Speaker 1: What are we supposed to do? There's two things in
Speaker 1: life that I want to small talk about right now. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: there's two things I can talk about right now because
Speaker 1: they're all of my focus is either you doing Fringe
Speaker 1: Festival or Succession, and it's like nothing else exists, I
Speaker 1: mean basically, or you know this research that I've been doing.
Speaker 1: So it's like that's it, that's all I got, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I don't want to just always
Speaker 1: open up and talk about the TV we're watching.
Speaker 2: I will say, what's a very funny two shows to
Speaker 2: watch at the same time is Succession and The Good Place,
Speaker 2: Oh Watching, Yeah, which we just did a rewatch of
Speaker 2: because sometimes, you know, around fringe festival time, my brain's
Speaker 2: a little full of stuff and things and I'm just like,
Speaker 2: I cannot be following this.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you need something you've seen before, right, I.
Speaker 2: Need something comforting and warm on in the back that
Speaker 2: I can ignore if I need to.
Speaker 1: And I asked if maybe we could hold off on
Speaker 1: the fourteenth you watch a Brooklyn nine nine and maybe.
Speaker 2: Just switch it up this time, right, And so I said, fine,
Speaker 2: let's rewatch good plays. But it was so funny to
Speaker 2: be watching like all these people be like, how can
Speaker 2: we be a good person? And then switch on over
Speaker 2: to Succession, whether they're not even asking that they don't
Speaker 2: even know to ask that.
Speaker 1: Imagine imagine asking Kendall Roy, what do we owe to
Speaker 1: each other? You know?
Speaker 2: I imagine asking Roman Roy Kendall get a real crazy answer.
Speaker 1: Kenda will be like, well, I think it's like Socrates said, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, uh gotta get those metrics, right, good money
Speaker 1: to get those metrics.
Speaker 2: Yesterday, Eli turned at me and said, well, you gotta
Speaker 2: you gotta think w W S R D. And I
Speaker 2: said what would Steve Rogers do? And he was like,
Speaker 2: oh no, I was thinking what would Shimroy do? Would
Speaker 2: which is essentially the opposite of whatever Steve Rogers.
Speaker 1: Well, all right, we're alienating everyone who doesn't watch Succession.
Speaker 2: True, but it's totally works that we're talking about Succession
Speaker 2: or leading into this episode is so true. Basically organized crime.
Speaker 1: Basically organized crime, that's right. Whether it's like you know,
Speaker 1: the people who run the world or the people who
Speaker 1: used to run the world, the underworld. That point is
Speaker 1: we're talking about al Scarface Capone, Like, I don't need
Speaker 1: to tell you he is one of the most notorious
Speaker 1: gangsters in US history. This guy made a fortune in bootlegging, racketeering, bribery, murder,
Speaker 1: and I mean, of course the worst of all tax evasion, disgusting.
Speaker 1: This guy's life is wild and exciting and terrifying. He's fascinating.
Speaker 1: Many adjectives could be used to describe al Capone. But
Speaker 1: of course we're not here to go over all the
Speaker 1: stories you've heard before, like the Saint Valentine's Day massacre,
Speaker 1: or you know, him getting chased down by Elliott new
Speaker 1: or any of that stuff. That info is all over
Speaker 1: the place. People are going to do a better job
Speaker 1: than we would at summarizing the crime life of al Capone.
Speaker 1: And you can just go watch The Untouchables if you
Speaker 1: want to. It's so good, awesome movie. Today we are here,
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous romance. We're gonna talk about al Capone and
Speaker 1: his wife May, who were a couple of star crossed
Speaker 1: lovers from different cultures who actually defied their Catholic families
Speaker 1: by getting together. They had an out of wedlock child.
Speaker 1: Al had a bunch of affairs, of course, and his
Speaker 1: case of undiagnosed syphilis might have had a huge impact,
Speaker 1: not just on his family, but on Prohibition, the mob,
Speaker 1: and American history itself. So today we're a couple of
Speaker 1: stories and we're gonna sing like a canary about all
Speaker 1: the sexy details in the life of Public Enemy number one.
Speaker 2: Let's go your Moook's Hey, their friends come listen. Well,
Speaker 2: Eli and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no
Speaker 2: match making o romance tips. It's just about ridiculous relations shift.
Speaker 1: I love.
Speaker 2: There might be any type of person at all, and
Speaker 2: abstract concept or a concrete wall. But if there's a story,
Speaker 2: we we're the second Glance Show. Ridiculous Romance.
Speaker 1: A production of iHeartRadio January seventeenth, eighteen ninety nine, in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: New York. I can never hear eighteen ninety nine. I'll
Speaker 1: want musical theater. Folks out there are gonna be with
Speaker 1: me on this without thinking of Newsies, which opens up.
Speaker 1: But I'm a movie fan of Newsies. The musical's fine,
Speaker 1: but it's all about the movie for me.
Speaker 2: Maxicus really Christian Bale Well, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, he's phenomenal, he's amazing. But Max Casella opens that
Speaker 1: movie in eighteen ninety nine. The streets in New York
Speaker 1: City echoed with the voices and newsies, So I can't
Speaker 1: ever hear the word eighteen ninety nine without anyway, we're
Speaker 1: not talking about newsies.
Speaker 2: All the newsies were echoing through this.
Speaker 1: The newsies were striking. Al Fonse Capone was born to
Speaker 1: Italian immigrants, and they had moved to the US from
Speaker 1: Naples just a few years before he was born. He
Speaker 1: was one of nine children, and of course he attended
Speaker 1: Catholic school right near where they lived in Park Slope.
Speaker 1: In terms of his studies, Al was actually a great student.
Speaker 1: He just had a real problem with authority, and that
Speaker 1: doesn't really fly at a Catholic school. Al missed a
Speaker 1: lot of classes and in sixth grade a teacher got
Speaker 1: angry with him and started hitting him. Al was big kid,
Speaker 1: and he did not take kindly to this, and he
Speaker 1: smacked the teacher back right in the face, and that
Speaker 1: day he was expelled and he never went back to
Speaker 1: school again. At this point he starts hanging around with
Speaker 1: questionable wise guys. In fact, one of his classmates and
Speaker 1: buddies was Salvatore Luciana, better known later in life as
Speaker 1: Lucky Luciano, one of America's most notorious gangsters. Just give
Speaker 1: you an idea of like who his buddies were. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think you've seen you ever seeing hoodlum No,
Speaker 1: it's Laurence Fishburne and Andy Garcia plays Lucky Luciano. That's
Speaker 1: how I first learned about him. I remember that being
Speaker 1: a really good movie mid nineties, so who knows.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, Well, when he was only ten years old,
Speaker 2: Al was picking fights with full grown men twice his size.
Speaker 2: He's ready to fight if he wants you to catch
Speaker 2: these hands. And he got involved in boys gangs around
Speaker 2: the neighborhood as a teenager, with a direct funnel to
Speaker 2: larger criminal organization. But despite that, I didn't really seem
Speaker 2: to be heading towards a life of crime. His older brother,
Speaker 2: Ralph was his hero, and Al tried to follow in
Speaker 2: his footsteps. First as a baseball player, the two of
Speaker 2: them played really well in the semi pro leagues. Al
Speaker 2: actually made headlines in local newspapers as this like impressive
Speaker 2: pitcher who could totally go pro one day. You know, crazy,
Speaker 2: I mean, this is like Hitler painting sort of situation.
Speaker 2: We're like, well, if he has.
Speaker 1: It, just let him paint. If you'd just let Al
Speaker 1: Capone play, like, imagine, we're in a different world today,
Speaker 1: and who knows how different it would be, But to
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I got the I got an Al
Speaker 1: Capone rookie card from nineteen twenty two when he when
Speaker 1: he first got signed to the Cubs.
Speaker 2: Right, weird, crazy, very weird. Yeah, But of course baseball
Speaker 2: did not pan out, and when Ralph settled down, got married,
Speaker 2: had a kid, and started working as a salesman, it
Speaker 2: seems like Al would go in that direction too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of a.
Speaker 2: More vanilla life than what it would actually be.
Speaker 1: The store for him, and we had these immigrant parents.
Speaker 1: It was all about like, you know, we moved here
Speaker 1: to make a better life for you. You go out
Speaker 1: there in the world and you start a business and
Speaker 1: you you know, American dream.
Speaker 2: Shit, it exactly gets you a piece of this pie.
Speaker 1: Right Well, out of school and out of baseball, Al
Speaker 1: was starting to spend more time with local gangs, and
Speaker 1: eventually he joined the Five Points gang, which I closed
Speaker 1: my hand. It's a fist, the five point five points
Speaker 1: a finger.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a great movie by the Gangs of
Speaker 2: New York. Is the movie talking about.
Speaker 1: Daniel day Lewis so good.
Speaker 2: Yep, Leo's questionable Irish accent.
Speaker 1: Everyone's questionable Irish accent, but still good, except, of course,
Speaker 1: Brendan Gleeson.
