• Couderay, Wisconsin^[23]

Capone's Couderay hideout (a popular tourist attraction in later years) is a 407-acre property, complete with a 37-acre lake which reputedly was used to land planes filled with illegal liquor for shipment south to Chicago.^[23][24] Former New York gang member Owney "The Killer" Madden retired to Hot Springs and invited his former colleagues to visit him there; this was also the place that Lucky Luciano was first arrested. As a further precaution, Capone and his entourage would often show up suddenly at one of Chicago's train depots and buy up an entire Pullman sleeper car on night trains to places such as Cleveland, Omaha, Kansas City, Little Rock or Hot Springs, where they would spend a week in luxury hotel suites under assumed names. In 1928, Capone bought a 14-room retreat on Palm Island, Florida, close to Miami Beach.^[3]

Saint Valentine's Day Massacre[link]

It is believed that Capone ordered the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on Chicago's North Side. Details of the killing of the seven victims^[3] in a garage at 2122 North Clark Street (then the SMC Cartage Co.) and the extent of Capone's involvement are widely disputed. No one was ever brought to trial for the crime. The massacre was thought to be the Outfit's effort to strike back at Bugs Moran's North Side gang. They had been increasingly bold in hijacking the Outfit's booze trucks, assassinating two presidents of the Outfit-controlled Unione Siciliana, and made three assassination attempts on Jack McGurn, a top enforcer of Capone.^{[citation needed]}

To monitor their targets' habits and movements, Capone’s men rented an apartment across from the trucking warehouse that served as a Moran headquarters. On the morning of Thursday February 14, 1929, Capone’s lookouts signaled gunmen disguised as police to start a 'raid'. The faux police lined the seven victims along a wall without a struggle then signaled for accomplices with machine guns. The seven victims were machine-gunned and shot-gunned.^{[citation needed]} Photos of the massacre victims shocked the public and damaged Capone's reputation. Federal law enforcement worked to investigate his activities.^[3]

Conviction and imprisonment[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: IRS investigation of Al Capone

Al Capone's cell at the Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, PA

In 1929, the Bureau of Prohibition agent Eliot Ness began an investigation of Capone and his business, attempting to get a conviction for Prohibition violations. Frank J. Wilson investigated Capone's income tax violations, which the government decided was more likely material for a conviction. In 1931 Capone was indicted for income tax evasion and various violations of the Volstead Act (Prohibition) at the Chicago Federal Building in the courtroom of Judge James Herbert Wilkerson.^[25] His attorneys made a plea deal, but the presiding judge warned he might not follow the sentencing recommendation from the prosecution. Capone withdrew his plea of guilty.

His attempt to bribe and intimidate the potential jurors was discovered by Ness's men, The Untouchables . The venire (jury pool) was switched with one from another case, and Capone was stymied. Following a long trial, on October 17 the jury returned a mixed verdict, finding Capone guilty of five counts of tax evasion and failing to file tax returns^[26][27] (the Volstead Act violations were dropped). The judge sentenced him to 11 years imprisonment, at the time the longest tax evasion sentence ever given, along with heavy fines, and liens were filed against his various properties.^[28] His appeals of both the conviction and the sentence were denied.^[29]

In May 1932, Capone was sent to Atlanta U.S. Penitentiary, but he was able to obtain special privileges. Later, for a short period of time, he was transferred to the Lincoln Heights Jail. He was transferred to Alcatraz on August 11, 1934, which was newly established as a prison on an island off San Francisco.^[30] The warden kept tight security and cut off Capone's contact with colleagues. His isolation and the repeal of Prohibition in December 1933, which reduced a major source of revenue, diminished his power.^{[citation needed]}

Al Capone at Alcatraz

During his early months at Alcatraz, Capone made an enemy by showing his disregard for the prison social order when he cut in line while prisoners were waiting for a haircut. James Lucas, a Texas bank robber serving 30 years, reportedly confronted the former syndicate leader and told him to get back at the end of the line. When Capone asked if he knew who he was, Lucas reportedly grabbed a pair of the barber's scissors and, holding them to Capone's neck, answered "Yeah, I know who you are, greaseball. And if you don't get back to the end of that fucking line, I'm gonna know who you were."^[31]

