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Speaker 6: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
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Speaker 6: journalist and author Dan Zufanski, Good Evening.
Speaker 4: Charles Lucky Luciano is one of the most researched, discussed,
Speaker 4: and dissected American mobsters of all time. His name has
Speaker 4: become synonymous with New York City's high drama gangland, days
Speaker 4: of prohibition, bootlegging, the information of the infamous Five Families,
Speaker 4: and controversy over his alleged last testament. However, there exists
Speaker 4: many fascinating and lurid tales and theories regarding Lucky's rise
Speaker 4: and fall from the mob's top spot. Some of these
Speaker 4: stories are known but still incited debate, such as the
Speaker 4: origins of his nickname and menacing facial scars. Other legends
Speaker 4: are not so well known to the general publication. Called
Speaker 4: from rare news articles, government documents, and numerous books written
Speaker 4: on the subject, this book will give readers a chance
Speaker 4: to discover Luciano in a way that engages the mystery
Speaker 4: of his pop culture status while encouraging further debate over
Speaker 4: the facts and fallacies that exist about his true role
Speaker 4: in the history of the American mafia structure. The book
Speaker 4: that we're featuring this evening is Lucky Luciano Mysterious Tales
Speaker 4: of a Gangster Legend, with my special guest, journalist and
Speaker 4: author Christian Cipolini. Welcome back to the program, and thank
Speaker 4: you very much for green to this interview. Christian Cippolini.
Speaker 5: Dan, thank you always a pleasure.
Speaker 4: Thank you, always a pleasure. So let's just get right
Speaker 4: into this. I won't even ask you one of the
Speaker 4: questions I normally ask, why would you do a book
Speaker 4: about Lucky Luciano. I won't ask you that question. What
Speaker 4: I'm going to ask you is that despite all the books,
Speaker 4: despite all the information well Lucky Luciano, all the focus
Speaker 4: on this mobster, what did you, I guess, just going
Speaker 4: into this, just beginning this look into this Lucky Luciano,
Speaker 4: what did you Why did you think that you could
Speaker 4: add something to the legend as it were?
Speaker 5: Great question? You know what, Dan, I had tried to
Speaker 5: consume every book article on him for twenty years, just
Speaker 5: because I was always curious about history and organized crime
Speaker 5: before ever really delved into writing about it. And I
Speaker 5: think I was convinced at one time that like the
Speaker 5: last Testament of a Lucky Luciano was I mean, that
Speaker 5: was law, that was the story. And then find out
Speaker 5: that you know, hey, hey, this has been debated for
Speaker 5: you know, a couple of decades, and anyway, you know,
Speaker 5: my publisher wanted to do this gangland mystery series with
Speaker 5: different authors. Long story, shorty asked me, do you want
Speaker 5: to take part? What do you want to do? And
Speaker 5: his daunting as it seemed, I'm like, you know what,
Speaker 5: I want to write my own little digestible book on Luciano.
Speaker 5: But what can I find or prove different? You know,
Speaker 5: that was the goal. I hope that I succeeded in it,
Speaker 5: but that was the original idea.
Speaker 4: Well, certainly, there's what you claim in the book, and
Speaker 4: what you deliver is that there is certainly a lot
Speaker 4: of debate over certain things that are key to this legend,
Speaker 4: to this the myth, and some are dispelled and some
Speaker 4: are explained. And obviously you're going to bring that exhaustive
Speaker 4: research that you do to the forefront here to be
Speaker 4: able to back up what you're saying. So this is
Speaker 4: just not another book about Lucky Luciano. This again, is
Speaker 4: an important book, or you wouldn't have written it. Now
Speaker 4: let's go back to even the legend of how he
Speaker 4: came to have this nickname, but we'll go back into
Speaker 4: his early childhood. What I found was fascinating. When you
Speaker 4: talk about a criminal starting early, this guy really started early.
Speaker 4: So tell us about the origins, the real origins of
Speaker 4: Lucky Luciano.
Speaker 5: Well, tracking it back when he arrived with his family,
Speaker 5: the second half of his family to come to New York.
Speaker 5: They were growing up in an area that was obviously poor,
Speaker 5: part of the Lower Manhattan, right next to the predominantly
Speaker 5: Julish section of town. And these kids were part of
Speaker 5: the you know, the Five Points gang that also had
Speaker 5: people like al Capone. You know, all these guys grew
Speaker 5: up together and enough to get off on a tangent.
Speaker 5: But let's say say everybody has a choice in life. Okay,
Speaker 5: I think that that's basically you don't have to be
Speaker 5: a criminal or whatever. But when you look at the
Speaker 5: options that were offered, a lot of these ethnic groups
Speaker 5: weren't many, and Luciano and some of the Jewish kids
Speaker 5: and other Italian kids, you know, banned together and that
Speaker 5: was the route they took. And not everybody did that,
Speaker 5: but here's some kids that did.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they started young, you're talking. His first arrest was
Speaker 5: in his early teens for narcotics, and people seem to
Speaker 5: forget it wasn't all about booze back then these guys,
Speaker 5: I mean, narcotics was another big prohibited item. By the
Speaker 5: time they really started into the life of crime.
Speaker 4: But being growing up with Jewish kids too, he knew
Speaker 4: he learned just I guess inherently the protection racket, as
Speaker 4: if we're from even even from his own childhood, just
Speaker 4: from being young, I mean he and that later alliance
Speaker 4: will be important as well. Tell us what his family
Speaker 4: life was like, what the what was his parental situation,
Speaker 4: and tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 5: It's best anybody can glean from it. And and definitely
Speaker 5: a lot of my peers have written more extensively on
Speaker 5: him coming over and what childhood was probably like for him,
Speaker 5: And I think I should point this out in every researcher,
Speaker 5: writer of history in general, not just organized crime, knows
Speaker 5: unless you were there, We're never going to know all
Speaker 5: the answers. Okay, weren't there, but to get a general
Speaker 5: idea his parents did probably weren't bad people. They were raising,
Speaker 5: like a lot of parents, a bunch of kids. Charlie
Speaker 5: was one of the ones to never be home, you know.