Speaker 2: Right was not.
Speaker 1: This was great somehow his was great well, and oddly
Speaker 1: Irish actor Daniel day lewis great Brooklyn accent in that movie.
Speaker 1: So okay. So the Five Points Gang was one of
Speaker 1: the most infamous gangs in New York history. They had
Speaker 1: as many as fifteen hundred members at its peak. Al's
Speaker 1: mentor in this gang was Johnny Torrio, and he was
Speaker 1: an Italian businessman who ran bookmaking, loan sharking, prostitution, and
Speaker 1: opium trafficking for the gang. And Al also learned a
Speaker 1: lot from the gang's leader at the time, Paul Kelly.
Speaker 1: This guy was changing the image of mobsters. They had
Speaker 1: previously been seen as these like two timing street thugs.
Speaker 1: You know, it was all about intimidation and being big
Speaker 1: and scary and threatening. Paul Kelly came in and was
Speaker 1: this like classy political sophisticate. He'd socialize and glad hand
Speaker 1: and go to the opera and make deals there and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So he really started to turn the
Speaker 1: mob more into that sort.
Speaker 2: Of image, right, bigger influence, Yeah, you know, bigger tables.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, well, the more flies with honey, right yeah.
Speaker 1: But as a teen, al Capone himself was actually more brutish.
Speaker 1: He was like five ten and two hundred pounds of
Speaker 1: pure muscle, very different from the image we have of
Speaker 1: al Capone when he was older. He was tough, he
Speaker 1: had this rotten temper, and he was also an incredible
Speaker 1: shot with a revolver. The Adonna Social Club was this
Speaker 1: local hangout with a shooting range in their basement where
Speaker 1: guys could go down and shoot empty beer bottles and
Speaker 1: was like, imagine shooting a nineteen twenties revolver in a basement.
Speaker 1: How were they not all deaf?
Speaker 2: I know, right, I was about to say, it must
Speaker 2: have sounded like a siege, right. So Al ended up
Speaker 2: working as a bouncer and a server at a Coney
Speaker 2: Island club called the Harvard Inn for one of Brooklyn's
Speaker 2: most notorious gangsters, Frankie Yale. Frankie loved al Capone. He
Speaker 2: thought this was like the best kid that he had
Speaker 2: working for him. He's like, this guy is going place us. Well.
Speaker 2: One night, Al was waiting on an Italian couple about
Speaker 2: his age. The girl of the couple had this ridiculously gorgeous,
Speaker 2: like hourglass figure. So al Capone leans in and says loudly, quote, honey,
Speaker 2: you have a nice ass, and I mean that as
Speaker 2: a compliment. Baa boom, you got a nice ass and
Speaker 2: I mean it as a compliment. How weird if he
Speaker 2: was like, I'm you got a nice ass and I
Speaker 2: mean that as an insult.
Speaker 1: What do you mean you got a really nice ass?
Speaker 1: Take that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, ha, go cry yourself to sleep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd be thinking of that one all night.
Speaker 2: Well it's a doubtful compliment. Yeah, But of course the
Speaker 2: guy with her jumps up. His name is Frank Gluccio
Speaker 2: and turns out he is her brother, and he's super
Speaker 2: drunk and this server just disrespected his sister and stuff.
Speaker 2: So he's about half Owl's size, so he wants to
Speaker 2: fight this guy, but obviously he's like, oh my Anita
Speaker 2: wall extra help, So he pulls out a four inch blade.
Speaker 2: Everyone else at the club scattered. Capone's temper flared up.
Speaker 2: He's like hulking out on this guy. He goes straight
Speaker 2: for him, and Frank's knife slashed Capone on the left side.
Speaker 2: Of his face and neck, but al keeps coming. He's
Speaker 2: like a bull charging at Frank, so Frank's freaking out.
Speaker 2: He's like, this guy's a freak. So he grabs his
Speaker 2: sister and he runs out, and Capone was left with
Speaker 2: three large scars along his left cheek, jaw, and neck,
Speaker 2: earning him his notorious nickname Scarface Man.
Speaker 1: And okay, I'll do it every once in a while.
Speaker 1: I got a really embarrassing admission about movies. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I've never seen Scarface. Really yeah, I've never seen it.
Speaker 1: And honestly, until I was researching this and I'm reading
Speaker 1: about al Capone, I was like, wait a minute, al
Speaker 1: Pacino is not playing an Italian in that movie. Let's
Speaker 1: say hello to my little friend. Is not an Italian
Speaker 1: or Brooklyn accent. And I had to look it up
Speaker 1: and find out it's totally it's not al Capone. No,
Speaker 1: it's way more modern than that.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: You all probably already know this because everyone's seen Scarface
Speaker 1: but me. But it was apparently that movie was based
Speaker 1: on a movie from the forties called Scarface, which was
Speaker 1: about al Capone, and they just modernized it and changed
Speaker 1: the character and basically it became a very different movie
Speaker 1: and not about al Capone at all, but he just
Speaker 1: kept the nickname Scarface Weird, super weird, so weird. Also
Speaker 1: other side notes, since it doesn't really come up later
Speaker 1: in this story, al Capone ended up hiring Frank Gluccio
Speaker 1: down the line.
Speaker 2: Love that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was like this guy, this sky will fight.
Speaker 2: This guy got me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he stood up to me. He slashed my face.
Speaker 2: So I kind of admire that about someone, especially people
Speaker 2: that are very proud. Yeah, you know, that's kind of
Speaker 2: interesting when they'll be like, you know, you got me,
Speaker 2: but that actually works for me, and I'm gonna go
Speaker 2: to you should be you should be hanging out with me. Yep, Yeah,
Speaker 2: kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Al Capone also loved to have a good time. The
Speaker 1: meg could cut loose, he could have fun. You know,
Speaker 1: he's a teenager. He's apparently also an incredible dancer, which
Speaker 1: was common of the Italian men in that area at
Speaker 1: the time. According to Lawrence Bergreen, who wrote Capone The
Speaker 1: Man in the Era where a lot of this information
Speaker 1: comes from, al Capone also the best billiards player in town,
Speaker 1: and reporter Edward Dean Sullivan said quote, I have known
Speaker 1: twenty men, infinitely more vicious than he is. He never drank,
Speaker 1: and the one outstanding trait known about him in tough
Speaker 1: circles was that he must be home every night at
Speaker 1: ten point thirty to take care of his mother.
Speaker 2: Ah yeah, that's nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. It was like all his mob stuff happening,
Speaker 1: and they're beating somebody up with a baseball bat and
Speaker 1: al Capone's like, hey, wait a minute, everybody, I got
Speaker 1: to get home the mom.
Speaker 2: Somebody take over. It's ten point fifteen. I got to
Speaker 2: catch the bus.
Speaker 1: Well. Ow, you know. He had his own kind of
Speaker 1: fun too. He did spend a lot of time with
Speaker 1: local prostitutes, even from a very young age, and at
Speaker 1: some point, very early in his in his sexual adventures,
Speaker 1: he caught syphilis. Because at the time, syphilis was actually
Speaker 1: really rampant in these neighborhoods and it had a very
Speaker 1: high transmissionary So Bergreen says that he likely didn't catch
Speaker 1: it just because he was promiscuous or not having anything
Speaker 1: to do with sex workers, you know, being a more
Speaker 1: likely place to catch venereal diseases, But actually estimates put
Speaker 1: syphilis in the US at the time at between six
Speaker 1: and ten percent of the population, so almost one in
Speaker 1: ten people had syphilis, So you had millions of people
Speaker 1: suffering and tens of thousands of people dying from it
Speaker 1: each year. It wasn't until the draft of World War
Speaker 1: One that public health officials really realized how bad this
Speaker 1: pandemic was and started to do programs to try and
Speaker 1: bring it down.
Speaker 2: I think we talked about this a little bit in
Speaker 2: our Brief History of Sex Toys episode right with Ridiculous History,
Speaker 2: because we were talking about the first sex doll was
Speaker 2: made for troops to have sex with, so they would
Speaker 2: not have sex with prostitute.
Speaker 1: Please stop dying.
Speaker 2: Your simplism't so like you're supposed to be getting killed
Speaker 2: by bullets. Well, now, syphilis infections they can seem to
Speaker 2: clear up on their own. Some people only ever thought
Speaker 2: that they had a nasty cold, so they didn't even
Speaker 2: know they had syphilis. And then it can enter this
Speaker 2: latent stage where people can go without symptoms for up
Speaker 2: to twenty years, so they're like, great, I never had
Speaker 2: syphlis and I never will have it again. Unfortunately, though,
Speaker 2: it can reactivate, and if it does, it can affect
Speaker 2: the brain and become fatal, so it's sort of like
Speaker 2: a sleeping giant with your body. So Capone got sick
Speaker 2: and then he healed up and he thought he'd recovered. Yeah,
Speaker 2: no harm, no foul. He kind of assumed at the
Speaker 2: time that he'd been cured. He didn't think about it
Speaker 2: again for a long time. So we're gonna put that
Speaker 2: in a little box too, because in nineteen seventeen, Al
Speaker 2: met Dominica. Everyone called her Susie Weird. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: not even an S in her name.
