Scarface: The Life of Al Capone

Meet America's most notorious gangster of the 1920s.

Alphonse “Al” Capone was born on January 17, 1899. A first-generation American, he was the son of Italian immigrants from Naples who settled in Brooklyn. The Capones lived in a crime-filled tenement of the Navy Yard district. Little was remarkable about his parents. His mother was a typical Catholic housewife, while his father worked as an ordinary barber. Despite this mundane upbringing, Al and his siblings all grew up to be criminals. 

The Harvard Inn

Al’s criminal career began from an early age. He joined the toughest local gangs, where he engaged in theft and fistfights. He had a lifelong penchant for flair and self-aggrandizement, presenting himself as an underdog hero. Much of Capone’s upbringing came from the streets rather than school. He dropped out after smacking his teacher in the sixth grade. He learned to play pool, and shoot a gun. Although he and his cronies were troublemakers, Capone also helped to support his large family. He worked various ordinary jobs as a munitions factory worker, a pin setter in a bowling alley, and a cloth cutter in a bookshop. As a side hustle, he worked as a bouncer in Coney Island. Owned by a gangster named Frankie Yale, the bar was facetiously named the Harvard Inn. There, Capone received his first taste of Mob life in New York. 

“Scarface”

At the Harvard Inn, a small-time criminal named Frank Galluccio shielded his younger sister Lena from the 18-year-old Capone’s sexual advances. “Honey, you got a beautiful ass, and I mean that as a compliment,” Al told the girl. Enraged, Galluccio pulled out a knife and slashed the left side of Capone’s face. It gave rise to Capone’s famous nickname of Scarface. Capone left much shame about the scars. He tried to hide it with powder, and refused to be photographed from the left side. He claimed the scars were a wartime injury. During Capone’s formative years, he met a Brooklyn mobster named Johnny Torrio. Torrio was 17 years older than Al. He became his lifelong model. Torrio moved to Chicago to serve “Big Jim” Colosimo. Big Jim owned gambling dens and whorehouses. His vibrant nightclub was located south of downtown. It was frequented by entertainers, politicians, and gangsters alike. Big Jim recruited Al Capone as a second-in-command. With the imminent outlawing of alcohol, Al became an invaluable asset to Big Jim. The 19-year-old Capone had recently become a husband and father. Having a child out of wedlock, he was forced into a shotgun marriage. His wife was Mae Coughlin, an Irish girl two years older than him. Al and his new family came to Chicago in 1919. The city would never be the same. 

Chicago bootlegger

During the Roaring Twenties, Chicago was full of crime, alcohol, and a wild nightlife. When Prohibition became law in January of 1920, it provided an opening for the 20-year-old Al Capone. The aspiring gangster hoped to amass his fortunes through the illicit sale of alcohol. In the process, he would create a vast criminal empire never before seen in Chicago’s history. On Torrio’s dollar, Capone probably started out as a pimp or a bouncer. When Big Jim obstructed Torrio’s bootlegging plans, Capone arranged to have him assassinated. The deed was done by Frankie Yale, Capone’s former boss. Big Jim was murdered in his own lobby of his own club in May of 1920. It was the first expression of Capone’s modus operandi. The gangster orchestrated highly premeditated and visible assassinations. Murders were done in the sight of many witnesses, who were intimidated into silence. With Big Jim gone, Torrio and Capone were unimpeded in their bootlegging racket. In 1922, under Torrio’s direction, Chicago’s local mobsters formed a peaceful agreement about a shared bootlegging enterprise. Soon enough, illegal alcohol became a thriving business. Supply was tightly controlled, from the breweries to the backyard stills. Saloon owners ingratiated themselves to Capone by purchasing his beer. Those who refused were have their windows bombed. The Mob would then offer money to fix the windows, effectively forcing the saloons into cooperation. According to government estimates, the Torrio empire earned $120 million a year from its liquor, prostitution, and gambling. They were the equivalent of a medium-sized corporation. Its operations were indistinguishable from an ordinary business. Individuals worked in specialized tasks, such as truck repair, as well as brewery construction and management. Because of Prohibition, Capone was not legally allowed to invest money in his enterprise. As a result, it was a cash-only business. He managed to shelter himself from law enforcement through bribes. He estimated that half of Chicago’s police were on his payroll. On August 30, 1920, Capone was arrested after a night of boozing. His car slammed into a taxi, badly injuring the driver. He pulled a gun and threatened the taxi driver, waving around a fake sheriff’s badge. But when the real police showed up, Capone himself was arrested. The crime boss taunted the officer, and the charges were later dropped. 

