Al Capone – the Coca-Cola of Gangsters

Make no mistake, organized crime is a by-product of organized government, and you can’t have one without the other. In Chicago, Big Jim Colosimo defined the modern crime family; Johnny Torrio refined it, and Al Capone turned it into a brand as recognizable as Coca-Cola.

Here on Mob Adjacent, Al Capone articles, posts, and memes have consistently been among the most popular. And we get it – ask anyone anywhere to name someone from Chicago, and they’ll probably say Al Capone (even though technically he came from Brooklyn).
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A popular subject of films, Capone has been played by Paul Muni, Rod Steiger, Robert DeNiro, and most recently by Steven Graham. 

Countless books have documented his life and career. A new biography has arrived from Deidre Bair offering a fresh look at one of the seminal figures in organized crime. Al Capone: His Life, Legacy, and Legend.

Here are the five big takeaways from Bair's book to whet your appetite:

1. He was a tough-guy practically from Day One. Capone became a local legend in his Brooklyn neighborhood as a child, admired for his “brutal but graceful” fighting style. He was recruited at age eight into a gang of teenagers known as the Boys of Navy Street. Bair writes that once Capone stole a washtub, strapped it to his chest, and beat it like a drum to intimidate rivals during a gang brawl.
2. His wife was pretty tough, too. Mae Capone got fed up with her 21-year old husband’s constant cheating three-years into their marriage. To teach him a lesson, she dyed her hair the same blond as her husband’s 15-year old mistress. The dye job was said to infuriate and humiliate Capone in front of his family. Later in life, Capone made all his mistresses go blond.
3. Being Al Capone’s kid was no picnic. Children – being the hateful little shits they can be – teased Sonny Capone brutally, showing him newspapers about his famous father’s exploits. As if having a headline-magnet for a father wasn’t enough, he was a small, sickly child, and hard of hearing from the syphilis he got as a fetus from his mother, who got it from her husband.
4. The man loved to eat. At a time when people were starving during the Depression, Capone opened soup kitchens in Chicago and became a local hero, beloved by the people and reviled by the police. He spent more than $1,000 a week on food, more than most families spent in a year. In his subsequent trial for tax evasion, his grocery bill became evidence that Capone earned more than he claimed.
5. His dick did him in. Al Capone wouldn’t be the last man whose sex life ruined him, but in Capone’s case, it killed him. As a young man, Capone contracted syphilis. By the time he was 48, the disease reduced his mental capacity to that of a 12-year old child. The good news is that the disease mellowed him and turned the monster into a gentle family man in the last years of his life.

​Below, Alfonso Gabriel Capone with his mother Teresa.