Al Capone
Al Capone in 1930
Born	Alphonse Gabriel Capone (1899-01-17)January 17, 1899 Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died	January 25, 1947(1947-01-25) (aged 48) Palm Island, Florida, U.S.
Resting place	Mount Carmel Cemetery[1]
Nationality	American
Occupation	Gangster, bootlegger, racketeer, boss of Chicago Outfit
Height	5′ 10½” (1,79 m)
Religion	Roman Catholic
Criminal charge	Tax evasion
Criminal penalty	11-year sentence in Atlanta U.S. Penitentiary and Alcatraz
Spouse(s)	Mae Capone
Children	Albert Francis “Sonny” Capone (1918–2004)

Alphonse Gabriel “Al” Capone (/æl kəˈpoʊn/; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947) was an American gangster who attained fame during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit. His seven-year reign as crime boss ended when he was 33 years old.

Born in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City to Italian immigrants, Capone was a Five Points Gang member who became a bouncer in organized crime premises such as brothels. In his early twenties, he moved to Chicago and became bodyguard and trusted factotum for Johnny Torrio, head of a criminal syndicate that illegally supplied alcohol – the forerunner of the Outfit – and that was politically protected through the Unione Siciliana. A conflict with the North Side Gang was instrumental in Capone’s rise and fall. Torrio went into retirement after North Side gunmen almost killed him, handing control to Capone. Capone expanded the bootlegging business through increasingly violent means, but his mutually profitable relationships with mayor William Hale Thompson and the city’s police meant Capone seemed safe from law enforcement. Apparently reveling in the attention, such as the cheers when he appeared at ball games, Capone made donations to various charities and was viewed by many to be a “modern-day Robin Hood“. However, the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre of gang rivals from the North Side Gang damaged Chicago’s image, leading influential citizens to demand governmental action.

The federal authorities became intent on jailing Capone and prosecuted him for tax evasion in 1931. The case was highly politicized and both prosecutors and judge later received preferment. During prior and ultimately abortive negotiations to pay the government any back taxes he owed, Capone had made admissions of his income; the judge deemed these statements usable as evidence at the trial, and refused to let Capone plead guilty for a lighter sentence. The effect of such decisions by the judge was added to by the incompetence of Capone’s defense attorneys. Capone was convicted and sentenced to a then-record-breaking 11 years in federal prison. Replacing his old defense team with experts in tax law, his grounds for appeal were strengthened by a Supreme Court ruling, but Capone again found that his status as a symbol of criminality meant that judges decided in his disfavor. Already showing signs of syphilitic dementia early in his sentence, he became increasingly debilitated before being released after eight years. On January 25, 1947, Capone died of cardiac arrest after suffering a stroke. Capone’s conviction had negligible effect on the prevalence of organized crime in Chicago.

Early life

Al Capone’s son Albert Francis “Sonny” Capone with Al Capone’s mother, Teresa

Alphonse (or Alfonse; which one is unknown) Gabriel Capone was born in the borough of Brooklyn in New York on January 17, 1899.^[2] His parents, Gabriele Capone (December 12, 1865 – November 14, 1920) and Teresina Raiola (December 28, 1867 – November 29, 1952), were immigrants from Italy. His father was a barber and his mother was a seamstress, both born in Angri, a town in the Province of Salerno.^[3][4]