Speaker 5: Yet he had some legitimate jobs as a kid, but
Speaker 5: he always seemed to tie those in with crime too,
Speaker 5: and yes, running into some of these Jewish kids that
Speaker 5: already had their own theft and protection rackets, and and
Speaker 5: what ended up happening is instead of beating the hell
Speaker 5: out of each other for a while, they decided to
Speaker 5: join forces. I mean, that's really a simplified way of
Speaker 5: how things probably ended up. But then you're talking about
Speaker 5: kids that basically hung out on the street twenty four
Speaker 5: to seven doing rackets.
Speaker 4: Right right now, what is the origin of Lucky Luciano's
Speaker 4: the moniker Lucky Luciano? And when did he actually get
Speaker 4: this moniker?
Speaker 5: There's obviously, if anybody who knows the story of Luciano,
Speaker 5: a lot of people took it as he was named
Speaker 5: Lucky because he survived being taken for a ride, which
Speaker 5: essentially means you're picked up in a car because you're
Speaker 5: going to be killed. He survived a ride, which was
Speaker 5: a mystery in and of itself who actually did it.
Speaker 5: That's where a lot of people, myself at one time included, believes, Hey,
Speaker 5: he got nicknamed Lucky. All these guys had nicknames, you know.
Speaker 5: There's all it seemed like every gangster virtually had a
Speaker 5: nickname his for surviving this ride in nineteen twenty nine.
Speaker 5: I do not believe that I know some of my
Speaker 5: fellow authors and researchers. Now they two I've learned from them.
Speaker 5: Don't believe everything just because most of us take it
Speaker 5: for historical fact. What I found and put in the
Speaker 5: book were things he said himself in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 5: Two reporters he granted interviews too, And if you take that,
Speaker 5: and again, I don't want to give everything away, but
Speaker 5: let's just say, if I could put anything to bed
Speaker 5: in this book, let's get this straight. He had the
Speaker 5: nickname Lucky well before he was taken for a ride
Speaker 5: and survived. That nickname was there, and there are a
Speaker 5: couple theories to that precursor. But you know, anyway, again,
Speaker 5: I don't want to give away too much, but let's
Speaker 5: put that one to bed.
Speaker 4: Now there's another. There's other little myths which I don't
Speaker 4: think are as important as some of the others, but
Speaker 4: we'll deal with those. He had scars, he had a
Speaker 4: droopy eye, Yes, what is the what was the mythology
Speaker 4: about where the DROOPI came from? And the scars?
Speaker 5: Well, the what? And this isn't given away much, but
Speaker 5: I mean, really, Luciano himself, the story he stuck to
Speaker 5: till the day he died was that he was beaten
Speaker 5: up by cops. Okay, he was picked up on a
Speaker 5: Manhattan street and left on a Staten Island street, beat
Speaker 5: up by cops looking for Jack Legs Diamond because they
Speaker 5: knew he used to run with diamond. Now, the general
Speaker 5: consensus is this beating, which was very bad, left him
Speaker 5: with the droopy I and the scars on the right
Speaker 5: side of his face and gave him that extra sinister look. However,
Speaker 5: I started because I collect photographs. That that's really how
Speaker 5: I start to write is based off these rare photos.
Speaker 5: I was fortunate enough to acquire a close up photo
Speaker 5: of him ninety team twenty six and if you look
Speaker 5: at it, he really had a slight droop to his
Speaker 5: eye already that was already there. And no, it doesn't
Speaker 5: seem like a big, big deal, but I thought it
Speaker 5: was important to point out because hey, here's a little
Speaker 5: another mystery. Let's throw this monkey engine. He already had
Speaker 5: a droopy eye before he was beat up. So it's yeah,
Speaker 5: like you said, not everything's as important to the greater story,
Speaker 5: but it's neat little you know, if you like those
Speaker 5: kind of little factoids.
Speaker 4: Yeah, now what you did mention too, And I'm glad
Speaker 4: that you mentioned that early. One of the major fascinating
Speaker 4: aspects of your book, too, is the sixty photos that
Speaker 4: are included. So tell us just a little bit about
Speaker 4: those photos, because you said that's where you start, and
Speaker 4: I've never heard anyone actually make that claim, So tell
Speaker 4: us a little bit more about that and where you
Speaker 4: have access to. You know, most true crime books got
Speaker 4: thirteen fourteen pages.
Speaker 5: So well, I don't know if it's brilliance or insanity,
Speaker 5: but a colleague of mine actually pointed out to me,
Speaker 5: He's like, I've never he said, you like to start
Speaker 5: with photos and then build your story. Yeah. Me and
Speaker 5: a friend had been collecting for several years. We try
Speaker 5: to acquire original press photos, police photos, crime scene photos.
Speaker 5: It's a weird hobby. And I had always been a
Speaker 5: writer first, but I'm very visual, So long story short,
Speaker 5: I started collecting photographs of Luciano murdering, Carnold Rosstein's e
Speaker 5: all that was my thing. So I started to really
Speaker 5: find some what I consider gems, and I thought these
Speaker 5: have to go in the book, and a couple are
Speaker 5: really close to my heart. But yeah, there's sixty photos
Speaker 5: in there between. I mean, my my buddy and myself
Speaker 5: that have collected these and yeah, we have the originals.
Speaker 5: It's yeah, it's like my pride and joy too it
Speaker 5: because I think it illustrates and accentuates what I'm writing about. Okay,
Speaker 5: here see the changes in history and these people because
Speaker 5: it wasn't it wasn't all about Lucky Luciano. He was
Speaker 5: not alone wolf. He had lots of friends and places
Speaker 5: and things that I wanted to capture. If that answers
Speaker 5: the question, you know, that's but I start with photos
Speaker 5: and work backwards.