Speaker 1: I wonder it was just like, I just need a
Speaker 1: more less foreign sounding name.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it was.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: They were like, here's you know, to acclimate. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: Well she was a neighborhood Italian girl who had a
Speaker 2: reputation for being kind of a wild child. An eighteen
Speaker 2: year old al Capone was totally love struck. They were
Speaker 2: so inseparable that everyone knew it was only a matter
Speaker 2: of time before they got married, to the point where
Speaker 2: Al's parents even approached Doozie's about formal marriage negotiation. Okay,
Speaker 2: the usual when where how much money do we get?
Speaker 2: So on and so forth. But when the Capone suggested
Speaker 2: the idea, Suzie's parents were like hell no, oh, They
Speaker 2: had three problems with their little girl getting hitched to
Speaker 2: al Capone. One, he was no fit husband for their
Speaker 2: perfect daughter.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Two they did not want her getting wrapped up with
Speaker 2: hoodlums and racketeers.
Speaker 1: Sure logical.
Speaker 2: And three Al was eighteen years old but Susie was
Speaker 2: only thirteen. Oh, we have some Jerry Lee Lewis vibes coming.
Speaker 1: In here, Like oooh, that's uncomfortable, not cute, especially for
Speaker 1: everyone in town to be like, oh, it's only a
Speaker 1: matter of time before those two kids get married.
Speaker 2: You know, right, one's a little too much of a
Speaker 2: kid to get married. So let us hang on to this.
Speaker 1: So Alan Susie parted ways. And side note, according to
Speaker 1: ber Green, Susie would go on to marry another Italian
Speaker 1: with mob ties later on.
Speaker 2: So she's almost looked in the hoodlums and being avoided.
Speaker 1: Maybe at least he was around her age.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were like, if you're gonna give her a
Speaker 2: hood little zoozie, at least find one year own age
Speaker 2: two out of three.
Speaker 1: We'll take it. But now Al was turning nineteen and
Speaker 1: he wanted to find a girl to marry, so he
Speaker 1: looked a little further outside his own neighborhood to try
Speaker 1: and escape his reputation a little bit, right, find someone
Speaker 1: who didn't know what he got into during the nights.
Speaker 2: You know, I really need a strong relationship with my
Speaker 2: wife friend, and we all know the basis of a
Speaker 2: strong marriage live. Yeah, it's time to deceive another type
Speaker 2: of lady. Let me, let me spread my wings.
Speaker 1: I need someone who doesn't know nothing about me so
Speaker 1: I can kind of craft my own image. Well. In
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, he found it because he went to a
Speaker 1: party in a Carroll Street basement club where he met
Speaker 1: a girl named May Coughlin. She was tall and beautiful,
Speaker 1: and she was two years older than al so nice
Speaker 1: going in the other direction there, and she worked as
Speaker 1: a clerk out of the department store. It's a very
Speaker 1: respectable job for a girl of that time. Her father
Speaker 1: worked in construction. Her family was super respectable. They were
Speaker 1: devoted Catholics. You know, they didn't have any sort of
Speaker 1: negative image about them at all. And there was really
Speaker 1: only one problem here. The Coughlins, of course, were Irish.
Speaker 1: Her parents had moved to New York from Ireland at
Speaker 1: different times. They met and married in Manhattan, and after
Speaker 1: they totally nailed the American dream. You know, he was
Speaker 1: a successful businessman, rose through the ranks, had a couple
Speaker 1: of kids, and they moved to a quiet Irish neighborhood
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, which bordered Al's Italian district.
Speaker 2: So because these neighborhoods bordered each other, a lot of
Speaker 2: the Irish and Italian kids knew each other. They played together,
Speaker 2: no fuss, no no problem, but there was more of
Speaker 2: a cultural rift with the adults because the Irish were
Speaker 2: considered a few social pegs above the Italian. Their kids
Speaker 2: could play together, but like romance was out of the
Speaker 2: question because, as Green put it, they believed that quote
Speaker 2: Italian husbands routinely beat, cheated on, and degraded their wives,
Speaker 2: and many an Irish father declared that he did not
Speaker 2: want his daughter marrying an Italian, she must marry a
Speaker 2: white man. So this is that period of history where
Speaker 2: Italians were not considered white people the way they are today,
Speaker 2: I suppose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it's very interesting within these tiny little sectors,
Speaker 1: like their own smaller versions of racism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, when you see it so clearly when
Speaker 2: you look at the story of like people coming over
Speaker 2: to America, because you had a huge Irish influx. They
Speaker 2: were super discriminated against, right they were kind of not white.
Speaker 2: And then when other people, like Chinese people came in,
Speaker 2: and with that when the Italians came in. Oh, so
Speaker 2: now there's other people who aren't white. So y'all can
Speaker 2: be white, but the rest of them aren't white. But
Speaker 2: you're not as white, you know, Like it's such a strange, weird, stupid.
Speaker 1: They just need someone to pick on, I know, and that's.
Speaker 2: A social psychology of we all need someone to sit on.
Speaker 1: Interesting too, Irish people not being seen as white because
Speaker 1: I'm like, they're whiter than British people I know a
Speaker 1: lot of the times.
Speaker 2: But surprisingly, given all of this you know, stupid weirdness
Speaker 2: around where you come from, there's actually no record of
Speaker 2: May's parents actually disapproving of their relationship. They were probably
Speaker 2: pretty skeptical about it, but her family was totally disconnected
Speaker 2: from criminal and gang activity and stuff. They just didn't
Speaker 2: know or assume that Al was involved in any of
Speaker 2: that himself. Okay, so, as far as we know, Alan
Speaker 2: May started dating without too much pushback from this family naivete.
Speaker 1: So Al did get what he wanted, found someone who
Speaker 1: didn't even consider that was a possibility.
Speaker 2: He got to walk in and kind of be a
Speaker 2: different person from them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, young Irish women at this time actually had
Speaker 1: a preference for Italian boys, according to the book Capone
Speaker 1: by John Cobbler, because he writes that Italian boys would
Speaker 1: actually get married faster. Irish boys tended to wait until
Speaker 1: they were all settled and secure in their futures. But
Speaker 1: Italian boys were like, I'm ready when you want, baby, so,
Speaker 1: which I guess is where the Irish part of me
Speaker 1: came through more than the Italians. It took a while
Speaker 1: for us, right, But al and May did not get
Speaker 1: married quickly, not even after she got pregnant. In fact,
Speaker 1: it took a pretty major event to get al Capone
Speaker 1: to finally settle down and wed May at the end
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighteen World War One. And we'll find out
Speaker 1: why right after.
Speaker 2: This welcome back, your lousy headcrack.
Speaker 1: Of oh very nice. Well, al Capone is dating May,
Speaker 1: and he may or may not have told her about
Speaker 1: his syphilis from a few years earlier, because remember, he
Speaker 1: thought that it had cleared up, so probably no point
Speaker 1: in even mentioning it. She got pregnant in early nineteen
Speaker 1: eight and Bergreen says that just the fact that these
Speaker 1: two very Catholic teenagers didn't get married right away probably
Speaker 1: points to some great rift between them at the time.
Speaker 1: Logically they would have gotten pregnant and immediately started making
Speaker 1: wedding plans, but maybe they really didn't want to get
Speaker 1: married then. But in September of nineteen eighteen, Al had
Speaker 1: to go and register for the draft for World War One.
Speaker 1: In total, during the Great War, two point eight million
Speaker 1: American boys and men were drafted, and Al Capone almost
Speaker 1: certainly would have been among them. But he knew that
Speaker 1: if he were married and raising a child of his own,
Speaker 1: he was way less likely to get drafted and sent overseas.
Speaker 2: Oh well, in December, May gave birth to a baby
Speaker 2: boy named Albert Francis Capone, who everyone called Sonny. So
Speaker 2: his godfather was Al's mentor, the racketeer Johnny Torrio. And
Speaker 2: while Sonny was healthy at birth, he grew up very
Speaker 2: prone to infections. He also started to lose his hearing
Speaker 2: around ten years old, and as it turns out, that
Speaker 2: was a known result even at the time of a
Speaker 2: child being born with congenital syphilis, So it seems really
Speaker 2: likely that Al passed his syphilis to May unknowingly and
Speaker 2: then on to their child. Okay, syphilis also reeks havoc
Speaker 2: on pregnancies, and that's likely why Al and May, despite
Speaker 2: being from large Catholic families who probably were super into
Speaker 2: begat Bigat, began as many kids as you can, never
Speaker 2: had any other children, yea, the one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't know this, but the authors suggest that
Speaker 1: it's likely there were miscarriages and failed pregnancies, you know,
Speaker 1: various situations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because she has this infection now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, or that Al was sterile regardless either way,
Speaker 1: Yet it would have been very hard, but it's kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, miraculous in a way that they had Sonny
Speaker 1: to begin with. Well, either way. After Sonny was born
Speaker 1: and May recovered from childbirth, they wanted to get married
Speaker 1: as quickly as they could, so they applied for a license.
