Scarface - Al Capone

Suzanne: Warning. This episode may contain graphic and disturbing content listener discretion is advised.

June: Hi, y'all and welcome to crown with my coffee. I'm your fabulous hostess with the mostest, June.

S: And I'm Suzanne. We're gonna tell you some stories you've heard 

J: Some you haven't 

S: and some you wish you hadn't 

J: all with a Texas twang.  All right, well, welcome back and I'm gonna hit it hard and heavy today. I got me a Monster, Java, of course, and it's the Kona blend, because I like that. What are you having? 

S: I’m boring and just drinking just plain old classic Folgers again. We buy it by the big huge tubs, so that's usually what I drink. Although, I did just special order some coffee from Bones Coffee Company. And we're going to split that next time I see you and it's going to be delicious. It smells fabulous. And I can't wait to try it. 

J: Oh, I can't wait either. I'm so excited. 

S: It’s described as chocolate hazelnut. 

J: Oh, so kind of like them Ferrero Rocher candies maybe. Oh.

S: Yes.

J: Oh, I can't get it soon enough. That's gonna be delicious.

S: Yes, I think so. So I'm excited about that one, but I'm holding off until we can try it together. 

J: Okay, yeah. Sounds great. Sounds great. So all right. Well, I'm going to be talking about Al Capone today. 

S: Oh. Going back to them coppa days.

J: Yeah, oh geez it's the cops. Yeah, way, way back in the day, Al Capone was born. His name actually was Alphonse Gabriel Capone.

S: It just sounds so fancy.

J: I know, I know. He was born on January 17 in 1899. Wow.

S: That’s a long time ago.

J: Yeah, a long time. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, New York, which happens to be the second most densely populated borough in the US. And New York City has the most populated borough with an estimated population of 2,648,403. 

S: You can't see my face. Well, you can see my face but they can't see my face. But it's like, "Whaaaaat?" 

J: Jaw drop. That's a lot of people in a little area. It was settled way back in the day in 1634. So Al did have eight siblings. He was born to Italian immigrant parents, who were Gabriel Capone, who was a barber and Teresa Capone, who was a seamstress. They were both born outside of Naples, Italy. And they immigrated to the US in 1893. At a little place at 95 Navy Street. And that's in the Navy Yard in downtown Brooklyn. So there you go. They lived there for a while. When Al was about 11, they did move to a different place. The the address I found was 38 Garfield place, and that's in Parkstone, Brooklyn. So he did attend Catholic school, a strict Catholic school from what I'm understanding. And, you know, that was okay with him for a little bit, but it was a little too strict. So by the age of 14, his time in school kind of ended because he got in a fight and hit a teacher in the face. 

S: Oh, snap. 

J: Yeah. Some people's kids, ugh. So, so as a teenager, you know, no more school for him. He's like, I'm gonna do what I want to do. So he attended, he attended, he joined a gang called the Five Points Gang. And now how creative was this? They got the name Five Points because that's where they were located. They were located in Five Points, Manhattan in Harlem.

S: I think they need a new marketing manager.

J: Yeah.  That's what I'm thinking. The gang was founded by Paul Kelly. They did illegal gambling and, you know, robbery, did some pimpin', you know, because they were pimps back then. Shootouts. Just, you know, all kinds of thug stuff, really. They did have some notable members in this gang, though. One of them was Lucky Luciano, Johnny Torrio. And Bugsy Siegel. 

S: Oh, I know those names. 

J: I know. I know. It's pretty cool. So you know, he was a bouncer in brothels and, you know, whatever the gang needed. He kind of, he kind of did that. So, I did read but could not find, in 1916 to 1918, he did play some semi pro baseball, couldn't find a name for the team or anything like that. But I mean, you know, if they say it happened, then I guess it did.

S: That is something I didn't know. I learned something new today.