Classy criminal

Capone quickly rose through the ranks of the criminal underworld. But he never wanted to be thought of as a criminal. He worked hard to cultivate his public image as a refined gentleman with a passion for opera and luxury goods. He always appeared in public wearing fine suits. His favorite colors of choice were yellow and green. He often donned a milky white Borsalino fedora. On his pinky finger, he wrote a huge eleven-and-a-half caret ring, which cost $50,000. His underwear was woven from Italian glove silk. Because of his fine attire, Capone earned the nickname Snorky. It was a slang term, which simply meant “sharp dresser.” The flamboyant Al Capone stood at five foot ten-and-a-half inches. The portly Italian weighed 175 pounds. Everywhere he went, Capone and his gangsters immediately captured the attention of the nightclubs. He would normally walk in with about four or five henchmen. Hostesses lavished the crime boss with amorous attention. The well-mannered Capone generously lavished the girls with money. In person, he was always nice and respectful. He often shifted the blame for his crimes on his underlings. Capone’s dual nature was best reflected in his benevolent generosity toward his family. When Capone’s father died in 1920, he brought the rest of his family to Chicago. Together, the Capones lived in a fifteen-room on the South Side. He brought his brothers into his rackets, and comfortably supported his sisters. His younger sister Mafalda defended Capone, writing, “I know nothing about his activities outside the family, and do not recall any conversations about business matters.” Outside his family, Capone was an entirely different person. The crime boss often spent long periods away from his family home. Lustful and full of erotic energy, he regularly dealt with prostitutes. He caroused, gambled, and drank alcohol. 

Beer wars

In 1923, Torrio’s gangland peace had fallen into disarray. Full-scale war gripped the streets of Chicago. Gunfire and bombs were exchanged from September to December. During Prohibition, 700 people were murdered for bootlegging activity in Chicago. Torrio and Capone won the first round of gang wars. Confident at having restored order, Torrio went on a four month cruise. He left Capone behind to run the empire. This established Capone as the most powerful man in Chicago. By 1924, Capone’s bootlegging empire had expanded into the suburbs of Chicago. One of them was Cicero, a working-class community of 60,000 people. The crime boss won control of Cicero through bribery. From his suburban headquarters at the Hawthorne Hotel, Capone cut deals with local officials in order to operate beer and gambling joints. To maintain his power base, Capone successfully rigged the Cicero election. He unleashed his henchmen on all who opposed Mob rule. But Capone’s 30-year-old brother Frank was killed in a shootout with Chicago police. Frank’s death transformed Capone from a racketeer into a paranoid criminal warlord. A week after Frank’s death, Capone opened the first betting parlor in Cicero. It was called the Hawthorne Smoke Shop. Capone complained of having bad luck with horses. To fix this, he simply rigged the horse races in his favor. Robert Saint John, a 21-year-old newspaper editor of the Cicero Tribune, exposed the Mob connections throughout Chicago. He gave details about Capone’s brothel, which had a death chamber owned by Al’s elder brother Ralph. Saint John was nearly assassinated in a drive-by shooting. Although he survived, his medical bill was preemptively paid by the Capones. Capone also purchased stocks in Saint John’s newspapers, in order to control its information. Capone rapidly expanded into the other suburbs of Chicago. In Chicago Heights, Capone’s men gained the loyalty of local gangs by imposing control. He established a vast interconnected network of bootleggers. At one point, the Chicago Heights racket was worth around $36 million. Despite the finesse of his public image, Capone had an incredibly violent and tyrannical streak. When his accountant Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik complained about one of Capone’s local bootleggers, Capone shot him in the head with a six shooter in front of three witnesses. He frequently evaded justice by implicitly intimidating the juries. His preferred method was the one-way ride, where enemies would be driven to a remote place, shot, and dumped on the road. This method avoided the issue of suspecting bystanders. One of Capone’s enemies was a gangster named Dean O’Banion. This mobster attempted to swindle Capone and Torrio on a brewery deal. On May 19, 1924, Torrio was arrested in a Prohibition raid that O’Banion knew about beforehand. Using two local hitmen, Frankie Yale would inflict a revenge assassination against O’Banion. O’Banion was shot dead on November 10 when he was preparing flowers for a gangster funeral. In January of 1925, two of O’Banion’s men, George “Bugs” Moran and “Hymie” Weiss, tried to avenge their boss’ murder. Although they missed Al, they managed to ambush Torrio. Torrio managed to survive, and was sentenced to prison on Prohibition charges. Leadership fell to the 26-year-old Al Capone. He became front-page news. Loving the publicity, he would organize press conferences whenever he was accused of a crime. Despite his public denials, Capone was actively involved in the violent gang wars in Chicago. As he became increasingly targeted, Capone protected himself in a highly secure headquarters at the Metropole Hotel. Secret tunnels helped Al and his men make quick getaways. He never went anywhere alone. Capone had more security than President Coolidge. The gangster rode in a $20,000 custom Cadillac limousine, which was more like a tank. Weighing seven tons, it was protected by armor plating and bulletproof glass. The rear window was removable, allowing his gunmen to open fire. By 1925, gang violence in Chicago was very high. The dynamics of this situation were totally changed by the introduction of the Tommy gun. The Tommy guns were much more lethal than pistols. Combined with the automobile, it became a deadly instrument of gangster terrorism. Capone traveled to New York, where he had three of Yale’s enemies eliminated. This got him arrested, but the silence of the jury again led to dropped charges. Capone returned to Chicago in 1926, where he unleashed a hit job against a rival gang. One of the victims was Bill McSwiggin, a 25-year-old assistant state’s attorney. The murder of a public official led to public outcry, forcing Capone to go into hiding. He fled to Lansing, Michigan, where he lived in a small cottage with a mistress. After a while, he opened up negotiations with Illinois state authorities, surrendering himself into their custody. Despite a major investigation, as well as six grand juries, Capone was never indicted. It seemed that he was untouchable. 

