Charles "Lucky" Luciano (born
Salvatore
Lucania; November 11, 1897 – January 26, 1962) was a
Sicilian-born American
mobster. Luciano is considered the father of modern
organized crime. He was the first
official boss of the modern
Genovese crime family.
He was, along with his
associate Meyer Lansky, instrumental in
the development of the "National Crime Syndicate" in the
United
States
.
Time magazine named Luciano
among the top 20 most influential builders and titans of the 20th
century.
Early life
Salvatore
Lucania was born to Antonio and Rosalia (Cafarella) Lucania, he had
4 siblings: Bartolomeo (born 1890), and Giuseppe (born 1898),
Filippia (born 1901), and Concetta (born 1903) in Lercara Friddi
, Sicily, a town primarily
known for its sulfur mines.
The
promise of a better life led his family to emigrate to the United States
in 1907. Upon arriving at Ellis Island
, young Salvatore was diagnosed with smallpox, an affliction that pockmarked his face
for life.
Prohibition
On January 16, 1919, the
Eighteenth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The Amendment
prohibited the manufacture, sale and transportation of
alcoholic beverages.
Prohibition remained in
force until its repeal in 1933. This gave every gangster on the
street a new source of revenue through illegal alcohol sales.
Around this time, Lucky worked for
Arnold Rothstein.
Luciano had plans to expand his territory and expand his profits by
collaborating with other gangsters to cut down the cost of
political protection and reduce the likelihood of hijacked
shipments. But
Joe "The Boss" Masseria
forbade Luciano to do this.
By 1921, Luciano had met many Mafia heavyweights, including
Vito Genovese and
Frank Costello, his longtime friend, business
partner, and eventually
Sottocapo through
his involvement in the
Five Points
Gang. Together they began a bootlegging venture using a
trucking firm as a front.
By 1925, Luciano was grossing over $300,000 a year; however, he was
netting much less each year due to the high costs of bribing
politicians and police.
Luciano and his partners ran the largest
bootlegging operation in New York, one that also extended into
Philadelphia
. He imported scotch
whisky directly from Scotland
, rum from the Caribbean
, and whisky from Canada
. He
was also involved in gambling. By this time, Luciano was becoming a
big player in the New York mob.
Rise to power
At an early age Luciano had established himself as a creative thug
on the Lower East Side and eventually worked his way up to being a
top aide to crime boss Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria. In the
1920s Masseria was involved in a prolonged turf war with rival
crime boss
Salvatore
Maranzano.
Masseria was a "
Mustache Pete," an
old-school mafioso who wanted to preserve the old Mafia ideals of
"honor," "tradition," "respect" and dignity in America. Luciano and
his contemporaries who had "made their bones" in the United States,
on the other hand, were known as the "Young Turks." Like the
original
Young Turks of the
Ottoman Empire, they formed a young,
ambitious, impatient group which challenged the established order.
The Mustache Petes would not work with anyone who was not
Italian, and were skeptical of working with
anyone who wasn't
Sicilian.
Luciano, however, believed that as long as money was being made,
the roots of your partner did not matter. He was therefore shocked
to hear old mafiosi lecturing him about his dealings with another
mobster, Frank Costello, whom they called "the dirty
Calabrian." Luciano began building contacts with
Young Turks in both factions, and they secretly made plans to push
out the Mustache Petes as soon as possible.
One day in 1929, Luciano was forced into a
limo at gun point by three men, beaten and
stabbed, and dumped on a beach on
New York
Bay. Luciano survived the ordeal, but was forever marked with
the now famous scar and droopy eye, hence earning him the name
"lucky". After his abduction, Luciano found out through
Meyer Lansky that it had been ordered by
Masseria's enemy,
Salvatore
Maranzano. However, in an ironic twist, Luciano later cut a
secret deal with Maranzano in which Luciano agreed to engineer
Masseria's death in return for being made Maranzano's
second-in-command. This deal would end the famous
Castellammarese War.
The Castellammarese War raged from 1928 to 1932, resulting in the
deaths of many mobsters, estimated to be as many as 60.
The war
was nominally between Maranzano and Masseria, it ended with the
assassination of Masseria in a Coney Island
restaurant by Bugsy
Siegel, Vito Genovese, and Joe
Adonis. It is rumored that Luciano was having lunch with
Masseria and stepped into the men's room just as the gunmen stormed
the restaurant. Luciano then took over Masseria's crime
family.