Speaker 1: But they lied all over these four even though Al
Speaker 1: was nineteen and May was twenty one, they both listed
Speaker 1: their ages as twenty. Al said his occupation was paper cutter,
Speaker 1: which was apparently a pretty respectable job at the time,
Speaker 1: and they skipped the blood test by using a special
Speaker 1: marriage license that just said on it quote I have
Speaker 1: not to my knowledge been infected with any even aial disease,
Speaker 1: or if I have been infected within five years, I
Speaker 1: have a laboratory test which shows that I am now
Speaker 1: free from my infection. And they just signed that.
Speaker 2: But you didn't have so many sages.
Speaker 1: I was like, well as signatures, as long as your
Speaker 1: word as your bond. If they had taken a blood test,
Speaker 1: Al likely would have known his condition now. Because of
Speaker 1: their out of wedlocked child, they had been a little
Speaker 1: ostracized from their families. But fortunately, since May was over eighteen,
Speaker 1: just twenty one, she was legally an adult, so she
Speaker 1: legally didn't need her parents' permission to get married. But
Speaker 1: the law at the time said men were not legally
Speaker 1: adults until twenty one. Women eighteen men twenty one super weird,
Speaker 1: especially since you could get drafted at eighteen for real right,
Speaker 1: and so back then Al would need his parents' permission
Speaker 1: to get married since he even lying, he only said
Speaker 1: twenty right, So fortunately his parents did give him permission. May's, however,
Speaker 1: might not have had she not been able to do
Speaker 1: it without it. And on December thirtieth of nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: Alan May had their ceremony at the beautiful Saint Mary
Speaker 1: Star of the Sea church, which was where May's family
Speaker 1: attended in Brooklyn, and I looked on Google Maps to
Speaker 1: see if it's still there today and where it was described.
Speaker 1: Down near the docks in Brooklyn, there is a church
Speaker 1: called Saint Mary Star of the Sea and I think
Speaker 1: that's the same one. But you know, surprisingly they don't
Speaker 1: advertise on their website this is where al Capone got married,
Speaker 1: so I guess it's not a selling point for we
Speaker 1: don't want.
Speaker 2: To be on the double decker bus tour. Okay, this
Speaker 2: is a sacred place. Well. Despite the beautiful surroundings, the
Speaker 2: wedding was a little awkward. Both sets of parents were present,
Speaker 2: likely staring daggers at one another. The Coughlins were probably
Speaker 2: not thrilled about their daughter marrying this Italian kid who
Speaker 2: like knocked her up at a wedlock, but they were
Speaker 2: likely believed that they were at least getting married he
Speaker 2: was making an honest woman out of her. The Capones
Speaker 2: probably wished that Al had married an Italian girl. Italian
Speaker 2: families had an ingrained sense of campanalismo, which is a
Speaker 2: word that describes this kind of dedication to your cultural
Speaker 2: identity and history, the feeling about being around your own people,
Speaker 2: in your own neighborhood and right keeping that going rather
Speaker 2: than like reaching out to others.
Speaker 1: Of those cultural words that like don't have a direct translation.
Speaker 1: It's just like I can't explain it to you. It's
Speaker 1: that kind of Yeah, what was the one on ted
Speaker 1: Lasso night or Dutch? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Holtspar So it was something. Yeah, it's not that, but
Speaker 2: it was something like that.
Speaker 1: I didn't tell us your cultural word that doesn't have
Speaker 1: a direct translation, that means something you can't explain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they try to explain it, yea to us.
Speaker 2: So what it means? So the Capone still spoke Italian
Speaker 2: at home, for example, May of course didn't so she
Speaker 2: often could not understand them, and she had a hard
Speaker 2: time learning to cook like an Italian wife, which would
Speaker 2: be real hard.
Speaker 1: That's really hard.
Speaker 2: Now, the expectations of an Italian wife's abilities in the
Speaker 2: kitchen higher than an Irish in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: I've said it before, but my my Italian grandmother one
Speaker 1: of the finest cooks in this country. You know, it's
Speaker 1: very good. There's some stereotypes are true an Italian woman's
Speaker 1: cooking oh man, there's nothing so good.
Speaker 2: But Al was devoted to her. He's like, Alia, your
Speaker 2: potatoes or whatever, potatoes again?
Speaker 1: Huh well, right, I guess I love you, honey.
Speaker 2: At least there's no famine, you know. But he decided
Speaker 2: that now he was a husband and father, he had
Speaker 2: to give up his criminal ways. It was time for
Speaker 2: a real career, time for him to become al capone,
Speaker 2: honest businessman.
Speaker 1: Yes, as we know him today, that's right.
Speaker 2: As we have the trading card, the honest businessman trading cards.
Speaker 1: Well, he said, first things first, I gotta get out
Speaker 1: of Brooklyn. Not that much trouble here. So he moved
Speaker 1: his family to Baltimore, famed city of no.
Speaker 2: Trouble, famously untroubled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, actually there he worked as a bookkeeper for
Speaker 1: a legitimate construction firm run by Peter Ayelo. He wore
Speaker 1: a suit and tie to work every day. He got sober,
Speaker 1: He got really good at his job, and he started
Speaker 1: to show real skill in accounting and for business in general.
Speaker 1: And apparently he is pretty happy being this respectable hard worker.
Speaker 1: He earned the respect of his coworkers, his bosses, and
Speaker 1: very importantly, his parents. But in nineteen twenty, Al's father
Speaker 1: died suddenly of a heart attack. Or Green rights that
Speaker 1: this quote marked the end of Al's legitimate career. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was the shock of the loss that changed him,
Speaker 1: you know. He might have just been depressed and wanted
Speaker 1: to fall back into something familiar. Maybe he didn't feel
Speaker 1: like he had to prove anything to anyone anymore, Like
Speaker 1: he'd think his dad was the one he was working
Speaker 1: so hard for and how it didn't matter. Or it
Speaker 1: might have been that when he went back to New
Speaker 1: York City for his father's funeral, he bumped into his
Speaker 1: old mentor, Johnny Torrio. Johnny wasn't living in Brooklyn anymore either,
Speaker 1: and he told Capone, hate pal, you want to make
Speaker 1: some real money. Huh, you'd tie it of being a
Speaker 1: two bit nickel scuff on a shoe, Shine's buff rag.
Speaker 1: You want? You want to be the hottest banana and
Speaker 1: the bunch, the Donkey's Derby, the Fiddler's briefcase. Ah, and
Speaker 1: you got to come with me to the most magical
Speaker 1: city in the world, shit Gogo.
Speaker 2: The second city a U. I don't know if who
Speaker 2: wants to be a hot banana?
Speaker 1: Who doesn't want to be a hot banana.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, excuse me. Apparently we all want to be
Speaker 2: hot banana.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well this was in nineteen twenty and you know what
Speaker 2: else happened in nineteen twenty Prohibition. Oh, so the gangs were,
Speaker 2: of course all seeing a new way to make a
Speaker 2: ton of money. So in nineteen twenty one, Al told
Speaker 2: his boss Peter A Yellow, that he was leaving Baltimore,
Speaker 2: and Peter's like, well, sort of, su go, but here's
Speaker 2: five hundred dollars. I wish you Well, that's nice. I
Speaker 2: wish more bosses to that.
Speaker 1: I what can you imagine quitting a job and your
Speaker 1: boss is like, well, here's some money. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: just out of the kindness of my heart. I know.
Speaker 2: Businesses now are like, you give me five hundred job.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a contract termination fee, I know.
Speaker 2: Right. So Al moved to Chicago and he started working
Speaker 2: for Johnny as a bouncer may and Sonny did not
Speaker 2: move to join him until nineteen twenty three. So they're
Speaker 2: separated for a hot minute here. And as Johnny Torio
Speaker 2: rose in the ranks, so did Al Capone. Johnny Torio
Speaker 2: had been working for Big Jim Colossimo's gang. Oh and
Speaker 2: he's really pushing Colossimo to get into bootlegging. You know,
Speaker 2: He's like this, well, the money is you want to
Speaker 2: be the hottest Banano, you gotta get the hottest top
Speaker 2: budge or whatever. You gotta get the whipped cream man.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: But Colossimo refused to do it. He's like, I ain't
Speaker 2: trying to get that heat. I don't want to be
Speaker 2: hot Banana, want to be cold. But right, so Johnny got
Speaker 2: with his padawan al Capone, and he's like, hey, will
Speaker 2: you call in a favor back in New York. It's
Speaker 2: your old friend and boss, Frankie Yale. Remember Frankie, we
Speaker 2: talked about him earlier. And then Johnny told Colossimo, you know, hey,
Speaker 2: go check on a ship tonight your restaurant. But when
Speaker 2: he arrived, Johnny was not there. Instead, Frankie Yale was there.