Gabriele and Teresa had nine children: Alphonse “Scarface Al” Capone, James Capone (who later changed his name to Richard Hart and became, ironically, a Prohibition agent in Homer, Nebraska), Raffaele Capone (also known as Ralph “Bottles” Capone, who took charge of his brother’s beverage industry), Salvatore “Frank” Capone, John Capone, Albert Capone, Matthew Capone, Rose Capone, and Mafalda Capone (who married John J. Maritote). His two brothers, Ralph Capone and Frank Capone, worked with him in his empire. Frank did so until his death on April 1, 1924 and Ralph ran the bottling companies (both legal and illegal) early on, and was also the front man for the Chicago Outfit for some time until he was imprisoned for tax evasion in 1932. The Capone family immigrated to the United States, first immigrating from Italy to Fiume, Austria-Hungary (now Rijeka, Croatia) in 1893, traveling on a ship to the U.S., and finally settled at 95 Navy Street,^[2] in the Navy Yard section of downtown Brooklyn. Gabriele Capone worked at a nearby barber shop at 29 Park Avenue.^[2] When Al was 11, the Capone family moved to 38 Garfield Place^[2] in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Capone showed promise as a student, but had trouble with the rules at his strict parochial Catholic school. He dropped out of school at the age of 14, after being expelled for hitting a female teacher in the face.^[5] He worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including a candy store and a bowling alley.^[6] During this time, Capone was influenced by gangster Johnny Torrio, whom he came to regard as a mentor.^[7]

Career

After his initial stint with small-time gangs that included the Junior Forty Thieves and the Bowery Boys, Capone joined the Brooklyn Rippers and then the powerful Five Points Gang based in Lower Manhattan. During this time, he was employed and mentored by fellow racketeer Frankie Yale, a bartender in a Coney Island dance hall and saloon called the Harvard Inn. After he inadvertently insulted a woman while working the door at a Brooklyn night club, Capone was slashed by her brother, Frank Gallucio. The wounds led to the nickname that Capone loathed: “Scarface”.^[8] Yale insisted that Capone apologize to Gallucio, and later Capone hired him as a bodyguard.^[9][10] When photographed, Capone hid the scarred left side of his face saying the injuries were war wounds.^[9][11] Capone was called “Snorky,” a term for a sharp dresser, by his closest friends.^[12]

Marriage and family

On December 30, 1918, at age 19, Capone married Mae Josephine Coughlin, who was Irish Catholic and who, earlier that month, had given birth to their first son, Albert Francis (“Sonny”) Capone. As Capone was under the age of 21, his parents had to consent to the marriage in writing.^[13]

Chicago

At about 20 years of age, Capone left New York for Chicago at the invitation of Johnny Torrio, who was imported by bootlegger James “Big Jim” Colosimo as an enforcer. Capone began in Chicago as a bouncer in a brothel, where he contracted syphilis. Timely use of Salvarsan probably could have cured the infection, but he apparently never sought treatment.^[14] In 1923, he purchased a small house at 7244 South Prairie Avenue in the Park Manor neighborhood on the city’s south side for US$5,500.^[15] In the early years of the decade, Capone’s name began appearing in newspaper sports pages, where he was described as a boxing promoter.^[16] Chicago’s location on Lake Michigan gave access to a vast inland territory, and it was well-served by railroads. Torrio took over Colosimo’s crime empire after Colosimo’s murder on May 11, 1920, in which Capone was suspected of being involved.^[5][17][18]

With Capone as his right-hand man, Torrio headed an essentially Italian organized crime group that was the biggest in the city. Wary of being drawn into gang wars, he tried to proceed by negotiating agreements between rival crime groups over territory. The smaller, mixed ethnicity, North Side Gang led by Dion O’Banion came under pressure from the Genna brothers, who were allied with Torrio. O’Banion found that for all Torrio’s pretensions to be a settler of disputes, he was unhelpful with the encroachment of the Gennas into the North Side.^[19] In a fateful step, Torrio had, or acquiesced to the Gennas having, O’Banion killed at his flower shop in October 1924. This placed Hymie Weiss at the head of the gang, backed by Vincent Drucci and Bugs Moran. Under Weiss, who had been a close friend of O’Banion, the North Siders treated revenge on his killers as a priority.^[20][21][22]

Boss

Unemployed men outside a soup kitchen opened in Chicago by Al Capone, 1931

In January 1925 Capone was ambushed, leaving him shaken but unhurt. Twelve days later, Torrio was returning from a shopping trip when he was shot several times. After recovering Torrio effectively resigned and handed over to Capone, who at 26 years of age became the new boss of an organization that took in illegal breweries and a transportation network that reached to Canada, with political and law-enforcement protection. In turn he was able to use more violence to increase revenue. Refusal by an establishment to purchase liquor from him often resulted in the premises being blown up. As many as 100 people were killed in such bombings during the 1920s. Rivals saw Capone as responsible for the proliferation of brothels in the city.^{[22][23][24][25]}