Maranzano then made Luciano his number two man, and set up the
Five Families of New York under him,
promising that they would all be equal and all be free to make
money. However, at a meeting of all the heavy-hitting gangsters in
Upstate New York, Maranzano
declared himself
capo di tutti
capi (Boss of all Bosses), which meant every Don in the country
had to pay up to him. He also whittled down the rackets of the
rival families in order to strengthen his own family.
Luciano seethed inwardly at being lied to and bilked out of a few
dollars, but still feigned loyalty to Maranzano. However, he was
secretly planning to eliminate Maranzano. He and his colleagues had
planned all along to assassinate either Masseria or Maranzano, then
bide their time before killing the surviving Mustache Pete as
well.
When Meyer Lansky told him that Maranzano had gotten wind of
Luciano's plans, Luciano could no longer stand still. Lansky
assembled a hit squad to pose as government agents. On the day
Maranzano was to hire Luciano's assassin they stormed Maranzano's
office, who thought he was being arrested. The squad cut Maranzano
to ribbons with a volley of gunfire and repeated stabbings. On the
way down the stairs, they met
Mad Dog
Coll, Luciano's would-be assassin.
Reorganizing Cosa Nostra
Luciano was now the model mobster, with businesses throughout the
country. His longtime friend Meyer Lansky served as his right-hand
man, and Luciano always followed Lansky’s advice. When
Dutch Schultz tried to kill
Manhattan District Attorney
Thomas Dewey, in direct violation of
Luciano's orders, Schultz was executed instead.
Luciano had finally reached the pinnacle of America's underworld,
directing its criminal rules, policies and activities along with
the other top Bosses. He sat atop the most powerful crime family in
America, which now bore his name and controlled the most lucrative
criminal rackets in New York such as gambling, bookmaking,
loan-sharking, drug trafficking, and extortion. Luciano was very
influential in labor and union activities and controlled the
Manhattan Waterfront,
garbage hauling, construction, Garment Center businesses, and
trucking.
Luciano — seeing that the position only created tension and trouble
between the families — abolished the title of
Capo Di Tutti i
Capi. Luciano felt that the ceremony of being "made a soldier"
in a family should be done away with; however, Meyer Lansky urged
him against it, saying that young people needed rituals to cling
to. Luciano also stressed the importance of the
omertà, the oath of silence, and kept the
organizational structure that Maranzano had instituted.
The Commission
Luciano, under the urging of
Johnny
Torrio, also took it upon himself to set up the Mafia's
governing body.
Luciano organized
the
Commission with the Mafia's top men, and was its undisputed
leader.
The Commission was the gangster equivalent of
the Supreme Court
, and settled all gangland disputes. It has
been called Luciano's most important innovation. The Commission
decided who received what rackets and which territories. If an
individual was to be a "
made man," their
Don had to go before The Commission and clear their sponsorship
into the honored society.
The
Commission was originally composed of representatives of the
Five Families of New York City
, the Buffalo crime
family, and the Chicago Outfit of
Al Capone; later, the Detroit crime family, the Los Angeles crime family and the
Kansas City crime family
were added. All bosses who sat in the Commission were
supposed to retain the same power and had one vote, but in reality
Luciano was the
first among
equals.
The original Luciano family
Luciano elevated his most trusted and loyal family members to
high-level positions in the Luciano crime family. The feared
Vito Genovese became his Underboss,
while
Frank Costello was his
consigliere.
Michael
Coppola,
Anthony Strollo,
Joe Adonis, and
Anthony Carfano all served as
caporegimes.
Meyer
Lansky and
Bugsy Siegel were both
unofficial advisors to the Luciano family.
Prosecutions and prison
Luciano's reign was relatively short-lived. Special prosecutor
Thomas E. Dewey, a future
Republican
presidential candidate (Later Luciano himself affirmed that the
Commission had done everything they could in order for Dewey to
become President in exchange for Luciano's return to America),
singled out Luciano as an organized crime ringleader and targeted
him, along with others. Luciano had previously voted against
Dutch Schultz's proposal to
assassinate Dewey after Schultz became the repeated target of
Dewey's investigations. In a raid by Dewey of 80 New York City
bordellos, hundreds of arrested prostitutes agreed to turn state's
evidence in exchange for not receiving prison time. Three of them
implicated Luciano as the ringleader, who made collections,
although
David "Little Davey" Betillo was in
charge of the prostitution ring in New York, and any money that
Luciano received was from Betillo.