Speaker 2: He had traveled from New York to Chicago, and he
Speaker 2: ambushed and assassinated Colossimo himself. Police suspected Frankie Yale of this,
Speaker 2: but they never charged him, and some people suspected that
Speaker 2: al Capone was actually the gunman. So at any rate,
Speaker 2: it was just this whole gang on gang violence kind
Speaker 2: of situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, take out me calling, let me call in a
Speaker 1: tough guy to come and you know, kind of a
Speaker 1: neutral assassin, right to come in and take this guy out.
Speaker 1: You know, Frank Yell at the time, he's he's he's
Speaker 1: he's a hot banana in New York. But but at
Speaker 1: the same time, like a lot of these guys, you know,
Speaker 1: they had to do their own dirty work. Sure right,
Speaker 1: it wasn't They weren't so big at this time that
Speaker 1: they're just like, let me just let me go out
Speaker 1: of the park and pick somebody out and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I want him, I want him to disappear, you know,
Speaker 1: wink wink. Right, It's like, no, I got to go
Speaker 1: shoot this guy myself.
Speaker 2: So well, look, people talk, you know sometimes the dirty
Speaker 2: ist shit you probably did want to do yourself, because
Speaker 2: I'm not going to tell him myself.
Speaker 1: And if you want a job done right yourself. How
Speaker 1: many times if Frank Yale sent someone out and he
Speaker 1: came back, Hey, boss, you know what you know the
Speaker 1: guy you told me killed? Well, we're best friends now
Speaker 1: I am h you know, and we're gonna open the
Speaker 1: ice cream shop together.
Speaker 2: Actually, now I got two people to kill and an
Speaker 2: ice cream shop to take over.
Speaker 1: You got butter pecan listen.
Speaker 2: If you don't have hot bananas at this ice cream shop,
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: Hot bananas ice cream. I'm just like, I.
Speaker 2: Really don't understand hot bananas.
Speaker 1: Well, it's like bananas foster.
Speaker 2: I guess I've never had a bananas foster so delicious.
Speaker 1: Look, there's there is. There are times where a banana
Speaker 1: can be hot and it's okay. But if you were
Speaker 1: just to go grab a banana, no, you would not want.
Speaker 2: It to be hot.
Speaker 1: I guess you don't throw your bananas in the microwave
Speaker 1: before you eat them.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying we make banana pudding, not banana cobbler.
Speaker 2: All right, Banana cobbler A okay. I'm so sorry that
Speaker 2: I said it now because I feel like you're gonna
Speaker 2: try it. If someone wants to make a banana cobbler
Speaker 2: and tell them that I'm wrong and it's amazing, I
Speaker 2: won't hear you out very least.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna google it and see if there's a recipe.
Speaker 2: I'll hear you out.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: I might not try it, that's all I'll say.
Speaker 1: Well, whether Frankie Yale killed Colossimo or al Capone. Either way,
Speaker 1: Al definitely benefited because Johnny took over the gag.
Speaker 2: Of course, and get him into bootlegging.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Al was his right hand man. And this
Speaker 1: is around when May and Sonny moved to Chicago to
Speaker 1: join him. Also, Al's widowed mother and younger sister were
Speaker 1: depending on him to survive because Al had far surpassed
Speaker 1: his older brother's ability to care for them.
Speaker 2: Oh he's just a salesman, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So soon his whole family had left their Italian Brooklyn
Speaker 1: neighborhood and moved to Chicago. Now, unfortunately, it's at this
Speaker 1: point that we don't really know too much about what
Speaker 1: was going on with May Capone, and this is partly
Speaker 1: because mobsters aggressively kept their family lives separate from the business.
Speaker 1: But the vintagenews dot Com says that May was fully
Speaker 1: aware of Al's racketeering and bootlegging, and she would actually
Speaker 1: stay up late cooking food for him and his cronies
Speaker 1: when they got back from you know, whatever murder spree
Speaker 1: they were on when.
Speaker 2: They got back from you know, the ice cream show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but from the banana factory. So there's really just
Speaker 1: no doubt that she certainly overheard plenty about the business,
Speaker 1: but she really loved Al and she never said a
Speaker 1: word about it to anyone.
Speaker 2: Al truly loved May as well, but he was also
Speaker 2: starting to be pretty unfaithful. So he's kind of diving
Speaker 2: into this life of excess and rule breaking with Johnny Torio,
Speaker 2: and he took quite a few mistresses and all of
Speaker 2: them had blonde hair. Now Al's about twenty one, He's
Speaker 2: seeing this blonde girl who was only fifteen years old.
Speaker 2: Gross when May allegedly had enough. You know, she's like
Speaker 2: bootlegging and murda that I can forgive, but I draw
Speaker 2: the line at adult. So instead of confronting him directly, May,
Speaker 2: a lifelong brunette, bleached her hair blonde, which is basically
Speaker 2: kind of a big I know about the girls, Al.
Speaker 1: And a statement one of those old remember when you
Speaker 1: could just like like wear a brooch and it was
Speaker 1: like a devastating burn to someone, right, or like.
Speaker 2: The language of Flowers, where you like, I'll get you
Speaker 2: a violet and you may as well kill yourself, you know,
Speaker 2: like weird.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about House of the Dragon when that
Speaker 1: girl showed up in a green dress, and everyone was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, the statement. And I'm like, I just don't.
Speaker 1: I don't have the observational abilities for these kinds of things.
Speaker 1: Like May would dye her hair blonde and it'd be
Speaker 1: three days before I was like, wait a minute.
Speaker 2: Oh man, did you change your hair? Did you do
Speaker 2: something with your hair? The green thing, the green dress thing,
Speaker 2: was especially weird because I was like, what if you
Speaker 2: just look good in that color? She just looked like
Speaker 2: she should wear green.
Speaker 1: I'm not clocking that she's never worn green before, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, like totally, but it was different times, but.
Speaker 2: It meant something back then. And apparently this really embarrassed
Speaker 2: al Capone in front of his whole family, that she
Speaker 2: dyed her hair blindeye everybody. They knew why. Now he
Speaker 2: could not find any clear info about whether this ended
Speaker 2: his affairs, but it's probably not likely, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: he's not going to let a bottle of bleach stop
Speaker 2: him for whatever he's doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, like y'all know that the al Capone story
Speaker 1: is huge, There's so much to tell, but we are
Speaker 1: going to try and stay focused on his love life
Speaker 1: and you know, and limit ourselves to the specific crimes
Speaker 1: around that. So stay tuned. We're going to take a
Speaker 1: quick break and we will talk more about his son,
Speaker 1: his marriage, and how he actually tried to retire from
Speaker 1: the Mob to spend more time with them right after this.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: So, even with al Capone's whole family living in Chicago
Speaker 1: right now, they all still loved their roots in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: and they would go back and visit their Italian neighborhood frequently.
Speaker 1: When his mother went back to their old neighborhood, Frankie
Speaker 1: Yale or Lucky Luciano would meet her at the train
Speaker 1: station with a bulletproof Cadillac along with a personal chauffeur
Speaker 1: and bodyguard. And I love this idea of like, you know,
Speaker 1: some some big tough thug being like write this way,
Speaker 1: missus Cabone. We had beat ahead. Here's a bouquet of flowers,
Speaker 1: and if anybody looks at you twice, I'll rip their
Speaker 1: face off with my bare min's. You know.
Speaker 2: It's such a nice boy, right, yeah, exactly, Oh Lucky,
Speaker 2: you're such a nice boy.
Speaker 1: Am I feeding you boys? Like she makes ninety.
Speaker 2: She like takes over their kitchen.
Speaker 1: But the next time that al and make upon would
Speaker 1: go to Brooklyn was for a medical emergency for Sonny.
Speaker 1: This poor kid was suffering from illnesses all the time,
Speaker 1: but now he was dealing with a deep mastoid infection
Speaker 1: in his ear. And the mast to oid bone is
Speaker 1: right behind the ear. It's kind of got this honeycomb
Speaker 1: like structure inside, so it's full of airy pockets. It's
Speaker 1: just one of those very light bones, right, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of meaty, and infections can happen, and they can
Speaker 1: be really serious. Doctors in Chicago told Al that the
Speaker 1: surgery would leave Sonny permanently deaf. So Al started looking
Speaker 1: around trying to get a second opinion, and he talked
Speaker 1: to some people in New York and found a specialist
Speaker 1: there who said that he could you know, that gave
Speaker 1: him a more promising prognosis than that. So Al told him,
Speaker 1: I give you one hundred thousand dollars if you fix
Speaker 1: my boy. Now, the surgeon was a little smarter than that,
Speaker 1: and he took his customary fee of one thousand dollars
Speaker 1: because he's like, I'm not taking one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: from al capone. A that's already probably a bad idea,
Speaker 1: and be what if I can't do it, then you're
Speaker 1: gonna like break my knees for taking your money. You know.