St. Valentine’s Day Massacre 

Capone’s famous Valentine massacre was one of the most notorious in American history. On the morning of February 14, 1929, Bugs Moran was late arriving at his warehouse. He wore a light overcoat, with a dark brown fedora atop his head. His men of the North Side Gang were there waiting for a shipment of whiskey. Strangers walked in, two dressed as cops, the other two in plain clothes. Moran’s men thought it was a police raid. So they put their hands up, turned around, and faced the wall. Instantly, the unsuspecting gangsters were mowed down. Capone was immediately suspected. But he claimed he was in a meeting with a district attorney in Miami at the time of the shooting. Again, with no one willing to testify against him, the charges were dropped. Public sentiment turned sharply against Capone. He was named public enemy number one by the Chicago Crime Commission. A $50,000 bounty was placed on his head. Fearing for his safety, Capone got himself purposely arrested on concealed weapons charges. He was sentenced to a year of prison time. He tried to lessen the time through bribes to local charities at Christmas, but it did not work. He tried to use his phone privileges to leverage his cronies. But Capone was astonished to hear that his enterprise had gained the scrutiny of the federal government. President Hoover wanted to see Capone behind bars. The IRS worked vigorously to apprehend the crime boss. While Capone was still in jail in Philadelphia, many of his close associates were prosecuted on income tax charges. Capone attempted to resuscitate his public image during the Depression. He opened Chicago’s first soup kitchen, feeding 3,000 hungry people a day. Capone’s generosity turned him into a media folk hero. One of his media allies was Jake Lingle, who covered crime and politics for the Chicago Tribune. Lingle was on Capone’s payroll, but he was gunned down by one of Al’s rivals. 

Downfall

With the federal government after him, Capone’s downfall was imminent. A group of law enforcement agents, known as the Untouchables, organized raids in front of the press. The IRS went after most of Capone’s associates, although it was difficult to implicate the crime boss in any financial misconduct. He put his Florida house under his wife’s name. He put his Chicago house under his mother’s name. His car was placed under his wife’s name as well. Although Capone did not keep records, some of his underlings did. Eventually, the IRS was able to piece together the ledgers, tracking the misconduct to Capone himself. It took five years to produce all of the evidence. On June 5, 1931, Capone was indicted on 22 counts of income tax evasion, dating from 1925 to 1929. The prosecution was led by George E.Q. Johnson, the United States Attorney. He accused Capone of owing Uncle Sam just over $215,000. Capone tried desperately to control the case’s outcome. He hired five gangsters to assassinate Johnson. Capone attempted a plea bargain, but the judge refused. He tried to bribe the jury. But when the judge found out, he switched the jurors immediately before the trial date. With many unemployed Americans during the Depression, there was little public sympathy for Capone. Capone was charged on tax evasion, and sentenced to eleven years of jail. As he left court, he looked at the photographers. “Get enough, boys. You won’t be seeing me for a long time,” he told them. Capone appealed the verdict, but he lost. He was transferred from Chicago’s Cook County Jail to federal prison in Atlanta. In August of 1934, he was sent to Alcatraz. In jail, the once larger-than-life crime boss kept to himself. In 1936, another inmate tried to kill him with a pair of scissors. In 1938, Al was diagnosed with syphilis, which he got from one of his prostitute girlfriends. His physical and mental health went into decline. The 48-year-old Capone died of heart failure on January 25, 1947. His body was taken to Chicago for burial.