But Dewey had also managed to persuade
the staff at The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
to lie and say that Luciano's gangster friends had
often come to his room. It is believed by almost all mob
experts that Dewey framed Luciano, since Mafia did not bother with
prostitution, and also Luciano meeting with hookers to collect
money seemed a bit absurd, considering his position as boss.
Before he
could get Luciano into court for trial, Luciano escaped to Hot Springs,
Arkansas
, the renowned gangster haven established by famous
gangster Owney Madden. An
Arkansas judge remanded Luciano to a state prison for extradition,
but a local paid-off police detective bailed Luciano out of jail
after only four hours. Dewey then sent detectives to Arkansas to
spirit Luciano back for trial.
Dewey's efforts succeeded in Luciano being convicted on charges as
leader of one of the largest prostitution rings in American history
in 1936 and sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison, along with Dave
Betillo and others. Dewey exposed Luciano for lying on the witness
stand, through direct quizzing and records of telephone calls;
Luciano also had no explanation for why his federal income tax
records claimed he made only $22,000 a year, while it was obvious
to onlookers that he was a wealthy man.
Luciano continued to run the Luciano crime family from prison and
his prison cell, relaying his orders through his first acting boss,
Vito Genovese.
Genovese had quickly lived up to his feared
reputation for violence, and soon fled to Naples
, Italy, in
1937 to avoid a murder indictment. The Family's third most
powerful member, Consigliere Frank Costello became the new
Sottocapo and overseer of Luciano's interests. It is a mystery to
most organized crime historians just who it was that had replaced
Costello as the family consigliere. The only hint to the Costello
successor came from Joe Valachi. Valachi was a former soldier in
the Genovese Family and the first major mafia informer in the
United States. Valachi mentions, in the book
The Valachi Papers , written by
Peter Maas, a certain "Sandino," as the
Family counselor. The mysterious "Sandino" was whispered about at a
meeting Valachi attends with his Capo,
Anthony "Tony Bender" Strollo.
Luciano
was imprisoned in Clinton Correctional Facility
in Dannemora, New York
, where co-defendant Dave Betillo prepared special
dishes for Luciano in a special kitchen set aside by
authorities. He would use his influence to help get the
materials to build a church at the prison, which became famous for
being one of the only freestanding churches in the New York State
correctional system and also for the fact that on the church's
altar are two of the original doors from the
Victoria, the ship of
Ferdinand Magellan.
World War II, freedom and deportation
During
World War II, the U.S.
government reportedly struck a secret deal with the imprisoned
Luciano.
United
States Army Military Intelligence knew that Luciano maintained
good connections in the Sicilian and Italian Mafia, which had been
severely persecuted by
Benito
Mussolini.
Luciano considered himself to be a loyal
American who was devoted to Sicily, the Mafia, and the United States
alike. His help was sought in providing
Mafia assistance to counter possible
Axis infiltration on U.S. waterfronts, during
Operation Avalanche, and his
connections in Italy and Sicily were tapped to furnish intelligence
and ensure an easy passage for U.S. forces involved in the
Italian Campaign.
Albert Anastasia, who controlled the docks,
promised that no dockworker strikes would arise. Luciano supposedly
dropped a yellow handkerchief from a plane flying over Sicily with
his crest to signal friendly faces were approaching; this allowed
for the Sicilian Mafia to arise from underground and participate in
the liberation of Sicily. Both during and after the war, the U.S.
military and intelligence agencies reputedly also used Luciano's
Mafia connections to root out
communist
influence in resistance groups and local governments. In return for
his cooperation, Luciano was allegedly permitted to run his crime
empire unhindered from his jail cell. Although still a part of
Sicilian folklore, it is now believed by the majority of mafia
historians that the story of the yellow handkerchief is
false.
In 1946, as a reward for his wartime cooperation, Luciano was
paroled on the condition that he depart the United States and
return to Sicily.
He accepted the deal, although he had
maintained during his trial that he was a native of New York City
and was therefore not subject to
deportation. He was deeply hurt about having to leave the
United States, a country he had considered his own ever since his
arrival at age ten.
During his exile, Luciano used to meet
US military men during train trips
throughout Italy
, and he
enjoyed being recognized by his countrymen, several times taking
photos and even signing autographs for them.
Luciano's confederates saw him off at the docks with envelopes
stuffed with cash, reportedly as much as $100,000 or
$150,000.
The Havana Conference
Although
Luciano was paroled from prison on the condition that he
permanently return to Sicily, he secretly moved to Cuba
, where he
worked to resume control over American mafia operations.
