The government has opened an old treasure trove of information on some 800 gangland goons who wielded power during the Mafia’s Golden Age – a virtual Social Register of the worst sociopaths to have packed a silenced pistol, wielded an ice pick or driven a getaway car in a sharkskin suit.
The dossiers, complete with black-and-white photos, chronicle the backgrounds of wiseguys ranging from mob bosses Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, Sam Giancana and “Crazy Joe” Gallo to lesser lights like Al Capone’s two-bit hoodlum brothers.
The files read like single-page snapshots of the mobsters’ lives – their aliases and detailed physical descriptions, from distinguishing scars, tattoos and facial tics to styles of dress, home addresses, arrest histories and family trees – and even the names of mistresses.
Also revealed are the legitimate businesses they owned and their preferred leisure haunts – racetracks, prizefights, nightclubs and favorite restaurants – as well as an overview of the criminal status each man held within the larger Mafia firmament.
The 944 pages of material – featured in the book “Mafia,” due out Oct. 30 from HarperCollins – was mined from the raw intelligence gathered by agents of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau of Narcotics, a forerunner of today’s Drug Enforcement Administration.
The cavalcade of hoods includes two men named Frank Paul Dragna, the son and nephew of one-time Los Angeles Mafia kingpin Jack Dragna.
The first Frank is known as “One Eye,” the second “Two Eye,” to distinguish the cousin with the glass right eye.
Entrants are listed by state, and New York, with more than 350 wiseguys, overwhelmingly leads the pack. A multitude of others resided in California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey and Michigan. There are groupings of gangsters from Canada, France and Italy, as well.
The index cross-references each racketeer by nickname, many of them hilarious.
There’s “The Old Man” (there are, actually, three), “The Bald Head,” “Hunchback Harry,” “Schnozzola” (he has a large nose), “Mickey Mouse” (he has large ears), “Slim,” three people dubbed “Cockeyed,” as well as four “Fats” and a “Fat Artie,” “Fat Freddie,” “Fat Sonny” and “Fat Tony” for good measure.
There’s “Big Al,” “Big Frank” (two), “Big Freddy,” “Big John,” “Big Larry,” “Big Mike” (two), “Big Nose Larry,” “Big Pat,” “Big Phil,” “Big Sam,” “Big Sol,” “Big Yok” – even a “Mr. Big.”
The rogues’ hall of fame:
Johnny Roselli was the mob’s ambassador-without-portfolio, corrupting the film industry’s unions in Hollywood and becoming the go-to guy in Las Vegas and Miami. After testifying before a Senate committee and emerging as a player in the mob’s long-rumored involvement in JFK’s assassination, his body washed up off Miami.
Meyer Lansky was the mob’s gambling czar and set up casinos in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., Hot Springs, Ark., New Orleans, Las Vegas, Florida and Cuba. Refused citizenship in Israel, he retired to Miami. Immortalized by actor Lee Strasberg as Hyman Roth in “The Godfather II.”
Vito Genovese sought to dethrone Lucky Luciano as capo di tutti capi; conspired to assassinate mob rival Frank Costello, leading to the ill-fated mob conference in Apalachin, N.Y., that put the Mafia under the eye of investigators. Died in federal prison after mob cohorts reportedly set him up on a heroin rap.
Paul Castellano, Gambino’s heir, ran meat and poultry businesses and lived sumptuously in a Todt Hill, S.I., mansion known as “The White House.” Dapper Don John Gotti supposedly orchestrated his Dec. 16, 1985, assassination outside a Manhattan steakhouse.
Frank Costello was a Tammany Hall fixer and diplomat whose gravel-voiced persona supposedly was the inspiration for Marlon Brando’s Don Corleone in “The Godfather.” Lived on Park Avenue and in Sands Point, L.I.; retired after Vito Genovese’s failed assassination bid in May 1957.
Carmine Galante, a feared hit man and dope dealer, assumed the reins of the Bonanno crime family in the ’70s; was gunned down at an Italian restaurant in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where his bullet-riddled body lay crumpled on the ground, a cigar still hanging from his mouth.
Mickey Cohen, head of Los Angeles gambling rackets, maintained a host of powerful friends, including Frank Sinatra – who once appealed to him to get mobster Johnny Stompanato to stop dating Ava Gardner. Depicted by Harvey Keitel in the 1991 film “Bugsy” and by Paul Guilfoyle in 1997’s “L.A. Confidential.”
Carlo Gambino infiltrated the garment industry while heading the country’s largest and most powerful mob family, yet managed to avoid the limelight – and the scrutiny of cops – by living quietly at 2230 Ocean Parkway in Gravesend, Brooklyn. Died of a heart attack in 1976.
James Ralph “Bottles” Capone was the lesser-known and benignly named brother of the Windy City’s uber-gangster, Al “Scarface” Capone. Lived with a sister at Martha Lake, near Mercer, Wis., and was said to have had numerous arrests – but no felony convictions. He reputedly owned a vending machine business in western Chicago.
Charles “Lucky” Luciano, considered a visionary in mob history, helped engineer the five-family crime structure in New York City. Given 30 years for running brothels, he served only a decade behind bars, with the proviso that he be deported to Italy.