Speaker 4: Well, it's a great inclusion. I mean again, I mean
Speaker 4: it's just because people don't have the access. But with
Speaker 4: your access, with this incredible like you say, passion and
Speaker 4: fascination for this, that the reader gets this incredible bonus.
Speaker 4: And I think I love seeing news clippings of the time.
Speaker 4: I liked seeing anything from the time because and then
Speaker 4: it's it just drives home really what you're reading history,
Speaker 4: and it's just incredibly interesting history.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 4: Now, tell us a little bit more about the because
Speaker 4: Lucky Luciano is credited for a lot of things, but
Speaker 4: he didn't get into power immediately. But tell us about
Speaker 4: what you found that might have differed from the some
Speaker 4: of the myths about his importance in terms of sort
Speaker 4: of reorganizing I guess an organization that was already there,
Speaker 4: but at least looking a little differently than tradition, with
Speaker 4: that that the Sicilian origins had to be maintained. And
Speaker 4: tell us about the power struggle and anything that you
Speaker 4: found in you or in your research that kind of
Speaker 4: went against the official story.
Speaker 5: I think, I think first of all, for anybody that
Speaker 5: doesn't perhaps know a lot about this, But in New
Speaker 5: York you had the era of these Sicilian mob bosses
Speaker 5: and they like to run it, you know, do business
Speaker 5: with other Sicilians period, and Luciano, being of Sicilian blood,
Speaker 5: was part of that. But he also carried on as
Speaker 5: a lot of these guys did, with other associations. Luciano,
Speaker 5: you're talking late nineteen twenties. He was doing business with
Speaker 5: Arnold Rostein, you know famous, you know, Jewish financier of
Speaker 5: illicit business. He was doing business with Irish gangsters that
Speaker 5: Jack Legg's Diamond was in charge of. And he was
Speaker 5: working with Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lanski in their little
Speaker 5: bug and Meyer mob. When it came till about nineteen
Speaker 5: thirty one, Luciano's Often they say, oh, he's the he
Speaker 5: became the boss of all bosses and reorganized the mafia.
Speaker 5: And it wasn't really like that. It was more like,
Speaker 5: I believe he and his Italian and Jewish friends and
Speaker 5: associates decided it's time to change the guard and work together.
Speaker 5: Let's take out the bad element and start something new.
Speaker 5: I don't think they created a new thing. I really
Speaker 5: credit Rostein with developing the unified Dangland sort of mentality.
Speaker 5: But Luciano, from nineteen thirty one to nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 5: and it's relatively a short time, was considered the top
Speaker 5: man or one of the top men. I don't think
Speaker 5: he was a boss of all bosses. I don't think
Speaker 5: he subscribed to that. I think there were a lot
Speaker 5: of them that were top bosses.
Speaker 4: Sure. Now, in terms of you have, it's amazing the
Speaker 4: details that you have, everything from lucky tattoos and and
Speaker 4: everything from well, and this we'll cover this a little
Speaker 4: bit later, because this is one of the legends as well.
Speaker 4: And you cover this well because this is very important.
Speaker 4: You know, Luciano's actual role in helping the Allied forces
Speaker 4: in World War Two. So we'll talk about that just
Speaker 4: a little bit later in context. So now tell us
Speaker 4: about the Broadway starlet and her and her odd marriage.
Speaker 4: Tell us a little bit about what you uncovered there.
Speaker 4: That's not something everyone's has written or read before, certainly no.
Speaker 5: And you know her name, Galina orlov was her name.
Speaker 5: She was a Russian immigrant and she changed her name
Speaker 5: to gay Orlova when she decided to try, you know,
Speaker 5: her shot at Broadway. Like a lot of show girls,
Speaker 5: she frequented the same Manhattan haunts a lot of gangsters did.
Speaker 5: And it is that charismatic blore to being a gangster.
Speaker 5: And these girls were young, and you know, they liked
Speaker 5: the stuff that these guys were telling them or offering them.
Speaker 5: She was an interesting one that I had read her
Speaker 5: name mentioned in a lot of books over the years.
Speaker 5: And I finally, you know, I want to write a
Speaker 5: whole chapter. I want to find out what happened to
Speaker 5: this woman, what was her real deal? Because she was
Speaker 5: very attractive. She seemed to be a very important part
Speaker 5: of his life for a little while. So anyway, the story,
Speaker 5: without giving a lot away, you're talking about someone who
Speaker 5: was almost as methodical in her goals and how to
Speaker 5: reach them as any gangster was. Let's leave it at that,
Speaker 5: from marriages of convenience to wearing walking into well, i'll
Speaker 5: give you a good example. She walks into a police
Speaker 5: station when she was questioned after Luciano was arrested. She
Speaker 5: walks in wearing four thousand dollars fur and diamonds, and
Speaker 5: the cops were like, where did you get that? And
Speaker 5: she was horrified that they would ask that anyone wouldn't
Speaker 5: have that on. It's just the whole mentality. And then
Speaker 5: it's a very sort of sad ending to the chapter
Speaker 5: in her life. I think people, I just think it
Speaker 5: was really neat to get in and dig into this
Speaker 5: woman who wasn't really written about extensively before. I hope
Speaker 5: I tapped into something interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you did, absolutely, Now tell us for our audience,
Speaker 4: because I wasn't really familiar with this at least. Wow,
Speaker 4: it was. I guess it's been a while anyway. Certainly
Speaker 4: tell us about the Last Testament of Lucky Luciano and
Speaker 4: the Mafia's story in his own words, tell us about
Speaker 4: that what you found regarding this Last Testament.
Speaker 5: There had been debate over that book since it came
Speaker 5: out in the mid seventies, okay, whether it was legit
Speaker 5: or not, and one of the authors had died before
Speaker 5: he could even argue his point. The co author argued, no, no,
Speaker 5: it's real, okay, And then later he said, all right, well,
Speaker 5: I had to make up some of the dialogue, but
Speaker 5: it's still based on notes that were taken in interviews.