Luciano also ran a number of casinos in Cuba with the sanction of
Cuban president General
Fulgencio
Batista. Batista naturally received a percentage of the
profits. As Luciano's Cuban revenues grew and the tourism and
gambling business blossomed, Meyer Lansky started investing heavily
in a Cuban hotel project.
In 1946, Lansky called together the heads of all the major
Families, claiming that they were going to see
Frank Sinatra perform. Luciano had three
topics to discuss: the
heroin
trade, Cuban gambling, and what was to be done about
Bugsy Siegel.
The Conference took place at the Hotel
Nacional de Cuba
and lasted a little more than a week.
One of the main topics for discussion at the Havana Conference was
ordering a hit on Siegel, who was unaware of this meeting. Meyer
Lansky, who several times owed his life to Siegel when they were
young, took a stand against the hit. He begged the attendees to
give Siegel a chance by waiting until after the casino opening.
Luciano,
who believed Siegel could still turn a profit in Las Vegas,
Nevada
, and pay back what he owed the mafia investors,
agreed to postpone the hit.
To
placate his investors, Siegel opened Flamingo Las Vegas
, his still-unfinished casino, on the star-studded
night of December 26, 1946, although he did not have as many
Hollywood
celebrities with him as he had hoped. Soon
the Flamingo ran dry of entertainers and customers; it closed after
only two weeks in order to resume construction. The fully
operational Flamingo re-opened in March 1947. Still dissatisfied,
the casino's gangster investors once again met in Havana in the
spring of 1947 to decide whether to murder Siegel. Luckily for
Siegel, the Flamingo had just turned a profit that month. Lansky
again spoke up in support of his old friend and convinced Luciano
to give Siegel one last chance. However, when the Flamingo still
failed to turn a profit, Siegel's fate was sealed; he was killed by
four shots fired through a window at his California home in June
1947.
The deposed Luciano asked that he be declared Capo Di Tutti i Capi.
His old friends and business associates agreed that he deserved the
title; all except Vito Genovese, who wanted the title for himself
and is rumored to have leaked Luciano's whereabouts to the
government. Luciano reportedly took him into a room and beat him
severely for his betrayal.
When the
US government learned of Luciano's presence in the Caribbean
, he was forced to fly back to Italy. The US
government threatened to stop all shipments of medical drugs to
Cuba unless Luciano left.
Operating in Italy
In his later years, Luciano came into conflict with Lansky over the
amount of money he was receiving from Mafia operations in the early
1960s. Luciano's failing health hampered him from putting up much
of a fight in the matter.
Luciano, however, was not willing to give up without a fight. He
bought out the major interest in an Italian candy company that sold
confetti. Interpol and the US Government believed that this was
little more than a way for Luciano to ship heroin under the radar
of the government. The government, not willing to believe that
Luciano retired, smashed sixty crates of confetti without finding a
single gram of heroin.
After the unsuccessful raid, Luciano was
exiled from Rome
.
Living in Naples, Luciano immersed himself in the high life of
Italian culture, dining in the finest restaurants and living in
luxurious apartments with the love of his life. In old age, Luciano
also became a charitable man, financially helping many poor
Italians before he set up a medical supply store as a front for his
illegal businesses. But no matter how much success he achieved,
Luciano was homesick. He would often talk with G.I.s and tourists
in the California restaurant for the sole purpose of speaking to
people in the English language.
Personal life
After being deported to Italy, Luciano fell in love with Igea
Lissoni, an Italian dancer 20 years his junior. They lived together
peacefully until they learned that there was a hit contract on
Luciano, and the two went into hiding. They changed apartments many
times throughout the months and moved from hotel to hotel before
the hit was called off.
Barred
from Rome after the hit was called off, the two lived together in
Luciano's 60-room house on Via Tasso in Naples
. Igea
was reportedly the center of Luciano's life, so when she died of
breast cancer, he began to go to
pieces, as did his control of the American syndicate and his own
projects based out of Italy. After living together for 11 years,
there was never any confirmation that the two ever married. If they
had, it would have been illegal, since Luciano's deportation barred
him from marriage.
American power struggle
During his exile, Luciano missed a major power shift in America.
Vito Genovese, who was at one time the Luciano Family Sottocapo,
had decided that he wanted to take over the Luciano Family. After a
botched 1957 assassination attempt on Costello's life by
Vinnie "The Chin" Gigante, Costello stepped down as
Don and let Genovese take over. But Genovese wanted to take out his
competition.