Capone indulged in custom suits, cigars, gourmet food and drink (his preferred liquor was Templeton Rye from Iowa^[26]), and female companionship. He was particularly known for his flamboyant and costly jewelry. His favorite responses to questions about his activities were “I am just a businessman, giving the people what they want,” and “All I do is satisfy a public demand.” Capone had become a national celebrity and talking point.^[8]

After using bribery and widespread intimidation to take over during elections for the town council, Capone based himself in Cicero. This made it difficult for the North Siders to target him.^[8][27] Capone’s driver was found tortured and murdered, there was then an attempt on Weiss’s life in the Chicago Loop. On September 20, 1926, the North Side Gang used a ploy outside the Capone headquarters at the Hawthorne Inn, aimed at drawing him to the windows. Gunmen in several cars then opened fire with Thompson submachine guns and shotguns at the windows of first floor restaurant. Capone was unhurt, but called for a truce; the negotiations fell through. Three weeks later, Weiss was killed outside the former O’Banion flower shop North Side headquarters. In January 1927, the Hawthorne’s restaurant owner, a friend of Capone’s, was kidnapped and killed by Moran and Drucci.^[28][29]

Capone became increasingly security-minded and desirous of getting away from Chicago.^[29][30] As a precaution, he and his entourage would often show up suddenly at one of Chicago’s train depots and buy up an entire Pullman sleeper car on a night train to a place like Cleveland, Omaha, Kansas City, Little Rock, or Hot Springs, where they would spend a week in luxury hotel suites under assumed names. In 1928, Capone paid $40,000 to beer magnate August Busch for a 14-room retreat at 93 Palm Avenue on Palm Island, Florida, in Biscayne Bay between Miami and Miami Beach.^[8] Capone never registered any property under his name. He did not even have a bank account, but always used Western Union for cash delivery, not more than $1,000.^[31]

Political alliances

The protagonists of Chicago’s politics, and even newspaper circulation “wars”, had long been associated with questionable methods, but the need for bootleggers to have protection in city hall introduced a far more serious level of violence and graft. Capone is generally seen as having had an appreciable effect in bringing about the victories of Republican William Hale Thompson, especially in the 1927 mayoral campaign when Thompson campaigned for a wide open town, at one time hinting that he’d reopen illegal saloons.^[32] Such a proclamation helped Thompson’s campaign gain the support of Capone and Thompson’s campaign allegedly accepted a contribution of $250,000 from the gangster. In the 1927 mayoral race, Thompson beat William Emmett Dever by a relatively slim margin.^[33][34] Thompson’s powerful Cook County political machine had drawn on the often-parochial Italian community, but this was in tension with his highly successful courting of African Americans.^[35][36][37]

Capone continued to back Thompson and, on the polling day of April 10, 1928, in the so-called Pineapple Primary, voting booths in the wards where Thompson’s opponents were thought to have support were targeted by Capone’s bomber, James Belcastro, causing the deaths of at least 15 people. Belcastro also was accused of the murder of lawyer Octavius Granady, an African American who dared to challenge Thompson’s candidate for the African American vote, and was chased through the streets on polling day by cars of gunmen before being shot dead. Among those charged along with Belcastro were four policemen; all charges were dropped after key witnesses recanted their statements. An indication of the attitude of local law enforcement to Capone’s organization came in 1931 when Belcastro was wounded in a shooting; police suggested to skeptical journalists that Belcastro was an independent operator.^{[38][39][40][41][42]} The 1929 Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre led to public disquiet about Thompson’s alliance with Capone; a factor in Anton J. Cermak winning the mayoral election on April 6, 1931.^[43]

Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre damaged Capone’s image in the public mind