Speaker 5: A lot of our peers and other writers you know
Speaker 5: have talked about you really can't rely on the last test.
Speaker 5: It's a fascinating read, great book, but do not believe
Speaker 5: it is history because there are actual historical documents and
Speaker 5: interviews with Luciano that I don't know tell the author
Speaker 5: sposit some of that. And I didn't base anything in
Speaker 5: this book. I learned from my peers. Do not base anything,
Speaker 5: do not quote it, do not use it, because the
Speaker 5: only thing factual is that Martin Gosh, who wanted to
Speaker 5: produce a movie on Luciano, did meet with him many
Speaker 5: times in Italy in the late fifties to gather information
Speaker 5: and interviews that were supposed to go into a movie
Speaker 5: that was never made, and instead went into this book.
Speaker 4: A leegency, right, But you don't know.
Speaker 5: No, And I think I try to be pretty clear
Speaker 5: in the book too. There are a lot of things
Speaker 5: we're never going to know the whole answer to I
Speaker 5: like throwing some monkey reriches in and presenting some weird
Speaker 5: little factoids that are woven into the fabric of the
Speaker 5: greater story that's been talked about, you know. And even
Speaker 5: with Luchi Giano dying in the arms of Martin Ghost,
Speaker 5: who wanted to produce a movie about his life, there
Speaker 5: were you know, theories about, oh they did Ghost poison him?
Speaker 5: You know what what happened? And you know, it's okay,
Speaker 5: we're not really going to know, but I think I
Speaker 5: think there's enough evidence to lead us in the right direction,
Speaker 5: and I try to put it in the book.
Speaker 4: Well, tell us a little bit more about that without
Speaker 4: giving it away, because there's the term I had never
Speaker 4: heard before, is the Borgia cocktail. I guess that's exclusive
Speaker 4: to a certain country, no doubt. But tell us a
Speaker 4: little bit more about this, because this this character that
Speaker 4: you spoke of, Martin Ghosh, Yes, tell us a little
Speaker 4: bit more about this anyway.
Speaker 5: Okay, Yeah, And there are people that probably aren't aware
Speaker 5: of this. Martin Ghost was uh, I don't want to
Speaker 5: say small time producer, but he had a couple things
Speaker 5: under his belt in the f fifties, an Avin Costello movie,
Speaker 5: a couple of shorts. He was actually introduced to Luciano
Speaker 5: through another man that I found by the name He
Speaker 5: went by the name of Charles Duke, who wanted to
Speaker 5: produce a movie and in fact not to get off
Speaker 5: on something. But there were there was talk of producing
Speaker 5: a movie on Luciano's life in the early fifties that
Speaker 5: Luciano himself tried to get done way before movie talk
Speaker 5: with Martin Geosch. Anyway, Ghost kept going to Italy to
Speaker 5: meet with Luciano, took handwritten notes they were going to
Speaker 5: do this movie. Got received threat allegedly from American mafia, staying,
Speaker 5: you know, don't you do this. Luciano said, hey, you
Speaker 5: can do it, but not till ten years after I
Speaker 5: die write a book. So that's and one of the
Speaker 5: last the last eating the two had was in an
Speaker 5: airport in Naples and Luciano was not feeling well that day.
Speaker 5: He had just been interrogated on some drug suspicion charges
Speaker 5: and he died of a heart attack in Martin Ghost's
Speaker 5: arms and Ghost was interrogated. The tabloids thought that he
Speaker 5: put something in his mouth. Really it was probably his
Speaker 5: heart pill, because Ghost knew he had a heart problem.
Speaker 5: But you know, again up for debate.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, Now you write extensively to the basically
Speaker 4: the background at the time, the historical backdrop, but also
Speaker 4: sort of the impact, the actual impact of him as
Speaker 4: a sort of a cultural icon, his influence. Yes, tell
Speaker 4: us what you really found and that was not what
Speaker 4: you had known going into the project.
Speaker 5: That's a tough one to answer, because almost everything that
Speaker 5: I found amazed me personally. That's why I put it
Speaker 5: in there. I mean it just but overall, I think
Speaker 5: the subject of him being a drug kingpin later in life,
Speaker 5: from the nineteen forties really on he was labeled as
Speaker 5: this international drug kingpin. Okay that I didn't I didn't
Speaker 5: quite buy him to do. I think he made money
Speaker 5: from it, probably, But was he this giant heroin and
Speaker 5: cocaine kingpin? I have my doubts. But what I found
Speaker 5: really interesting was two of the main police investigators that
Speaker 5: were after him, an Slinger and Siragusa. These guys, I mean,
Speaker 5: they were dead set on getting Luciano. It almost because
Speaker 5: to me, I interpreted as an obsession and I came
Speaker 5: to believe after researching this, whether Luziano had anything to
Speaker 5: do with drugs or not, these two guys were going
Speaker 5: to find a way to prove he did and when
Speaker 5: he when Luciano died, the comments that I put in
Speaker 5: the end of the book that Sarah Gusa made are
Speaker 5: actually I would think quite horrifying in today's world if
Speaker 5: someone had said this. I'm sure you read you know
Speaker 5: what I'm talking about. It was that's obsession and to
Speaker 5: the way they spoke about it. But again, I don't
Speaker 5: want to give it away. It's Luciano became the myth
Speaker 5: became bigger than the man. If that really answers the
Speaker 5: question to me, it was like, Wow, the guy's myth
Speaker 5: got bigger than the guy really was.
Speaker 4: Well, like you talk about Anslinger, who was very very
Speaker 4: politically motivated, and people will know him from his crusade
Speaker 4: on marijuana and drugs in general. So he was a
Speaker 4: very very visible and powerful and ambitious political this guy.
