Capone Myths
(Page numbers from Mr. Capone follow in parenthesis)
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That Capone's real name was "Caponi", and he Americanized it
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It was “Capone” on his birth certificate, and Gabriel’s naturalization papers (18)
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That little Al and Lucky Luciano were in 1st grade together
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Luciano, 14 months older, lived and went to school in Manhattan; Capone attended P.S. 7, then P.S. 133, both in Brooklyn (21; 375)
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That, age 10, little Al challenged a Marine recruit to a fistfight
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Marine corporal who told story “learned” that boy he claimed he saw was little Al only much later (375)
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That Johnny Torrio was Big Jim Colosimo’s nephew
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​They were unrelated; Torrio cousin of Colosimo’s wife(46)
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That Capone personally murdered Colosimo (63-5)
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Frankie Yale did it (62-4)
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That Capone ranked low in Torrio’s outfit, obscure before 1923
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Misunderstanding because of 1922 “Alfred Caponi” news story (77-9)
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That O’Banion’s gang was “Irish”
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Closest associates and (first three) successors:
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Hymie Weiss (real name, Earl Wojciechowski)
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Vincent Drucci (Di Ambrosio)
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George Moran (two 1921 Cook County Criminal Court cases gave his alias, "Morrisey," but said his real name was unknown, although he was of Polish extraction; a 2010 book, though, says his birth name was "Adelard Cunin," his father French, mother French-Canadian)
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Louis Alterie (Leland Verain, French extraction)
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Nails Morton (Samuel Markowitz)
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Maxie Eisen
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Daniel J. McCarthy (Irish extraction!) (80-1)
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That O’Banion spoke with a brogue (always in movies)
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Born in Aurora, Illinois, 1892, moved to Maroa, IL, mid-’90s, then Chicago early, 1900s (106)
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That O’Banion had been an altar boy
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Family did not attend church in Maroa; O’Banion not baptized until 12, first communion 6 months later, left school/church next year; only students could be altar boys (106-7)
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That Capone was mysterious “3rd gunman” when brother Frank was killed
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later positively ID’d as David Hedlin, also wounded by police (98)
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That O’Banion was murdered because he said, “Oh, to hell with them Sicilians”
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Capone’s one known prejudice was against Sicilians; once said, “You can’t trust those damn Sicilians. They really aren’t Italian and they’re no damn good”; he had almost more trouble with the Gennas than with O’Banion (114)
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That Capone set out to murder the O’Donnells because Klondike had said he sold better beer than “the slop Capone peddles”
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started by Cicero card dealer; in reality murders (including McSwiggin’s) were culmination of trouble months old that had grown acute (147)
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That murder of Theodore Anton, owner of Hawthorne Hotel left Capone in tears
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Capone ordered it (168)
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That Mayor Thompson was dumb, creature and tool of Lundin
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When they fell out, Thompson destroyed Lundin and his new candidate at "The Rat Show"; campaigned brilliantly before and after Lundin (171)
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That Jack McGurn’s “real” family name was Gebardi or Demory or Demora
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Born Vincenzo Gibaldi (181)
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That Capone’s had arranged as an alibi to be with the Dade County Solicitor, in Florida, at the moment the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was going on
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The official specified date and time for an interrogation (with an assistant DA from New York) about Yale’s murder; started at 2:30 p.m., the Massacre already over (216)
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That Capone celebrated the Massacre by throwing a party on Palm Island that night
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It was two nights later, a party planned way in advance for the press covering the Sharkey-Stribling fight in Miami (221)
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That Moran said, “Only Capone’s gang kills like that”
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First appeared in Miami papers, and endured; actually Moran, in hiding, had sent word to Chicago police, “We don’t know what brought it on. We’re facing an enemy in the dark.”(219)
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That John May had been an innocent Massacre victim, an “ordinary mechanic”
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Twice charged with robbery and larceny, a gang driver, started maintaining the gang’s trucks a month and a half before; Reinhart H. Schwimmer wasn’t a gang member, but a groupie (210)
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That Fred R. Burke was certainly one of the St. Valentine’s killers
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No ties to Capone; the sort of flake Capone would never have used (227)
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That Eliot Ness and Untouchables “got” Capone
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Raids cost Capone considerable money, but Ness never “dried up Chicago” or even close; Capone never charged with Prohibition violation, Ness’s only area of enforcement; Ness had nothing to do with tax charges
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That Ness, Untouchables, IRS men and undercover agents were in danger
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Capone’s men ordered never to resist, let alone attack, cops or federal officers; bribery, the “fix” and flight were only permitted defenses
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That Capone refused treatment for syphilis because he feared injections
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Started treatment as soon as Wassermann showed positive
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That “lost Capone,” Jimmy (Richard Hart), was honest lawman
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Twice charged with murder, finally dismissed as town marshal for pilfering on night rounds; ended up fronting for Ralph
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