He wrote the narrative non-fiction Frank Sheeran memoir I Heard You Paint Houses, the basis for the 2019 film The Irishman, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci.
[1] Charles Peter Brandt was born in the Staten Island borough of New York City on March 13, 1942, and grew up there and in Queens.
[2][3] During law school, he also worked as a welfare investigator in East Harlem, which he said was heavy with organized crime activity at the time.
[2] In 1969, he began his legal career in the office of the attorney general of Delaware, prosecuting homicides, before becoming a defense lawyer.
[2] Shortly thereafter, he was hired as a lawyer for Frank Sheeran, and they had early conversations developing the project that would one day become I Heard You Paint Houses.