Speaker 1: That'll be fine. I'll just do it for the standard rate. Now.
Speaker 1: The surgery was successful in so much that they removed
Speaker 1: the infection and Sonny did not go completely deaf, but
Speaker 1: he was left partially deaf for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2: Now, of course, people tried to kill both Johnny Torio
Speaker 2: and al Capone a few times, more than one.
Speaker 1: Right on a standard practice, and after.
Speaker 2: One particularly close call where he survived several gunshot wounds,
Speaker 2: Johnny Torrio decided it is time to hang it up
Speaker 2: and retire.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: He's like, I might be getting a little too old
Speaker 2: to be shot at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like this when you get that lucky, You're like,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get that ony very true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, He's like, you know, lightning, lightning will strike me
Speaker 2: next time.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: So he gave total control of the Chicago Gang to
Speaker 2: al Capone. He said, quote, it's all yours, al me.
Speaker 2: I'm quitting. It's Europe for me.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: He's like, I'm going off to Europe, Yeah, which I
Speaker 2: would love to retire to.
Speaker 1: Ye, sounds great.
Speaker 2: I kind of get it. Johnny, Me and Johnny same, same,
Speaker 2: exactly the same retire to Italy. So he left Capone
Speaker 2: with an organization that was pulling in about seventy million
Speaker 2: dollars a year, which today is worth Oh wow, well
Speaker 2: it's worth one point two billion dollars today.
Speaker 1: Geez our translation calculator could not handle that inflation rate
Speaker 1: was too much.
Speaker 2: Oh geez, so wild, that's that is, I mean crazy
Speaker 2: money at the time. I mean even today that would
Speaker 2: be incredible. Like yeah, So Toriel moved to Italy to
Speaker 2: work with the mob there, so he was retiring from
Speaker 2: Chicago rather than from organized I'm.
Speaker 1: Gonna go take it easy and join the mob in Italy.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not going to be the center of
Speaker 1: attention in one of the most violent cities in the world.
Speaker 2: I mean, I get it. I'd rather go hang at
Speaker 2: the Blue.
Speaker 1: Grotto, right, yeah. Whatever.
Speaker 2: But in nineteen twenty eight, Mussolini started cracking down on
Speaker 2: the Italian mafia. So Johnny came marching back home to
Speaker 2: New York and he got right back into bootlegging and
Speaker 2: New York. But this time he helped organize the Big Seven.
Speaker 2: This is basically like the Avengers of East Coast mobster. Right,
Speaker 2: they're like, let's stop fighting each other and start working together.
Speaker 2: Let's organize our organized crime even more.
Speaker 1: Probably the same level of snark between them. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of egos in one room, but they know
Speaker 1: they all got to work together to stop the big
Speaker 1: skylaser from destroying the earth.
Speaker 2: Well, Johnny Torio, Lucky Luciano, and others met in Atlantic
Speaker 2: City in nineteen twenty nine and they formed the National
Speaker 2: Crime Syndicate to prevent wars between gangs, right, because they're like,
Speaker 2: we're spending too much time on each other. It needs
Speaker 2: to be like united Front. Get all these other folks
Speaker 2: that are trying to start their own shit. No, we
Speaker 2: want to concentrate all the protection, all the alcohol, all
Speaker 2: the shit in our hands and make as much money
Speaker 2: as possible.
Speaker 1: Interesting to see how that evolved from like, you know,
Speaker 1: back when what was his name, Paul Kelly, we talked
Speaker 1: about in the first part, where you know, he was like,
Speaker 1: we can't just be walking around punching people in the
Speaker 1: face until we get we want, shooting people until we
Speaker 1: really want we got. We gotta come to the table
Speaker 1: and negotiate and glad hand and suck up and offer things.
Speaker 1: And now it's this too. It's like, we can't just
Speaker 1: keep shooting each other. Let's see what we can solve
Speaker 1: at the table.
Speaker 2: I think. So the veneer of respectability was more profitable. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because they were able, as you're saying, to go hang
Speaker 2: out with politicians and like glad hand with cops and
Speaker 2: stuff like, if you're not out here looking crazy and
Speaker 2: shooting people and punching people, you can get away with
Speaker 2: a lot of shit.
Speaker 1: They somebody got out the calculator and they said, how
Speaker 1: much am I spending a year all this ammunition and
Speaker 1: guns patent pooled? Yeah? Right, So if you're out there
Speaker 1: and you're organizing crime, you know, consider this a lesson.
Speaker 1: You know, see what you can do in the boardroom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's cut down on the gun violence and crime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which again if you and then if speaking of boardrooms,
Speaker 1: you continue to follow the evolution of crime, and now
Speaker 1: it's literally in boardrooms succession like we were talking.
Speaker 2: About, yeah, very very much so. And legal crime.
Speaker 1: Well oh jeez, so look at the time, we are
Speaker 1: really getting sucked into this story. There's so much. So
Speaker 1: next up, we'll just say that al Capone did some
Speaker 1: very bad things.
Speaker 2: A nice blanket statement about a bunch.
Speaker 1: Of crimes happened. You can read all about him. Go
Speaker 1: watch The Untouchables, you know, watch al Capone movies. A
Speaker 1: lot of stuff happened here. That was a lot of
Speaker 1: shooting and gang wars and turf wars between uh New
Speaker 1: York and Chicago and everything like that. And he really
Speaker 1: was notorious at the time, Like everybody knew al Capone
Speaker 1: was the head of the mob in Chicago. He just
Speaker 1: owned too much. The police or theyd have They had
Speaker 1: a hard time literally finding him very often, or it
Speaker 1: was he was too well protected, so he just wasn't
Speaker 1: getting arrested, or you know, evidence issues, all these things
Speaker 1: that mobsters use. But at one point he did try
Speaker 1: to move to Los Angeles. Things were a little too
Speaker 1: hot in Chicago, and when he showed up, thinking that
Speaker 1: he would be welcomed to the city with open arms,
Speaker 1: the lap police chief told him, you got twelve hours
Speaker 1: to get the hell out of town. We don't want
Speaker 1: al Capone coming to Los Angeles. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: while he was in LA the Chicago police chief said
Speaker 1: that if al came back to Chicago, he would arrest
Speaker 1: him on the spot and he's actually put all the
Speaker 1: mobsters under house arrest. He posted police outside of every
Speaker 1: mobster's known home and was like, you can't leave, and
Speaker 1: if Capone comes in, We're going to arrest him.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: OK. Well. At this point, May his wife broke her silence,
Speaker 1: and she did an interview with the Chicago Herald and Examiner,
Speaker 1: hoping to get some sympathy for her husband, if for
Speaker 1: nothing else than for the sake of their nine year
Speaker 1: old boys, Sonny. She said in this interview how Sonny
Speaker 1: would come home from school every day in tears because
Speaker 1: his classmates bullied him so badly about his dad being
Speaker 1: all over the news for being a criminal. She said, quote,
Speaker 1: it's not fair. It's more than he can stand. He's
Speaker 1: broken hearted and he can't understand it. I'm a true
Speaker 1: mother and I suffer with him. Can't something be done?
Speaker 2: But when the Harald printed the interview, the headline read
Speaker 2: quote Capone's son finds sins of father, heavy mother, Please
Speaker 2: for lad victim of schoolmates torment and burg Green writes
Speaker 2: that it really had the opposite effect of what she wanted,
Speaker 2: because it just made people think worse of al Capone
Speaker 2: for putting this poor kid in like a shitty situation
Speaker 2: in the first place, right, right, Feel like if he
Speaker 2: wasn't like that, he wouldn't get bullied. Pro solve sounds
Speaker 2: like the prim's in your house, honey, Right.
Speaker 1: No, one's like, oh, we shouldn't be so mean to
Speaker 1: al Capone his kids getting teased.
Speaker 2: You know, like she should have maybe seen that one coming. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like May, the call's coming from inside the house. The
Speaker 2: problem is there, not here.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: Obviously al Capone managed to avoid arrest at this point,
Speaker 2: but the family moved to a rentfered palatial estate in
Speaker 2: Miami where Al hoped he could enter. You know, it's
Speaker 2: sort of a studo retirement like Johnny Choreo had done,
Speaker 2: where he was not like in the day to day,
Speaker 2: you know, getting his hands as dirty so much in
Speaker 2: the news and so on. But he was still involved.
Speaker 2: You know, he's still get in his beak wet yep. Well,
Speaker 2: once they were in Miami, May went full rich lady.