Speaker 4: So so you know, everybody wants a piece of the
Speaker 4: biggest person in the world of organized crime, including you know,
Speaker 4: the beloved politicians and lawmakers.
Speaker 5: So right, you.
Speaker 4: Know, he represented success for whoever we're going to bring
Speaker 4: him down. Whether he represented all of the drug industry, periody,
Speaker 4: he was really like the Osama bin Laden representing terrorism itself.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, it's.
Speaker 5: A good analogy.
Speaker 4: He was.
Speaker 5: He was made the poster boy the minute he stepped
Speaker 5: into Cuba. They wanted him. They wanted him, They made
Speaker 5: him the poster boy.
Speaker 4: Tell us how that happened. He he was in prison
Speaker 4: for thirty to fifty years. What I found interesting too,
Speaker 4: is that again it seems ironic, what was Lucky Luciano's
Speaker 4: view on prostitution and then what was what was his
Speaker 4: charges and what was the sentence before we explained how
Speaker 4: this circuits route, how he made it to Cuba.
Speaker 5: Well, you had already mentioned about political motivation. You had
Speaker 5: a very ambitious man waging war on the mov in
Speaker 5: general New York, and that was Thomas Dewey. I don't
Speaker 5: think anyone with a straight face can deny the man
Speaker 5: had an ego as big as any gangster, and he
Speaker 5: was very politically motivated. He went after Dutch Schultz, he
Speaker 5: was going after Lefki Boucalt. Then he wanted Luciano and
Speaker 5: in similar to the Capone situation, where you can't get
Speaker 5: him on what you know he's doing, you find another way. Capone,
Speaker 5: they got off taxes Luciano when he became the target,
Speaker 5: they decided to go after him on a massive prostitution ring. Now,
Speaker 5: Lucian and answer your question, always denied that, oh, I
Speaker 5: would never have anything to do with prostitution. Well, Dan,
Speaker 5: I think we can all agree that any top gangster
Speaker 5: was making some money off of every racket. But was
Speaker 5: he a temp he would have been so insulated from that.
Speaker 5: What happened is is they ended up getting a conviction
Speaker 5: of yes, thirty to fifty years based on a prostitution
Speaker 5: combination is what they called it. He goes to jail
Speaker 5: and somehow, somehow an arrangement is made to release Luciano
Speaker 5: on the terms. He goes straight to exile and Italy.
Speaker 5: What happened behind the scenes, we'll probably never know, but
Speaker 5: supposedly it was because he offered help in the war
Speaker 5: effort of World War two, and he may have were
Speaker 5: definitely meetings between the Navy and Luciano and Mayer Lanski
Speaker 5: and Luciano's lawyer and Frank Costello. But what really happened
Speaker 5: I put in the book there are a couple theories.
Speaker 5: My honestly, what I think got him out of jail
Speaker 5: was I think they had the metaphorical file on either
Speaker 5: Dewey or Javouver, and I do believe it scared them,
Speaker 5: and I think that they made an agreement said okay,
Speaker 5: just get the hell out of the country. I really
Speaker 5: do believe that there was they had something on one
Speaker 5: of those two guys.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, that's a that's a bombshell. Now he is Sicilian.
Speaker 4: He goes back to Italy. The US is not Italy.
Speaker 4: So what did he do.
Speaker 5: Well, he hated it. He hated the he was there.
Speaker 5: I think that's undeniable from everything I read in his
Speaker 5: own word, the man did not like it. And he
Speaker 5: was quick to do the next closest thing to coming
Speaker 5: to the United States, and that was Cuba. All his
Speaker 5: buddies party there. They had obviously the gambling interests were exploding.
Speaker 5: He made his way there, lived in a hotel for
Speaker 5: a little while, and by nineteen forty six he was
Speaker 5: firmly planted in Havana. And I had a great picture
Speaker 5: of the house he bought that. You know, he ended up.
Speaker 5: He was settled. He was settled there until he was noticed.
Speaker 4: And then what happened Again, politics collide, in business collide.
Speaker 4: So what happens, Well, he.
Speaker 5: First he started dating a socialite from New York who
Speaker 5: loved publicity, and the Havannah newspapers were constantly following them around,
Speaker 5: which he didn't like, you know, he did not want
Speaker 5: to be noticed. And then just call it fate. He
Speaker 5: was at the big supposed crime meeting of all the
Speaker 5: bosses to discuss many subjects, and they were carousing with women.
Speaker 5: Frank Sinatra was there, Al Capone's brother Ralph was there,
Speaker 5: and an enterprising young reporter was in the area spotted him,
Speaker 5: wrote an article about it, and an slinger saw that article.
Speaker 5: That's what set it off. Then an slinger decided, Cuba,
Speaker 5: if you're harboring him, we're going to cut off all
Speaker 5: your legitimate medical supplies kick him out.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, it's a pretty serious threat.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I don't want to. Well, it's not
Speaker 5: really given it away, but it shows you how politics work.
Speaker 5: The United States scared the hell out of the Cuban
Speaker 5: authorities with this, and it ends up they never ever
Speaker 5: instituted the embargo. It was. It was literally empty threats,
Speaker 5: but it worked. It got Luciano arrested, It got Luciano deported,
Speaker 5: and he was back to Italy for good.
Speaker 4: And so he had no he really held no power,
Speaker 4: exerted it, no power from Sicily. Wasn't able to do
Speaker 4: any business when.
Speaker 5: He went back, so they say. But at the same time,
Speaker 5: then we don't know what was he really doing over there.
Speaker 5: You know, he opened restaurants or you know, he lived modestly.
Speaker 5: I do believe was he either receiving money or was
Speaker 5: involved in something. I just don't think you quit, Sure
Speaker 5: some guys do, but for the most part, it's another
Speaker 5: one of those unanswered questions. Will we ever know what
Speaker 5: Charlie was really doing when he went back to Italy
Speaker 5: later in life?
Speaker 4: M hm?