Capone was widely assumed to have been responsible for ordering the 1929 Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre in an attempt to kill the head of the much-attenuated North Side Gang, Bugs Moran. Moran was the last survivor of the main North Side gunmen; his succession had come about because his similarly aggressive predecessors Vincent Drucci and Hymie Weiss had been killed in the violence that followed the murder of original leader, Dean O’Banion.^[8][44][45]

To monitor their targets’ habits and movements, Capone’s men rented an apartment across from the trucking warehouse and garage at 2122 North Clark Street that served as Moran headquarters. On the morning of Thursday February 14, 1929, Capone’s lookouts signaled gunmen disguised as police to start a “raid.” The faux police lined the 7 victims along a wall without a struggle, then signaled for accomplices with machine guns. The 7 victims were machine-gunned and shot-gunned. Photos of the victims shocked the public and damaged Capone’s reputation. Within days Capone received a summons to testify before a Chicago grand jury on violations of the federal Prohibition Law, but he claimed to be too unwell to attend at that time.^[46]

Trials

Wikisource has original text related to this article: IRS investigation of Al Capone

Capone’s cell as it exists today at the now closed Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, where he spent about nine months starting in May 1929.

On March 27, 1929, as he left a Chicago courtroom after testifying to a grand jury investigating violations of federal prohibition laws, Capone was arrested by FBI agents on charges of having committed contempt of court by feigning illness to avoid an earlier appearance.^[47] In May 1929, Capone was sentenced to a prison term in Philadelphia, having been convicted within 16 hours of being arrested for carrying a gun during a trip there. A week after he was released, in March 1930, Capone was listed as the number one “Public Enemy” on the unofficial Chicago Crime Commission‘s widely publicized list.

Mug shot of Capone in Miami, Florida

In April 1930, Capone was arrested on vagrancy charges when visiting Miami Beach, the governor having ordered sheriffs to run him out of the state. Capone claimed Miami police had refused him food and water and threatened to arrest his family. He was charged with perjury for making these statements, but was acquitted after a three-day trial in July.^[48] In September, a Chicago judge issued a warrant for Capone on charges of vagrancy, and then used the publicity to run against Thompson in the Republican primary.^[49][50] In February 1931, Capone was tried on the contempt of court charge. In court, Judge James Herbert Wilkerson intervened to reinforce questioning of Capone’s doctor by the prosecutor (with whom Wilkerson later went into private practice). Wilkerson sentenced Capone to six months, but while on appeal of the contempt conviction, he remained free.^[51][52]

Legally, Capone’s profits from criminal activity did not have to be entered on a tax return until 1927, when the Supreme Court ruled that illegally earned income had to be declared; Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. remarked that the previously existing loophole was stretching the Fifth Amendment too far.^[53] The IRS special investigation unit chose Frank J. Wilson to investigate Capone, with the focus being on his spending. The key to Capone’s conviction on tax charges was proving his income, and the most valuable evidence in that regard originated in his offer to pay tax. Ralph, his brother and a gangster in his own right, was tried for tax evasion in 1930. After being convicted in a two-week trial over which Wilkerson presided, Ralph spent the next three years in prison.^[54] Capone ordered his lawyer to regularize his tax position. Crucially, during the ultimately abortive negotiations that followed, his lawyer stated the income Capone was willing to pay tax on for various years, for instance admitting income of $100,000 for 1928 and 1929. Hence, without any investigation, the government had been given a letter from a lawyer acting for Capone conceding his large taxable income for certain years. In 1931, Capone was charged with income tax evasion, as well as with various violations of the Volstead Act (Prohibition) at the Chicago Federal Building in the courtroom of Judge James Herbert Wilkerson.^[55] U. S. Attorney George E. Q. Johnson agreed to a deal that he hoped might result in the judge giving Capone a couple of years, but Judge Wilkerson (who had been aware of the deal all along) refused to allow Capone to plead guilty for a reduced sentence. On the second day of the trial, Judge Wilkerson overruled objections that a lawyer could not confess for his client. Saying that anyone making a statement to the government did so at his own risk, Wilkerson deemed the 1930 letter to federal authorities from a lawyer acting for Capone could be admitted into evidence.^[56][57][58]

Capone’s FBI criminal record in 1932, showing most of his criminal charges were discharged/dismissed.