Capone was admitted into the prison hospital with a minor wound and released a few days later.^[2] In addition, his health declined as the syphilis which he had contracted as a youth progressed. He spent the last year of his sentence in the prison hospital, confused and disoriented.^[32] Capone completed his term in Alcatraz on January 6, 1939, and was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island in California, to serve the one-year contempt of court term he was originally sentenced to serve in Chicago's Cook County jail.^[33] He was paroled on November 16, 1939, and, after having spent a short time in a hospital, returned to his home in Palm Island, Florida.^[34]

Later years[link]

Capone's control and interests within organized crime diminished rapidly after his imprisonment, and he was no longer able to run the Outfit after his release. He had lost weight, and his physical and mental health had deteriorated under the effects of neurosyphilis. He had become incapable of resuming his gang activity. In 1946, his physician and a Baltimore psychiatrist performed examinations and concluded that Capone then had the mental capability of a 12-year-old child.^[35] He often raved about Communists, foreigners, and Bugs Moran, whom he was convinced was plotting to kill him from his Ohio prison cell.

On January 21, 1947, Capone had a stroke. He regained consciousness and started to improve but contracted pneumonia. He suffered a fatal cardiac arrest the next day. On January 25, 1947 Al Capone died in his home in Palm Island, Florida, surrounded by his family.^[36]

In popular culture[link]

One of the most notorious American gangsters of the 20th century, Capone has been the subject of numerous articles, books, and films. Capone's personality and character have been used in fiction as a model for crime lords and criminal masterminds ever since his death. The stereotypical image of a mobster wearing a blue pinstriped suit and tilted fedora is based on photos of Capone. His accent, mannerisms, facial construction, physical stature, and parodies of his name have been used for numerous gangsters in comics, movies, music, and literature.

Literature[link]

• Capone is featured in Mario Puzo's The Godfather in a segment in which Luca Brasi kills two henchmen sent by Capone to kill Don Vito Corleone.^[37]
• Capone is featured in the Kinky Friedman novel, The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover (1997).^{[citation needed]}
• Al Capone is referenced in Gennifer Choldenko's 2004 historical fiction book, Al Capone Does My Shirts, and its sequel Al Capone Shines My Shoes.^{[citation needed]}
• In a book of photographs titled New York City Gangland (2010), both Capone and his NYC bootlegging ally, Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria, appear in Prohibition-era "bathing beauty" portraits.^[38]
• A reincarnated Capone is a major character in science fiction author Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy.
• Capone's appearance was the model for the dummy of Batman villain the Ventriloquist, aptly named Scarface.
• Capone's niece, Deirdre Marie Capone, wrote a book titled Uncle Al Capone: The Untold Story from Inside His Family.^[39]
• The young Capone is featured extensively in the 2010 HBO production Boardwalk Empire
• Al Capone is a central character in the fantasy novel Cosa Nosferatu, which imagines Capone and Eliot Ness entangled with Randolph Carter and other elements of H.P. Lovecraft mythos.

Film and television[link]

Capone has been portrayed on screen by:

• Rod Steiger in Al Capone (1959).^[40]
• Neville Brand in the TV series The Untouchables and again in the movie The George Raft Story (1961).^[40]
• José Calvo in Due mafiosi contro Al Capone (1966).^[40]
• Jason Robards in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967).^[40]
• Ben Gazzara in Capone (1975).^[40]
• Robert De Niro in The Untouchables (1987).^[40]
• Ray Sharkey in The Revenge of Al Capone (1989)
• Eric Roberts in The Lost Capone (1990)
• William Forsythe in The Untouchables (1993–1994)
• William Devane as Al Capone in "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" (13 November 1994)^{[citation needed]}
• F. Murray Abraham in Dillinger and Capone (1995).
• Anthony LaPaglia in Road to Perdition (2002), in a deleted scene.^[41]
• Julian Littman in Al's Lads (2002)
• Jon Bernthal in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009).^[42]
• Stephen Graham in Boardwalk Empire (2010)

Actors playing characters based on Capone include:

• Wallace Beery as Louis 'Louie' Scorpio in The Secret Six (1931).^[40]
• Ricardo Cortez as Goldie Gorio in Bad Company (1931).^[40]
• Paul Lukas as Big Fellow Maskal in City Streets (1931).^[40]
• Edward Arnold as Duke Morgan in Okay, America! (1932).^[40]
• Jean Hersholt as Samuel 'Sam' Belmonte in The Beast of the City (1932).^[40]
• Paul Muni as Antonio 'Tony' Camonte in Scarface (1932).
• C. Henry Gordon as Nick Diamond in Gabriel Over the White House (1933).^[40]
• John Litel as 'Gat' Brady in Alcatraz Island (1937).^[40]
• Barry Sullivan as Shubunka in The Gangster (1947).^[40]
• Ralph Volkie as Big Fellow in The Undercover Man (1949).^[40]
• Edmond O'Brien as Fran McCarg in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955).^[40]
• Lee J. Cobb as Rico Angelo in Party Girl (1958).^[40]
• George Raft as Spats Colombo and Nehemiah Persoff as Little Bonaparte in Some Like It Hot (1959).^[40]
• Frank Ronzio as Litmus in Escape from Alcatraz (1979) introduces himself to newcomer Charlie Butts as "Al Capone". The movie is set in 1962, 15 years after Capone's death.
• Al Pacino as Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy (1990).^[40]

Music[link]

• Prince Buster, Jamaican ska and rocksteady musician, had his first hit in the UK with the single "Al Capone" in 1967.^[43]
• The Specials, a UK ska revival group, reworked Prince Buster's track into their first single, "Gangsters",^[44] which featured the line "Don't call me Scarface!"

Graffiti of Al Capone made by Partizan fans in Belgrade, Serbia.

• Paper Lace, "The Night Chicago Died" is a song by the British group Paper Lace, written by Peter Callander and Mitch Murray. The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for one week in 1974. It is about a fictional shoot-out in Chicago between Al Capone's Gang and the Chicago Police.Quote from the song "When a man named Al Capone Tried to make that town his own And he called his gang to war With the forces of the law" ^[45]
• Al Capone is referenced heavily in Prodigy's track "Al Capone Zone", produced by The Alchemist and featuring Keak Da Sneak.^[46]
• Al Capone transcribed a love song called Madonna Mia while in prison. In May 2009, his rendition of the song was recorded for the first time in history.^{[citation needed]}
• He is referenced in a homonymous song by Brazilian singer Raul Seixas.
• His name also appears in the (not so well known) song Stone Cold Crazy by Queen.
• Megadeth's song "Public Enemy No. 1" is about Capone.
• Al Capone is referenced in song lyrics by the group: TESLA. (Album: Mechnical Resonance. Year: 1986. Song: Modern Day Cowboy-track 7. "Al Capone and his bad boy Jones...")

Sport[link]

• Fans of Serbian football club Partizan are using Al Capone's character as a mascot for one of their subgroups called "Alcatraz", named after a prison in which Al Capone served his sentence. Also, in honour of Capone, a graffiti representation of him exists in the center of Belgrade.

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Capone, Deirdre Marie; Uncle Al Capone - The Untold Story from Inside His Family. Recap Publishing LLC ISBN 978-0-9828451-0-3
• Hoffman Dennis E. Scarface Al and the Crime Crusaders: Chicago's Private War Against Capone Southern Illinois University Press; 1st edition (November 24, 1993) ISBN 978-0-8093-1925-1
• Kobler, John. Capone: The Life and Times of Al Capone. New York: Da Capo Press, 2003. ISBN 0-306-81285-1
• MacDonald, Alan. Dead Famous – Al Capone and his Gang Scholastic.
• Pasley, Fred D. Al Capone: The Biography of a Self-Made Man. Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 2004. ISBN 1-4179-0878-5
• Schoenberg, Robert J. Mr. Capone. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992. ISBN 0-688-12838-6

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Al Capone

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Al Capone

• Al Capone: The Original Gangster – slideshow by Life magazine
• Mario Gomes' site on everything related to Al Capone
• South Beach Magazine The Un-Welcomed Visitor: Al Capone in Miami. (with photos)
• Complete FBI files on Al Capone
• Al Capone at the Crime Library