Speaker 5: And so.
Speaker 4: What were all the what was all of the controversy
Speaker 4: in concerning his death? Was there there was a lot
Speaker 4: of credence to the idea that the mob had something
Speaker 4: to do with this.
Speaker 5: They started the tabloids in Italy started the rumors that
Speaker 5: he had been poisoned, that he was involved in a
Speaker 5: multinational drug trade and had talked to the police. There
Speaker 5: were rumors again that the movie producer had poisoned him
Speaker 5: as well, and of course there there later came out
Speaker 5: that him even speaking about a movie of his life
Speaker 5: caused the mob to want to shut him up. There
Speaker 5: were so many rumors, but really, when it came down
Speaker 5: to it, basically the guy was not in good health
Speaker 5: and he died of a heart attack that day. I mean,
Speaker 5: I really, I really doubt that there was too much
Speaker 5: wiggle room in this. I think that he did. But yeah, sure,
Speaker 5: rumor scattered and even interesting about the actor that was
Speaker 5: going to play him in the In the alleged movie
Speaker 5: they were going to make. This guy got threats, his
Speaker 5: family got threats. So I do believe the mob, the
Speaker 5: mob in America and sicily wanted this movie to never
Speaker 5: be made because they even threatened the actor Cameron Mitchell
Speaker 5: if he agreed to translate for the film. So you're
Speaker 5: you're talking serious. They were going to kidnap his child.
Speaker 5: He had a toddler and they were They sent him
Speaker 5: letters that we're gonna we're gonna get your kid. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean these are credence to the threats. Of course,
Speaker 5: in fact, that was the first time an American actor
Speaker 5: has ever been threatened in that way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's incredible. And if you fast forward about who knows,
Speaker 4: twenty five years or so or thirty will say and
Speaker 4: almost those things would be taboo seem to be now
Speaker 4: part of common legend, and nobody's getting upset.
Speaker 5: Right right right. It's a lot of and that goes
Speaker 5: into what you were saying at the beginning of the show.
Speaker 4: There are a lot.
Speaker 5: Of things that understandably, people who do know the story
Speaker 5: or have seen some of the how can I say
Speaker 5: it crappy movies based on it, buy into this. Say,
Speaker 5: if we even go back to the scars, you know,
Speaker 5: one of the main story worry that everybody seemed to
Speaker 5: love is of the two warring mob bosses that Luciano
Speaker 5: was playing against each other, or he was like a
Speaker 5: double agent. Really, that one of them, Salvatore Marenzano, had
Speaker 5: his men kidnapped Luciano, string him up by his thumbs,
Speaker 5: took knives and cut his face and throwed and then
Speaker 5: left him for dead. A lot of people thought that
Speaker 5: was the story four years in years, I think it's
Speaker 5: the most probably ridiculous of the theories of how Luciano
Speaker 5: got his scars and survived the rot. I really think
Speaker 5: more realistically, yeah, he probably was beat up by somebody
Speaker 5: looking for legs diamond, and if it wasn't that, it
Speaker 5: was somebody interested in why Ross Dein was killed a
Speaker 5: year before. I buy more into those. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 5: all these decades later and some people really think we
Speaker 5: could even talk about Boardwalk Empire. Great show, love that show,
Speaker 5: based on some real things, But when you think about it,
Speaker 5: you know, it's it's a show. It's a show, So
Speaker 5: leave it at that. You know the truth is elsewhere,
Speaker 5: hopefully in my.
Speaker 4: Book, hopefully my fuck. We were talking just just a
Speaker 4: second ago about the movie itself and how serious the
Speaker 4: mafia was in preventing this movie. So the production was
Speaker 4: shut down very very quickly. Obviously that kind of threat
Speaker 4: is going to scare off anybody, including Hollywood. But you
Speaker 4: have looked at that book and others that sort of
Speaker 4: well not sort of, but to study this subject that
Speaker 4: there are scholars will say of this subject matter. What
Speaker 4: did they find in that book that even somebody like
Speaker 4: you could understand why they the mob would not want
Speaker 4: that said? Or is it was it just the spirit
Speaker 4: of the book itself, or was there something specific in
Speaker 4: that book that was covered in that book.
Speaker 5: That's a really good question. Dan and I'll tell you
Speaker 5: what I could have gone into the whole Last Testament
Speaker 5: a lot I didn't. I just touched on why I
Speaker 5: wasn't using it, because some of my colleagues have really
Speaker 5: dissected that book and why people were skeptical that are
Speaker 5: they are researchers and authors and law enforcement that knew
Speaker 5: not right. It was actually a combination the spirit of
Speaker 5: the book. Yeah, some of that dialogue just seen so
Speaker 5: I don't know, hollywood esque, And a lot of the
Speaker 5: facts that were given alleged facts were things that were
Speaker 5: actually proven wrong in like FBI files, I mean, and
Speaker 5: things that were said that could have easily been seen
Speaker 5: in newspaper articles or things that were already that couldn't
Speaker 5: have been known at the time. It was just a
Speaker 5: lot of stuff that other people have done a hell
Speaker 5: of a job proving. That book was probably a lot
Speaker 5: of let's say, creative license take him. But you know,
Speaker 5: back to the movie thing, I will say there was
Speaker 5: a film actually produced then in the mid seventies by
Speaker 5: entirely different people that starred Rod Steiger and Charles Siragusta,
Speaker 5: the cop that was really adamant about getting Luciano, played
Speaker 5: himself in it. Now, how that movie got made without aggravation,
Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't I don't particularly. I saw
Speaker 5: the movie years ago and I really personally didn't impress
Speaker 5: me much in general. But it's weird. It's a weird irony.
