black‘s Dascha Polanco) doesn’t know who Jimmy Hoffa is. In that moment, I felt Scorsese chastising me, and the director was right: I didn’t know who Jimmy Hoffa was before I saw Al Pacino portray him in The Irishman. (I also didn’t know who De Niro’s character, Frank Sheeran, was, but I’ve been told this is ignorance is less offensive to the mafia-obsessed.)

But thanks to The Irishman, and some independent research, I learned. I have a feeling many young viewers of The Irishman are in a similar boat, so here’s everything you need to know about Jimmy Hoffa. Be warned that this definitely spoils the end of the film. You might want to save this article until after you watch Scorsese’s new three-and-a-half-hour mob epic.

Who is Jimmy Hoffa?

Jimmy Hoffa was a labor union leader most famous for his role as the President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a labor union for blue-collar workers that was, in the ’40s and ’50s, one of the most powerful unions in the country. It was also a union that was heavily influenced by organized crime. Hoffa played a major role in growing the Teamster’s size and power, and also played a major role in the involvement of the mafia.

He was a corrupt leader and, in 1964, was convicted of jury tampering, attempted bribery, and fraud. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison, but only served four years, because he was pardoned by President Nixon in 1971. As part of the pardon, he agreed to step down as president of the Teamsters, and was not allowed to engage in union activity until 1980. However, he instead tried to regain leadership of the Teamsters, until he mysteriously vanished without a trace in 1975. His body was never found, but he was declared legally dead in 1982.

Did Frank Sheeran kill Jimmy Hoffa? How did Jimmy Hoffa die?

Here’s where we get to the controversial part of The Irishman, as well as the part you might not want to read if you don’t want to be spoiled. First and foremost, let’s be clear that officially and legally, no one knows how Jimmy Hoffa died. His body was never found, and the FBI never reached an official conclusion.

The basis of The Irishman is Frank Sheeran’s as-told-to memoir, I Heard You Paint Houses, written by author Charles Brandt who conducted interviews with Sheeran in the last years of his life. In that memoir—and therefore in Scorsese’s filmed version of it—Sheeran claimed, in so many words, to have killed Jimmy Hoffa. Sheeran was a longtime friend of Hoffa’s, and a high-ranking official in the union, who also close with the Bufalino crime family, aka the Pennsylvania-based mafia.

In his book, Sheeran described being ordered by the Bufalinos to kill Hoffa. He described driving in a car with Hoffa, Hoffa’s Charles “Chuckie” O’Brien, and fellow mobster Sal Briguglio, to house in Detroit. Sheeran says that he and Hoffa entered the house alone and that Sheeran then shot Hoffa twice behind the right ear. Sheeran then left the crime scene but was told that Hoffa’s body was cremated.

This is one explanation for Hoffa’s disappearance, and it’s the one we see play out in The Irishman. However, it was never proven, and in fact, Sheeran’s account and Brandt’s book have been contested. In a cover story for Slate, reporter Bill Tonelli disputed the claims. Tonelli interviewed former FBI agents, colleagues of Sheeran, and other people familiar with the Hoffa case, and found that most did not buy Sheeran’s story. Some reporters who had been following the Hoffa cased expressed doubt and frustration that Brandt’s book has been accepted as truth.

In 2005, FBI investigated the house that Sheeran claimed Hoffa was killed in and did find bloodstains. However, the blood did not match Hoffa’s. In conclusion, even if you choose to believe Sheeran and The Irishman, Hoffa’s death remains an official mystery.

Why was Jimmy Hoffa killed?

Though the exact details of Hoffa’s death are contested, most reporters, FBI agents, and mafia aficionados seem to agree that Hoffa was taken out by the mafia because he was trying to seize back control of the Teamster union. He was warned multiple times to back off, but still persisted, so the mob took him out.

Where is Jimmy Hoffa buried? Where is Jimmy Hoffa’s grave?

Again, we don’t know! Police and FBI have followed up on multiple tips as to where Hoffa’s body is buried in Michigan in 2012 and 2013, and both times the ground tested yielded no results of human remains. If you believe Frank Sheeran, the body was cremated. If you believe Michael Franzese, who went on a radio interview in April 2019, the body was thrown in a lake. There’s a lot of speculation and not a lot of evidence.

Was Jimmy Hoffa Irish? What nationality was Jimmy Hoffa?

This is apparently a question that many of you have! Yes, Jimmy Hoffa was part-Irish descent, on his mother’s side, and was of German descent on his father’s side. However, the titular “Irishman” in Scorsese’s movie is De Niro’s character: Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran, who was notable for being one of the few Irish men among the Italian-American mafia.

Watch The Irishman on Netflix