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“What use is an unloaded gun?”
What indeed, Tony?
Here at JOE we have a lot of time for Tony Soprano. The New Jersey mob boss, portrayed brilliantly by the late James Gandolfini, is a killer with a sensitive side whose problems redefine the phrase “family problems”. For 86 classic episodes, we went on a journey with Tony and the haunted house of a head of his.
To celebrate the release of The Sopranos to Sky Box Sets, we’ve compiled a list of five American gangsters who’d give Tony a run for his mob money.
Al Capone
Al Capone is undoubtedly the most famous mafia mobster that ever lived.
Born in Brooklyn in 1899 to Italian immigrant parents, Al Capone was kicked out of school when he was 14 for hitting a teacher. He resumed his studies under the tutelage of gangster Johnny Torrio.
In 1918 Capone moved from New York to Chicago to help Johnny Torrio to run brothels. Prohibition in the 1920’s spelled a new dawn for organised crime. Torrio became the king of the bootleggers and when he retired in 1925, Capone took his place.
Capone dealt with his rival gangs with pitiless violence. In 1929 he was responsible for the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of the Bugs Moran Gang. Ingenious tactics lured Moran’s gang to a warehouse where some out-of-town assassins dressed as police officers, shot the gang dead.
By 1929, Al Capone was the most famous gangster in America. President Herbert Hoover ordered federal law enforcement to find a way to prosecute him to end his reign of crime.
Elliot Ness and his Untouchables weren’t able to put Capone away for prohibition charges, but they did destroy his bootlegging business. They eventually got him for tax evasion in 1931 when he became Alcatraz’s most famous resident. Capone served only half his sentence due to ill health and good behaviour. He died in 1947 in his Florida estate.
Lucky Luciano
Known as the father of American organised crime in America, crime was just crime until Luciano came along.
Born in 1897 in Sicily, Luciano came to New York in 1906 where he took to crime from a young age, relieving fellow classmates of their lunch money in exchange for protection.
As a young man he became involved in prostitution rings, extortion, blackmail and bootlegging. He very quickly became one of the big six in bootlegging on the US East Coast.
In 1931 he formed ‘The Commission’ which brought together the five crime families of New York including Al Capone’s organisation in Chicago.
The Commission acted like a board of directors for all criminal activity and disputes between warring gangsters. Lucky Luciano dressed well, always had an attractive lady on his arm and lived in the luxurious Waldorf Towers.
In 1936 his high life ended when New York’s special prosecutor sent him to jail for prostitution. During World War II he aided the US war effort by giving the okay to his dock workers to provide naval intelligence.
For his act of patriotism he was released from jail on the condition he return to Italy and never return to the US. He moved to Havana, Cuba to try to set up a worldwide drug smuggling organisation but the US pressured the Cubans to force him to leave. He spent the rest of his life in Sicily.
Frank Lucas
John Dillinger
Known as Public Enemy number 1, John Dillinger is the most famous bank robber in the history of the United States. How bad was he? The FBI was founded in an attempt to catch him. Think about that for a moment. Imagine being so bad that your government has to start a special agency to bring you down.
In 1923 skipped town when the police wanted to talk to him about a stolen car. He joined the navy but deserted five months later.
When he was in his 20’s he was arrested for robbing an elderly grocer and sentenced to hard time. A decade later he emerged from prison, a hardened criminal.
He robbed a bank and was arrested again. He was swiftly broken out by five of his criminal buddies. Once free, they robbed a police arsenal before setting out on a three month crime spree across the American mid-west.
In December 1933, Dillinger and his gang were captured in Touscon, Arizona. He was transferred to the inescapable Crown Points Jail in Indiana. He took a piece of wood and a razor, carved it into a gun. Got past a dozen guards and stole away in a sheriff’s car across state lines.
This is where J. Edgar Hoover got involved. Dillinger set up a new gang which included Baby Faced Nelson. They robbed six banks in four states. By the summer of 1934, Dillinger was labeled Public Enemy Number One and put a $10,000 reward on his head. He was ambushed and killed by police outside a cinema in Chicago in 1934.
Henry Hill
The inspiration behind the classic Goodfellas, Henry Hill’s life was as colourful and fun as it was bloody and nerve wracking. If you’ve seen Martin Scorsese’s 1990 masterpiece you’ve got a pretty good grasp of Henry’s life. Hill himself claimed that the film is 95% accurate.
From as far back as he could remember he always wanted to be a gangster. He got his wish and at a young age he was taken in under the wing of notorious mobster Jimmy “The Gent” Conway and Tommy DeVito. From there, young Henry had a few years laughing it up as he, Jimmy and pals robbed, killed and intimidated their way across New York state.
Unfortunately for Henry, the good times didn’t last. Henry’s philandering ways saw tension at home (see below). He was also arrested and spent a few years in prison.
When he got out, Jimmy, Henry and friends and a lot of Henry’s associates committed the Lufthansa heist where they stole $6 million from just outside JFK Airport. It was the perfect crime except for one thing: the crew. They started burning through the cash on luxury items so Jimmy had a good chunk of the gang killed. Fearing his own imminent offing, Henry turned state witness against his former friends. He lived out the rest of his days in witness protection where, according to the film, he spends his days picking up the newspaper while reminiscing about the past.
Brought to you by The Sopranos on Sky Box Sets
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