Speaker 5: One gets every threat in the world, and a couple
Speaker 5: of years later, here comes another one with no a
Speaker 5: problem at all. I don't know, but that's that's gang
Speaker 5: Lan legend. I mean, all kinds of weird stuff. That's
Speaker 5: what entertains us, that's what titillates us. I guess.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's amazing to me. Why I think I've said
Speaker 4: this before, I don't know if we've discussed it. If
Speaker 4: we have, I apologize, But but really, how when a
Speaker 4: person watches a lot of fictional stuff like I have
Speaker 4: about the Mob, all the Mob movies. Of course it's
Speaker 4: super popular movies and sopranos in the series. Sure, and
Speaker 4: you watch that stuff, and when you do read the
Speaker 4: actual true stories, it's amazing how right lifted from the pages,
Speaker 4: these things are the most entertaining and memorable stuff in
Speaker 4: fiction on these programs, these fictional accounts is not cantional whatsoever,
Speaker 4: and the most incredible things. So it's like, Wow, it's
Speaker 4: amazing going backwards that way and going, oh, there's a source,
Speaker 4: there's a source, and again there's a source. Incredible.
Speaker 5: Since you mentioned I really think truth is stranger in fiction.
Speaker 5: The adage is very very accurate. And I love this genre,
Speaker 5: this niche, whatever you want to call because I just
Speaker 5: happened to love digging in and finding needles in a haystack,
Speaker 5: which we didn't really talk about, but I'll throw this
Speaker 5: out there as well, an earlier question that you had
Speaker 5: asked me about, like one of the more fascinating things
Speaker 5: that surprised me along those lines. To be honest with you,
Speaker 5: through the whole book, the coldest thing Dan I found
Speaker 5: was an interview with the actual cop this found Luciano
Speaker 5: near death in nineteen twenty nine on the side of
Speaker 5: the road. That to me made the whole thing because
Speaker 5: not only did it add to and then throw yet
Speaker 5: another monkey wrench in the theory of what happened to Luciano,
Speaker 5: it was how I found this interview with him. It
Speaker 5: was it was just a little neighborhood type section newspaper article.
Speaker 5: The guy was retired. It was it was a few
Speaker 5: months after Luciano died. Did some little local reporter in
Speaker 5: Florida goes to his house and interviews him, and he
Speaker 5: remembered it like it was yesterday, from nineteen twenty nine
Speaker 5: as a beat cop finding Luciano on the side of
Speaker 5: the road, and what he says is to me, it
Speaker 5: was mind numbing. I'm like, this is great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, it's an incredible start for like you say,
Speaker 4: for a short little interview that could have been and
Speaker 4: was overlooked for years, decades, and that in part so
Speaker 4: much knowledge and shed so much light. That is a
Speaker 4: Eureka moment.
Speaker 5: It really was, because this was not like a syndicated article.
Speaker 5: It was just a little, you know, hometown kind of
Speaker 5: story on this guy, and it just yeah, it was
Speaker 5: the Eureka moment as I was doing this book.
Speaker 4: Now in terms of and I'm sure my prediction, I've
Speaker 4: said to a person involved in film that I know,
Speaker 4: I said, you know, the only thing that's left is
Speaker 4: the true story of some of these mobsters. You know,
Speaker 4: they've done the Bonnie and Clyes, they've done all those guys,
Speaker 4: and they have done some stories about mobsters, fictional accounts,
Speaker 4: But I mean, I think the only things left is
Speaker 4: to take the true accounts and don't mess with them,
Speaker 4: and you'll have a blockbuster. And I know there's been some,
Speaker 4: there's been some. I guess script's been written projects. I
Speaker 4: guess in in the in the in the making. But
Speaker 4: my question is, what do you see in the in
Speaker 4: the future with Lucky Luciano in terms of uh, i'd
Speaker 4: say an adaptation for film.
Speaker 5: Another great question, Dan, Oh, you're killing me. These are good.
Speaker 5: I really have thought about this too, Luciano. They need
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna put out, they need to make a movie,
Speaker 5: and they need to do it based on more of
Speaker 5: the fact, and they need to do it. Uh, they
Speaker 5: need to do it a million times better than most
Speaker 5: of these biopics are done. I'll you know. I have
Speaker 5: some favorites too that I know are not historically accurate.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm not gonna name names, but there are
Speaker 5: some really great movies that were based on some of
Speaker 5: even Luciano's cohorts that are entertaining and wonderful to watch.
Speaker 5: But I think you're right, a true blockbuster. I think
Speaker 5: Luciano's story And I'm not just saying because I wrote
Speaker 5: the book on it, because I thought this already Luciano
Speaker 5: story is worthy of a true telling, and it's entertaining
Speaker 5: and of itself right there, Truth is stranger in fiction.
Speaker 5: You don't need to make.
Speaker 4: It up, that's right, Yeah, I mean I do think
Speaker 4: that's left. Why again, why do you need to take
Speaker 4: I mean, unless they want, unless they're compelled to always
Speaker 4: have everything in a love story, right, a love story,
Speaker 4: they're constant. But if there isn't, and that's been proven
Speaker 4: too that you don't need that con But other than that, though,
Speaker 4: I mean, really, what kind of you can say it's
Speaker 4: a true story? And I don't see why people wouldn't
Speaker 4: clamor to go see that.
Speaker 5: Oh sure, And I mean obviously in terms of making
Speaker 5: a film, you know, you'd have to make a twenty
Speaker 5: seven hour film to really capture it all on any
Speaker 5: of these guys, I think Luciano in particular. But if
Speaker 5: you're going to make a two hour, two and a
Speaker 5: half hour biopic really with somebody like him, you really
Speaker 5: do have a virtual ensemble cast of gangsters that are
Speaker 5: equally fascinating. I mean, you have no shortage of characters
Speaker 5: that are real and fascinating. You have no shortage of
Speaker 5: love stories. Sadness, some comedy, you name it, it's in there.
Speaker 5: I agree with you one hundred percent that if they
Speaker 5: just looked at it that way and say, yeah, I
Speaker 5: think it would be a hell of a movie. But
Speaker 5: I thought that for twenty years before I wrote this book.