Speaker 2: She bought all this like ornate, gaudy, ridiculous decor, Like
Speaker 2: they had golden spice jars and ivory miniatures and silver
Speaker 2: trays and marble busts and four big metal elephants. Sure,
Speaker 2: you know, she's just at this point going to stores,
Speaker 2: going I got money, what you got to buy? I
Speaker 2: don't really care if I like it or if anyone
Speaker 2: likes it.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna if it looks expensive I wanted in
Speaker 1: my house exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the first home that was really hers
Speaker 2: to manage, and Burgreen writes, quote devoid of taste, freaking
Speaker 2: of money. This was exactly the kind of opulent decor
Speaker 2: that the wife of any newly rich magnate might be
Speaker 2: expected to purchase. Okay, so that's interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could see. I mean, you know, people who
Speaker 1: suddenly become wealthy kind of have a different and I
Speaker 1: think you sort of have a different idea of how
Speaker 1: to show it, right.
Speaker 2: I think, Actually funnily this comes up with succession a
Speaker 2: lot about how they dress and stuff, like the choices
Speaker 2: made about their costuming, and they don't you know, they're
Speaker 2: not ostentatious. Shiv is not out here ran a ton
Speaker 2: of jewels and the ripping and emeralds and stuff. It's
Speaker 2: just the cut and the fabric. You know that you're
Speaker 2: like this, this is a expensive and brand name. It's expensive.
Speaker 2: It looks expensive, but it's not ostentatious. That's not really
Speaker 2: the same thing. So there is this funny like new
Speaker 2: money old money thing where like old money for some
Speaker 2: reason has more taste because it's not gaudy, which I
Speaker 2: kind of agree, like, I find I find some people
Speaker 2: very tacky, and when they go overboard and they want
Speaker 2: everything gold washed or something, it's very kind of not
Speaker 2: attractive to me. But on the other hand, it is
Speaker 2: a little snobbish to be like, well, if you have
Speaker 2: chair isn't five hundred years old, it may as well
Speaker 2: be in the dump stall.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: It's sort of like and.
Speaker 1: There's this other thing to wwards, like you're supposed to
Speaker 1: hire a designer who makes your home into what rich
Speaker 1: people's homes look like right now, you know, and not
Speaker 1: just go off on your own and just buy things.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm speaking on a subject I know
Speaker 1: nothing about, which is having money.
Speaker 2: Well, I think too, there's something about it where you're
Speaker 2: trying to prove that you belong. You know, even with
Speaker 2: May she might not have had any taste. That's entirely possible.
Speaker 2: Well she might have also been like, I'm in this
Speaker 2: area where people know who that I'm a capone and
Speaker 2: they know where my money came from, and so I
Speaker 2: have to You can either shrink from that, or you
Speaker 2: can be like, well then if you.
Speaker 1: Look at it, yeah, I look at that too, Or
Speaker 1: she came from a family in New York who like,
Speaker 1: for intents and purposes, we're doing quite well. Like you know,
Speaker 1: he was a construction guy and he made good money,
Speaker 1: and they had a respectable home in a small Irish
Speaker 1: neighborhood in Brooklyn. They weren't rich, but you could just
Speaker 1: be fine. And that was good back then, and but
Speaker 1: it certainly also was faced with well, we can't afford that,
Speaker 1: or I can't buy that, or even if you want something,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you can just have it. And then
Speaker 1: I know, for me, switching lifestyles like that into well
Speaker 1: now you can even in my sort of mini version
Speaker 1: of that between like I'm waiting tables and I have
Speaker 1: a salary job at different times in my life, you
Speaker 1: spend differently, Oh sure, just because you can, Like I
Speaker 1: actually can go out to dinner without thinking about it tonight,
Speaker 1: like that was mine for May. It's like I can
Speaker 1: actually buy these four metal elephants without thinking about it.
Speaker 1: So I'm papa, let me do it.
Speaker 2: So she's, you know, walking around dropping thousand dollars bills
Speaker 2: at every shop, you know, trying to rehabilitate the family image.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Sure, and Burgreen writes quote to the extent that respectability
Speaker 2: could be bought. May did so, and she paid for
Speaker 2: it in cash.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And now, while May was obsessed with decorating, I
Speaker 1: was kind of doing the same thing, except his whole
Speaker 1: thing was closed shopping. He he also, we'll get into
Speaker 1: this later, but he also bought food. This is where
Speaker 1: the man started to eat, and their grocery bill was
Speaker 1: astronomical apparently wow, and that would come back to bite
Speaker 1: him in the ass later. So, but his clothes shopping
Speaker 1: was his main thing at this time, and this was
Speaker 1: a similar effort to get more people to like him.
Speaker 1: It was just like ingratiating himself with the locals in Miami. Right.
Speaker 1: He went down to a shop called the Sewell Brothers
Speaker 1: one day and he bought over a thousand dollars worth
Speaker 1: of clothes. And while he was there, one of the
Speaker 1: Sewels noticed that Al had brought out this big diamond
Speaker 1: studded belt that he picked out and it wasn't going
Speaker 1: with the outfit that he'd picked again, not you don't
Speaker 1: have taste just because you have money, right, right, And
Speaker 1: so Sewell comes over and he's like, hang on, sir,
Speaker 1: let me go find you a better belt. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he comes back with a very nice belt, matches his
Speaker 1: outfit perfectly. And he's also he got one hundred dollars
Speaker 1: Panama hat and he placed this on Capone's head and
Speaker 1: he sort of tilted it down over the side to
Speaker 1: cover the scar on Al's face, and he told him, quote,
Speaker 1: this is a gift from me to you, and the
Speaker 1: belt too. Now, Capone, over the recent years, he'd become
Speaker 1: increasingly sensitive and defensive about his scar. He wouldn't talk
Speaker 1: about it. He got mad if people pointed it out.
Speaker 1: And so this guy gave him this hat and like
Speaker 1: covers his scar with it. Al Capone reached out his
Speaker 1: hand to Suwell and he said, quote, let me shake
Speaker 1: your hand. This is the first time anybody ever gave
Speaker 1: me anything. So he was just so touched by this,
Speaker 1: and he was like, you know, it was just what
Speaker 1: he was looking for, like really ingratiating himself.
Speaker 2: And his iconic look. Of course he always has ACTI
Speaker 2: and then that became a real thing. Pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Actually, now that you mentioned it, that was an
Speaker 1: interview with Sewell, so maybe Sewell was trying to take
Speaker 1: credit for al Capone's signature.
Speaker 2: Look Al was like, I picked that Panama hat, thank
Speaker 2: you very much.
Speaker 1: Speculation Station made that shit up and make themselves sound good.
Speaker 2: He's like, let me get some money off of this
Speaker 2: for getting caution.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I gave Charlie Chaplin his bowler and mustache.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I told him, you know what's funny suspenders.
Speaker 2: But well, of course al Capone's a quote unquote retirement
Speaker 2: could not really last. You know, the minute I think
Speaker 2: I'm out, they pulled me back. That's a stereotype for
Speaker 2: a reason. It turned out to be way more stressful
Speaker 2: than he thought also to be retired, because he was
Speaker 2: still involved with operations in Chicago and now he's getting
Speaker 2: involved with criminals and politicians in Miami. So he's got
Speaker 2: two fronts to like play off. But unlike in Chicago,
Speaker 2: where Al could keep his personal and crime lives very separate,
Speaker 2: in Miami he had to run some of his business
Speaker 2: right out of his house. May did not love that
Speaker 2: because there's these big, huge bodyguards around them all the time.
Speaker 2: They be like loose guns strewn about on her fancy
Speaker 2: furniture and statue. She's like, I bought this elephant for beauty.
Speaker 1: This is an original bott A Shelley who left their
Speaker 1: Tommy gun on top of this painting.
Speaker 2: And when they went out to local restaurants, it was
Speaker 2: like the secret service of the criminal underworld was all
Speaker 2: around them. One of Al's main thugs carried around a
Speaker 2: large bass fiddle case which inside had a set of
Speaker 2: gold rimmed plates that Al preferred to eat off of,
Speaker 2: as well as a bunch of machine guns, you know,
Speaker 2: just in case, which I'm laughing at the idea of
Speaker 2: this case, just like rattling around like machine guns and plates,
Speaker 2: just like banging up. Were they like shattered.
Speaker 1: To put some foam in there or something.
Speaker 2: Surely there's some wrapping going on.
Speaker 1: People are like, wow, that's the heaviest fiddle I've ever seen. Well. Also,
Speaker 1: I love getting to the restaurant and being like, hang on,
Speaker 1: miss the Capone wants the chef to have something, and
Speaker 1: he opens the case and they're like, oh no, and
Speaker 1: he pulls out four gold rimmed plates. Please serve the
Speaker 1: food on.
Speaker 2: These warm it first? Yeah right, I mean also, what's
Speaker 2: funny too, is that a bass fiddle case is not
Speaker 2: exactly inconspicuous, all right, very weird thing to carry it around.
Speaker 1: I always bring my fiddler with me everywhere we go,
Speaker 1: just in case I want to hear some old Irish jigs. Well,
Speaker 1: things for al Capone were starting to unravel despite his
Speaker 1: enormous financial and criminal success. His wife May was doing
Speaker 1: her best to hold him together, but his relationship with
Speaker 1: Frankie Yale in Brooklyn at this point was basically shattered.