Much was later made of other evidence, such as witnesses and ledgers, but these strongly implied rather than stated Capone’s control. The ledgers were inadmissible on statute of limitations grounds, but Capone’s lawyers incompetently failed to make the necessary timely objection; they also ran a basically irrelevant defense of gambling losses.^[59] Judge Wilkerson allowed Capone’s spending to be presented at very great length. Although there was no doubt that Capone spent vast sums, legally speaking, the case against him centered on the size of his income. Capone was convicted and, in November 1931, was sentenced to eleven years in federal prison, fined $50,000 plus $7,692 for court costs, and, in addition, was held liable for $215,000 plus interest due on his back taxes. The contempt of court sentence was served concurrently.^{[60][61][62][63]} New lawyers hired to represent Capone were Washington-based tax experts. They filed a writ of habeas corpus based on a Supreme court ruling that tax evasion was not fraud, which apparently meant Capone had been convicted on charges relating to years that were actually outside the time limit for prosecution. However, a judge creatively interpreted the law so that the time Capone had spent in Miami was subtracted from the age of the offenses, thereby denying the appeal of both Capone’s conviction and sentence.^[64][65]

Imprisonment

Cell 181 in Alcatraz where Capone was imprisoned

In May 1932, aged 33, Capone was sent to Atlanta U.S. Penitentiary. Upon his arrival at Atlanta, the 250-pound (110 kg) Capone was officially diagnosed with syphilis and gonorrhea. He was also suffering from withdrawal symptoms from cocaine addiction, use of which had perforated his septum. Capone was competent at his prison job of stitching soles on shoes for eight hours a day, but his letters were barely coherent.^[66] He was seen as a weak personality, and so out of his depth dealing with bullying fellow inmates that his cellmate, seasoned convict Red Rudinsky, feared Capone would have a breakdown. Rudinsky, formerly a small time criminal associated with the Capone gang, found himself becoming a protector for Capone.^{[66] The conspicuous protection of Rudinsky and other prisoners drew accusations from less friendly inmates, and fueled suspicion that Capone was receiving special treatment. While no solid evidence ever emerged, it formed part of the rationale for moving Capone to the recently opened Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary[66][67]}

At Alcatraz, Capone’s decline became increasingly evident as neurosyphilis progressively eroded his mental faculties.^{[8][68][69][70][70]} He spent the last year of his sentence in the prison hospital, confused and disoriented.^[71] Capone completed his term in Alcatraz on January 6, 1939, and was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island in California, to serve out his sentence for contempt of court.^[72] He was paroled on November 16, 1939.^[73]

Later years and death

Capone’s death certificate

After Capone was released from prison, he was referred to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for the treatment of paresis (caused by late-stage syphilis). Hopkins refused to admit him based solely on his reputation, but Union Memorial Hospital took him in. Grateful for the compassionate care he received, Capone donated two Japanese weeping cherry trees to Union Memorial Hospital in 1939. After a few weeks inpatient and a few weeks outpatient, a very sickly Capone left Baltimore on March 20, 1940 for Palm Island, Florida.^[74][75][76]

In 1946, his physician and a Baltimore psychiatrist performed examinations and concluded Capone had the mental capability of a 12-year-old child.^[77] Capone spent the last years of his life at his mansion in Palm Island, Florida.^[78] On January 21, 1947, Capone had a stroke. He regained consciousness and started to improve but contracted pneumonia. He suffered a fatal cardiac arrest the next day. On January 25, 1947, Al Capone died in his home, surrounded by his family;^[79] he wаs buried аt Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois.