Speaker 5: You know, That's part of why I wrote this book,
Speaker 5: because I visualize as I'm doing it again. It goes
Speaker 5: back to the pictures. I'm very visual and I write
Speaker 5: from that what I'm you know, looking at our envisioning.
Speaker 5: In my head, I see a movie playing out, Dan,
Speaker 5: I see you starring. I see you in a starring role.
Speaker 4: That's interesting. Yeah, Now what we didn't get into, and
Speaker 4: I think we've got a little bit of time. What
Speaker 4: I thought was interesting is the is the power struggle
Speaker 4: that's always been sort of dumbed down for Lucky Luciano
Speaker 4: and simplified oversimplified obviously, But what I found one of
Speaker 4: the stories, and it won't be giving away the whole
Speaker 4: story that you cover, but it was interesting to hear
Speaker 4: about the the effort to try to bump off Lucky Luciano.
Speaker 4: At one time with the twenty five thousand dollars up
Speaker 4: front and another twenty five to finish, tell us a
Speaker 4: little bit about the characters and the players in this
Speaker 4: little story.
Speaker 5: Well, at the time, yeah, for the overview, Luciano had
Speaker 5: been running with Legsteamond, he had been working for Arnold Rostein,
Speaker 5: but he was really employed by Joe the Boss Masaia.
Speaker 5: Joe the Boss was in a bitter war with Salvatore Marenzano.
Speaker 5: Luciano decided to play both sides. How he did it,
Speaker 5: and I do believe he gathered a lot of his colleagues,
Speaker 5: Jewish and Italian, that agreed, we need to get rid
Speaker 5: of both these guys, so they took out Joe the
Speaker 5: Boss first. A few months later, Luciano goes to work
Speaker 5: for Marenzi. Marenzano probably never trusted Luciano or his pals,
Speaker 5: figuring if you knocked off my enemy, you're probably capable
Speaker 5: of doing it to me. So what the story goes
Speaker 5: that Marenzano hired a crazy gunman by the name of
Speaker 5: mad Dog Cole. Mad Dog Cole was hired to show
Speaker 5: up at the office and Marenzano was going to have
Speaker 5: Vito Genoviez and Lucky Luciano come to the office for
Speaker 5: a meeting where Cole was going to kill them problem
Speaker 5: was Luciano and his buddies already got wind of it,
Speaker 5: showed Instead of Luciano showing up, they sent what I
Speaker 5: believe was probably Bugsy Siegel, Maybegonis, maybe Sam red Levine.
Speaker 5: Four guys showed up, said they were tax men, walk
Speaker 5: in the door, lined everybody up against the wall, and
Speaker 5: then shot and stabbed Marenzano. Vincent Cole happened to show
Speaker 5: up to do his job, sees what happened, turned around
Speaker 5: and left and supposedly was happy he got his twenty
Speaker 5: five thousand up front and he didn't care anymore. If
Speaker 5: that's how the story goes, I personally believe it probably
Speaker 5: went a lot like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 5: You can't make this stuff up. We'll never know if
Speaker 5: that's what really happened, but there you go. If that
Speaker 5: is truth. Who could make a story up like that?
Speaker 5: It's just incredible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, it's fascinating. Well, very much like
Speaker 4: this book and your take on Lucky Luciano. You're in
Speaker 4: depth research uncovering new facts about Lucky Luciano and just
Speaker 4: adding to the legend. Very fascinating read. Tell us about
Speaker 4: how people can contact you if they're so interested, you
Speaker 4: must do the Facebook thing and have a website. Tell
Speaker 4: us how people can contact you if they've been so
Speaker 4: inclined after listening about Lucky Luciano this evening.
Speaker 5: Well, sure I have. My website is gang Land Legends
Speaker 5: dot com. I'm on Twitter at sip the Scallion, c
Speaker 5: I P The Scallion. I'm on Facebook, Christian Zippolini. You
Speaker 5: can follow me, a friend me, tell me you love
Speaker 5: or hate my work. I'm pretty cool with all of that.
Speaker 5: I like spirited debate for sure. And let me see
Speaker 5: what else. Well, I'm finishing up my third book right
Speaker 5: now and that should that should be out next February.
Speaker 5: And my first book's on there, So if anybody's interested,
Speaker 5: I stop buy and say hello.
Speaker 4: What is your what's your name of your first book?
Speaker 4: I know I know what it is, but us about
Speaker 4: your first book and tell us what's the name of
Speaker 4: the project or what is the new project? You say
Speaker 4: this coming out next March.
Speaker 5: Well, my first book was on Detroit hitman, Chester Wheeler
Speaker 5: Campbells Diary of a MotorCity hit Man, the Chester Wheeler
Speaker 5: Campbell's Story. And my third book is another one in
Speaker 5: the Gangland mystery series. This one is on Murder Incorporated.
Speaker 5: H Yes, a daunting task indeed, but it comes out
Speaker 5: in February. You can already see it on Amazon right now.
Speaker 5: It's due for an early February release, and it's going
Speaker 5: to be packed with a lot of really cool photos too,
Speaker 5: and some great side stories. I'm not rewriting Murder inc
Speaker 5: Just like I didn't want to rewrite Lucky Luciano's story.
Speaker 5: It's more digestible, more the funds that you know what
Speaker 5: it is. It's the filler, Dan, it's the filler. It's
Speaker 5: the it's the good stuff.
Speaker 4: It's the good stuff. It's the meeting.
Speaker 5: It is it is. It's the crazy, salacious tales in between.
Speaker 5: That's what it is. So there you go.
Speaker 4: Well, I want to thank you very much for coming
Speaker 4: on and talking about Lucky Luciano. That's been fascinating. Thank
Speaker 4: you very much, and we look forward to hearing from
Speaker 4: you again real soon.
Speaker 5: Thanks Dan, I always a pleasure.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Christian, good night bye,