Speaker 1: And again it's just a you know, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a ten volume book to get into all the reasons why.
Speaker 1: But wars had broken out between the Chicago and New
Speaker 1: York gangs and it just totally wreaking havoc on both cities,
Speaker 1: blood in the streets, and all the police on the
Speaker 1: news knew that it was because Chicago and New York
Speaker 1: gangs were fighting each other in addition to a bunch
Speaker 1: of criminal politics. Al's temper was kind of getting out
Speaker 1: of control and he became harder and harder to deal with.
Speaker 1: And as it turns out that latent syphilis was actually
Speaker 1: starting to rear its head because among the symptoms of
Speaker 1: what's called tertiary syphilis are extreme personality changes, and this
Speaker 1: can include paranoia, anger, mood swings, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of psychiatric changes. It was literally making him a more
Speaker 1: violent and determined and untrustworthy gangster, and this only added
Speaker 1: to his notoriety. So a lot of people say in
Speaker 1: their writings now looking back at it, that if al
Speaker 1: Capone had not had syphilis, or had his syphilis treated,
Speaker 1: he might not have been quite as ruthless unhinged as
Speaker 1: he's seen today. So it's like it's all almost like
Speaker 1: syphilis was running the mob at a certain point, which
Speaker 1: is so weird because it was like parasitic in his
Speaker 1: brain and turning him into someone else. One Sunday in
Speaker 1: July of nineteen twenty eight, Frankie Yale was driving in
Speaker 1: his bulletproof Cadillac through Brooklyn when he suddenly noticed a
Speaker 1: black buick following him. Inside the buick was machine gun
Speaker 1: Jack mcgern, al Capone's favorite assassin, and Frankie sees this
Speaker 1: and he sped off, and this whole car chase ensued
Speaker 1: through New York. But the buick caught up to him
Speaker 1: in this suburban neighborhood and right outside a house where
Speaker 1: a family was watching. Mcgirn pulled up alongside and fired
Speaker 1: a shotgun straight at Frankie's head. Now the body of
Speaker 1: the car was bulletproof, but not the windows. So Frankie Yale,
Speaker 1: al Capone's old boss and the guy who had come
Speaker 1: to Chicago to kill Big Jim colosimofore him, was now dead.
Speaker 1: The New York Police commissioner blamed Capone publicly. He even
Speaker 1: went to Chicago to talk to belief chiefs there in
Speaker 1: this big show of like, we won't stand for these things.
Speaker 1: But the Chicago police were not about to get involved.
Speaker 1: There had been so much bloodshed between New York and
Speaker 1: Chicago rival gangs that, as far as they were concerned,
Speaker 1: al Capone had done them a favor.
Speaker 2: Hmm wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But even so, things were just going to get worse
Speaker 2: and worse for al Capone and by extension, may Compone, sure,
Speaker 2: and even staying focused on just their relationship and the
Speaker 2: events most closely connected to it. We don't have time
Speaker 2: for everything. In one episode, it's al Capone. He is
Speaker 2: be doing stuff.
Speaker 1: He'd be doing stuff all the time my.
Speaker 2: Book al Capone, He'd be doing stuff. Bye Diana, Diana
Speaker 2: bas So next time we will come back and talk
Speaker 2: about Al's arrest spoiler alert, al Capone was arrested and
Speaker 2: how May handled the press, the police, and her life
Speaker 2: as a mother during the trial. Right, it is no
Speaker 2: less ridiculous than any of this. It's of a different
Speaker 2: look at the Capone family that we usually don't get
Speaker 2: to see too often. Yeah, so stay tuned. We will
Speaker 2: be back next time with the rest of al Capone story.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I can't wait, as it's so weird, you know,
Speaker 1: researching and writing this and just like skipping over you know,
Speaker 1: this huge all these mob politics are really fascinating to me,
Speaker 1: and I want to just go on and tell these
Speaker 1: whole stories about just I mean, we briefly mentioned Peter
Speaker 1: Aello earlier. That was that al Capone that gave al
Speaker 1: Capone five hundred bucks and was like off with you, buddy,
Speaker 1: and like whoa boy. Their relationship changed too. And there's
Speaker 1: just pages and pages of these books. If you get
Speaker 1: a chance read through Capone The Man in the Era
Speaker 1: by Lawrence berg Greens from ninety four, and it's detailed
Speaker 1: and fascinating, and he talks a lot about what a
Speaker 1: lot of people get wrong about Capone, like him going
Speaker 1: to war and where he got his scars and all
Speaker 1: this stuff that just wasn't true. But it's tough to
Speaker 1: kind of skip over all that and just be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but what was his romance like, especially because again, May
Speaker 1: was not very public. So we just have these kind
Speaker 1: of pieces and the sort of outside life that moved
Speaker 1: them from place to place.
Speaker 2: It's Godfather with part three, just Diane Keaton, just the
Speaker 2: bits with.
Speaker 1: Only Godfather Part three and then just the bits of
Speaker 1: Diane Keaton. Can I say, actually a loan up to
Speaker 1: this one too? Never saw Godfather three. I've seen one
Speaker 1: and two and I was I mean, everybody just said that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's fine if you don't see're right, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I don't know. There's probably somebody
Speaker 2: out there who's like, just finish it up.
Speaker 1: I know I've thought about it.
Speaker 2: Plain about it with the rest of us, But I
Speaker 2: kind of agree Godfather Part two.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: To watch three right after. You know there was some
Speaker 2: time in between in real life. But you know, if
Speaker 2: you're just have the trilogy, you're boom and you're like,
Speaker 2: what the fuck?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: But also the only time in my life that I've
Speaker 2: been attracted to Robert de Niro, he's so fucking hot.
Speaker 2: And Godfather Too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, sure, I guess after that.
Speaker 2: No, but in Godfather Too, it was just working for me.
Speaker 2: He's like, yes, commit crimes, all.
Speaker 1: Right, Well maybe Godfather three. We should go watch Hoodlum
Speaker 1: with Laurence Fishburne.
Speaker 2: And I've never seen that. Yeah, I'm not sure I've
Speaker 2: ever seen The Untouchables either. Yeah that you mentioned that. Man, Well,
Speaker 2: movies we haven't seen.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen either one since the late nineties. So
Speaker 1: I say we go back and see if they're any good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we should have some some mob movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I know I remember Hoodlum is Ooh. I
Speaker 1: could be wrong about this, but Vanessa Williams might be
Speaker 1: in it. No shit, he used to be in love
Speaker 1: with Vanessa Williams. I guess I still am. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen her in a while. I'm still well, does ever
Speaker 1: really go away? True love? You know? I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: just saying. And the colors of the Wind music video,
Speaker 1: it's beautiful, those eyes, those green eyes.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, she was so beautiful.
Speaker 1: For get it. I don't even know if she's in
Speaker 1: this movie. I'm just totally in my mind about Vanessa Williams.
Speaker 1: Suddenly it's nineteen ninety six, I'm twelve years old, and
Speaker 1: all I could think of is Vanessa Williams. I was right,
Speaker 1: it is Vanessa Williams. Yay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good for you, babe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she McBride what a cast? Okay, William Atherton Okay. Anyway,
Speaker 1: stay tuned for our Hoodluan Rewatch podcast. Well look for
Speaker 1: anybody who's still around. Thanks so much for tuning in
Speaker 1: for this part one of al Capone. Again, thanks for
Speaker 1: sticking with us this month that we we kind of
Speaker 1: scattershout these episodes out, but I hope you're enjoying them.
Speaker 1: We definitely are enjoying getting a little break from the
Speaker 1: theater world to kind of tell these stories too, So
Speaker 1: totally have a lot of fun and learning this whole
Speaker 1: other side of al Capone. Again. I don't think we
Speaker 1: get much of this in the movies, true, so I
Speaker 1: was really excited to get to kind of glue all
Speaker 1: this together.
Speaker 2: Totally. Yeah, I hope you enjoyed it too. We'd love
Speaker 2: to hear your thoughts or any other suggestions for shows
Speaker 2: or whatever you think about Vanessa Williams. If you like
Speaker 2: hoodlum whatever, reach out. Our email is ridic Romance at
Speaker 2: gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's right. You can find us on Instagram. I'm at
Speaker 1: Oh great, it's Eli though. God I've not posted in months. Sorry, right, I'm.
Speaker 2: At Dynamite Boom. You will see nothing but advertisements for
Speaker 2: Fringe for the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: But you follow at redic Romance, you're gonna see all
Speaker 1: our episode memes and everything like that. It's a really
Speaker 1: good time.
Speaker 2: They were like, follow us, but like sorry.
Speaker 1: But thank you so much for tuning in, listening today,
Speaker 1: spending your time with us, and we will catch you
Speaker 1: all the next one.
Speaker 2: We love you. Bye, solong friends, it's time to go.
Speaker 2: Thanks so listening to our show. Tell your friends names, uncles,
Speaker 2: and dance. To listen to a show Ridiculous Well dance