It was at the famous Appalachian Summit Meeting, later in 1957,
that he planned to propose to The Commission that Luciano be
stripped of his title as
Capo Di Tutti i Capi, and that he
be crowned Boss of all Bosses. But Vito Genovese did not count on
Carlo Gambino, one of Luciano's
protégés, to hold loyalty to his old Boss.
Costello,
Luciano, and Gambino met in a hotel in Palermo, Sicily
, to discuss their plan of action.
Death and legacy
Luciano was reportedly told not to promote or participate in films
about his life, as it would have attracted unnecessary attention to
the mob.
He relented after Igea Lissoni died of
breast cancer and was scheduled to meet with a movie producer
arriving by plane at the Naples Airport
. On January 26, 1962, Luciano died of a
heart attack at Naples
International Airport.
He was buried in St. John's
Cemetery
in Queens
in 1972,
more than ten years after his death, because of the terms of his
deportation in 1946. More than 2,000 mourners attended his
funeral. His longtime friend, Carlo Gambino, spoke at the funeral.
Carlo Gambino was the only other boss
besides Luciano to have complete control of the
Commission and virtually every Mafia
family in the United States.
Media portrayals
- Telly Savalas portrayed Luciano on
an episode of the 1960s TV series The Witness
- The life stories of the characters Vito Corleone and his son, Michael Corleone, featured in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel The Godfather, share many similarities
with Luciano's own biography including Luciano being diagnosed with
smallpox upon his arrival in the United States.
- The 1973 Italian/American film production Lucky
Luciano, starring Gian Maria
Volonte as Luciano and featuring Vincent Gardenia, Rod Steiger and real-life Federal Agent Charles Siracusa, is the best known film
biography of Luciano.
- In the 1981 American TV miniseries The Gangster
Chronicles, Luciano is portrayed by Michael Nouri.
- In the 1984 film, The
Cotton Club, Luciano is portrayed by Joe Dallesandro.
- The 1989 book Billy
Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow, a retelling of Dutch Schultz's last
days from the point of view of a young boy he befriends, features
Luciano as a minor character whom the narrator is too afraid to
identify by name. He was played by Stanley
Tucci in the film adaptation.
- The 1991 film Mobsters is
about the rise of Luciano, Lansky, Frank Costello and Bugsy Siegel.
It takes several liberties with historical accuracy. It stars
Christian Slater as Luciano, who
narrates the film. Many spectators commented with amazement on
Slater's strong resemblance to the real Luciano.
- In the 1991 film Bugsy, the role
of Luciano is played by Bill Graham.
- In the 1991 TV movie White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of
Thelma Todd, the role of Luciano is played by Robert Davi.
- The
1997 film Hoodlum, about the
gang war in Harlem
between
Dutch Schultz and Ellsworth "Bumpy"
Johnson, co-stars Andy Garcia as
Luciano. Arguably it is the most accurate physical portrayal
of Luciano, showing all his scars and malformities.
- The Jack Higgins novel Luciano's Luck recounts a (heavily
fictionalized) version of Luciano's involvement in the liberation
of Sicily during the Second World War.
- A biographical film about the life of Lucky Luciano,
based on the book, The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano by
Martin Gosch and Richard Hammer, is currently in the
works.
- The 2002 novel 54, written by the
Italian band of novelists Wu Ming, features
Luciano and his operations in Naples during the year 1954.
See also
References
Bibliography
- Johnson, Richard. H'Wood Eyes Luciano Tale, Publisher: New
York Post 2007
- Gosch, Martin A. and Hammer, Richard. The Last Testament of
Lucky Luciano, Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1974. ISBN
0316321400
- Raab, Selwyn. Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and
Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires Publisher:
St. Martin's Press 2006 ISBN 0312361815
- Klerks, Cat. Lucky Luciano: The Father of Organized
Crime (True American Amazing Stories Series) Publisher:
Altitude Publishing, Ltd. 2005 ISBN 1552651029
- Powell, Hickman. Lucky Luciano, his amazing trial and wild
witnesses. Publisher: Barricade Books, Incorporated 2000 ISBN
0806504935
- Feder, Sid and Joesten, Joachim. Luciano Story.
Publisher: Da Capo Press 1994 ISBN 0306805928
- Ferrara, Eric. Gangsters, Murderers & Weirdos of the
Lower East Side; a self-guided walking tour 2008
External links