Chicago aftermath

Although the main effect of Capone’s conviction was that he ceased to be boss immediately on his imprisonment, those involved in the jailing of Capone portrayed it as having dealt a fatal blow to the city’s organized crime syndicate. Far from being smashed, the Chicago Outfit continued, without being troubled by the Chicago police. Once Prohibition was repealed, organized crime in the city — already wary of attention after seeing Capone’s notoriety bring him down — had a concomitantly lower profile, to the extent that there is a lack of consensus among writers about who was actually in control and who was a figurehead ‘front boss’.^[43] Prostitution, labor union racketeering and gambling became moneymakers for organized crime in the city without incurring serious investigation. In the late 1950s, FBI agents discovered an organization led by Capone’s former lieutenants reigning supreme over the Chicago underworld.^[80]

Victims

In popular culture

One of the most notorious American gangsters of the 20th century, Capone has been the subject of numerous articles, books, and films. Capone’s personality and character have been used in fiction as a model for crime lords and criminal masterminds ever since his death. The stereotypical image of a mobster wearing a blue pinstriped suit and tilted fedora is based on photos of Capone. His accent, mannerisms, facial construction, physical stature, and parodies of his name have been used for numerous gangsters in comics, movies, music, and literature.

Literature

• Capone is featured in a segment of Mario Puzo‘s The Godfather as an ally of a New York mob boss in which he sends, at the mob boss’ request, two “button men” to kill Don Vito Corleone; arriving in New York, the two men are intercepted by and brutally killed by Luca Brasi, after which Don Corleone sends a message to Capone warning him to not interfere again and Capone apparently capitulates.^[82]
• Capone is an antagonist in Hergé‘s Tintin in America and is referenced in Tintin in the Congo. He is the only real-life character depicted in his real-life role in the The Adventures of Tintin series.
• A reincarnated Capone is a major character in science fiction author Peter F. Hamilton‘s Night’s Dawn Trilogy.
• Capone’s niece, Deirdre Marie Capone, wrote a book titled Uncle Al Capone: The Untold Story from Inside His Family.^[83]
• Al Capone is a central character in the fantasy novel Cosa Nosferatu, which imagines Capone and Eliot Ness entangled with Randolph Carter and other elements of H.P. Lovecraft mythos.
• Al Capone is the central character of Armitage Trail‘s novel Scarface (1929),^[84] which was the basis for the 1932 film of the same name.
• Jack Bilbo claimed to have been a bodyguard for Capone in his book, Carrying a Gun for Al Capone (1932).^[85]
• Al Capone is also mentioned and met by the main character Moose in the book Al Capone Does My Shirts.

Film and television

Capone has been portrayed on screen by:

• Rod Steiger in Al Capone (1959).^[86]
• Neville Brand in the TV series The Untouchables and again in the movie The George Raft Story (1961).^[86]
• José Calvo in Due mafiosi contro Al Capone (1966).^[86]
• Jason Robards in The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967).^[86]
• Ben Gazzara in Capone (1975).^[86]
• Robert De Niro in The Untouchables (1987).^[86]
• Ray Sharkey in The Revenge of Al Capone (1989)
• Eric Roberts in The Lost Capone (1990)
• Bernie Gigliotti in The Babe (1992), in a brief scene in a Chicago nightclub during which Capone and his mentor, Johnny Torrio, played by Guy Barile, meet the film’s main character, Babe Ruth, portrayed by John Goodman.
• William Forsythe in The Untouchables (1993–1994)
• William Devane in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Season 2, Episode 7: “That Old Gang of Mine” (1994)
• F. Murray Abraham in Dillinger and Capone (1995).
• Anthony LaPaglia in Road to Perdition (2002), in a deleted scene.^[87]
• Julian Littman in Al’s Lads (2002)
• Jon Bernthal in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009).^[88]
• Stephen Graham in Boardwalk Empire (2010-2014)

Actors playing characters based on Capone include:

• Wallace Beery as Louis ‘Louie’ Scorpio in The Secret Six (1931).^[86]
• Ricardo Cortez as Goldie Gorio in Bad Company (1931).^[86]
• Paul Lukas as Big Fellow Maskal in City Streets (1931).^[86]
• Edward Arnold as Duke Morgan in Okay, America! (1932).^[86]
• Jean Hersholt as Samuel ‘Sam’ Belmonte in The Beast of the City (1932).^[86]
• Paul Muni as Antonio ‘Tony’ Camonte in Scarface (1932).
• C. Henry Gordon as Nick Diamond in Gabriel Over the White House (1933).^[86]
• John Litel as ‘Gat’ Brady in Alcatraz Island (1937).^[86]
• Barry Sullivan as Shubunka in The Gangster (1947).^[86]
• Ralph Volkie as Big Fellow in The Undercover Man (1949).^[86]
• Edmond O’Brien as Fran McCarg in Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955).^[86]
• B.S. Pully as Big Jule, an intimidating, gun-toting mobster from “East Cicero, Illinois” in the film adaptation of Guys and Dolls (1955), reprising the role that Pully had originated in the Broadway musical.^[89]
• Lee J. Cobb as Rico Angelo in Party Girl (1958).^[86]
• George Raft as Spats Colombo and Nehemiah Persoff as Little Bonaparte in Some Like It Hot (1959).^[86]
• Frank Ronzio as Litmus in Escape from Alcatraz (1979) introduces himself to newcomer Charlie Butts as “Al Capone”. The movie is set in 1962, 15 years after Capone’s death.
• Cameron Mitchell as Boss Rojeck in My Favorite Year (1982)
• Al Pacino as Alphonse “Big Boy” Caprice in Dick Tracy (1990).^[86]

Music

• Prince Buster, Jamaican ska and rocksteady musician, had his first hit in the UK with the single “Al Capone” in 1967.^[90]
• The Specials, a UK ska revival group, reworked Prince Buster’s track into their first single, “Gangsters”,^[91] which featured the line “Don’t call me Scarface!”

Graffiti of Al Capone made by Partizan fans in Belgrade, Serbia.

• Al Capone is referenced heavily in Prodigy‘s track “Al Capone Zone”, produced by The Alchemist and featuring Keak Da Sneak.^[92]
• “Al Capone” is a song by Michael Jackson. Jackson recorded the song during the Bad era (circa 1987), but it wasn’t included on the album. The song was released in September 2012 in celebration of the album’s 25th anniversary.

Sports

• Fans of Serbian football club Partizan are using Al Capone’s character as a mascot for one of their subgroups called “Alcatraz”, named after a prison in which Al Capone served his sentence. Also, in honour of Capone, a graffiti representation of him exists in the center of Belgrade.
• Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight Nikita Krylov is nicknamed “Al Capone”. Coincidentally, he had his first UFC win in Chicago.^[93]

See also

• List of Depression-era outlaws
• Scarface (1983 film)
• The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults
• Timeline of organized crime

References

Further reading

• Capone, Deirdre Marie; Uncle Al Capone – The Untold Story from Inside His Family. Recap Publishing LLC, 2010. ISBN 978-0-9828451-0-3
• Hoffman Dennis E. Scarface Al and the Crime Crusaders: Chicago’s Private War Against Capone. Southern Illinois University Press; 1st edition (November 24, 1993) ISBN 978-0-8093-1925-1
• Kobler, John. Capone: The Life and Times of Al Capone. New York: Da Capo Press, 2003. ISBN 0-306-81285-1
• MacDonald, Alan. Dead Famous – Al Capone and his Gang Scholastic.
• Pasley, Fred D. Al Capone: The Biography of a Self-Made Man. Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 2004. ISBN 1-4179-0878-5
• Schoenberg, Robert J. Mr. Capone. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992. ISBN 0-688-12838-6
• Helmer, William J. Al Capone and His American Boys: Memoirs of a Mobster’s Wife. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-253-35606-2

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Al Capone

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Al Capone.

• Mario Gomes’ site on everything related to Al Capone
• South Beach Magazine The Un-Welcomed Visitor: Al Capone in Miami. (with photos)
• FBI files on Al Capone
• Little Chicago: Capone in Johnson City, Tennessee
• Al Capone at the Crime Library
• Works by or about Al Capone in libraries (WorldCat catalog)