J: I know. I know. At the age of 19, in December 1918, on the 30th, he did marry a Irish Catholic lady. Her name was Mary Mae Josephine Coughlin. But just a couple of weeks previous to this on December 4, she had given birth to Capone's son and his name was Albert Francis, and they called him Sonny, Capone. What I read, they did have a good happy marriage, other than, you know, a little bit of philandering that he did, she wasn't too happy about. Other than that they were happy as far as I could tell. In his early 20s, though, around 1919, early 1920s, he did move to Chicago, and become a bodyguard for Johnny Torrio, because Johnny had asked him to come up there. So they hung out, they, he did his bodyguard stuff and everything like that. But in 1925 on January 24, Johnny was shot several times. He was coming back from I think buying groceries or something with his family. I'm not real sure. I can't remember. I remember reading it though. But after he recovered, he did hand over the control to the gang to Al Capone, who at this time was just 26 years old. Al did use more violence than Johnny had previously done. They did transportation of alcohol from, you know, around the world and Canada. And if people didn't want to buy his alcohol, if they refused to buy from him, it was rumored that he did blow some places up. You know, several people lost their lives. So, but at the time, the empire that he was running grossed $70,000 a year.

S: That’s gotta be like a bajillion dollars today.

J: Well, in, in 2008 it translated into $997,500. So that's a lot of money that they were taking in. A lot of money. Yeah, jaw drop on that. Yes. This is way back in early 1920s. Yeah. 

S: Oh snap. 

J: Yeah. So, Al did love the attention that he got. He did make a lot of money. So he did donate to a lot of charities. And he was kind of viewed as the the modern day Robin Hood, you know. He, he sponsored soup kitchens during the Depression in Chicago. And like I said, made several donations to charities. One of the donations that he did make in 1927, during the mayor race, he did contribute $250,000 to William Hale Thompson.

S: Oh, wow. 

J: Yeah. So he was pretty generous with his money.

S: Well, he's got plenty of it.

J: Because he was raking it in. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So um, comes around 1928. Somehow or another he met August Busch. Yes, yes from the alcohol distillery Busch, yes. And paid him around $40,000 for a retreat in Florida. So he's got all this money flowing around, money coming in, money going out, stuff like that, but he never registered anything in his name. Nothing. He didn't even have a bank account. If he gave money to other people, he used Western Union.

S: He was sleeping on it. It was in his mattress.

J: It probably was, it probably was. However, in 1929, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre happens. And this is where rival gang, there were seven members, actually there were five members from the North Side Gang and two other affiliates that were there. They were gathered up, put against the wall at the Lincoln Park Garage by unknown assailants who were dressed as cops, in broad daylight, lined up and shot, shot and killed.

S: Like an execution, like a firing squad? 

J: Absolutely. Yeah. How crazy is that? So I mean, this didn't go over well with with the city or anything like that. So he got dubbed, Al Capone got dubbed Public Enemy Number One. He also had a couple of other nicknames. One of them was Scarface that he got after he insulted a woman at the door of an establishment. She told her brother, brother got pissed, come up to where Al was at, and slashed his face, like three times across the left side. So Al Capone didn't like the name Scarface. And he was, you know, kind of embarrassed of the scars that were on his face. So every time he was photographed, he would turn his head so they wouldn't really show. And if they did,

S: Eh. I hear the right side of your face is the pretty side anyway. 

J: Oh, yeah, absolutely. But with you, it's both sides. You're so pretty. 

S: I get it from my momma.

J: All right. Anyway, he, he didn't like the name Scarface. And if people asked him about the scars, he would just tell them that they were war wounds. Which I guess they really kinda were war wounds. You know, you piss somebody off and you get stabbed. It's kind of a war. 

S: Kinda.

J: Yeah, so I It is said that a lot of his close friends called him Snorky, though. And snorky is actually a term that means sharp dresser. I'm just assuming -

S: I would have thought snazzy for a sharp dresser and snorky makes me think of the little yellow guys in that cartoon, The Snorks. 

J: Yeah, yeah. With the big noses, right?

S: It came out of their head.

J: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember. So yeah, with all this money, and, you know, being called Snorky, go figure. He did indulge in a lot of high dollar stuff. He had a lot of custom suits. He smoked fine, fine cigars, gourmet food, gourmet drinks. And from what I read, his preferred liquor was called Templeton Rye, and it's out of Iowa. It's a whiskey. It's amber color, supposed to be really high quality stuff. I've never had it myself, because I don't think whiskey is my thing. Well, I can't say that, because fireball is whiskey, and I kind of like that.

S: I’m a Crown Royal type person myself.

J: Oh. Okay. It's fine. It's fine. So anyway, with all his money flowing around and everything like that, in 1931, he was prosecuted for tax evasion. Imagine that. That's crazy. Tax evasion. Are you kidding me? So it was a very highly publicized case. And I think that's because Capone's name was already out there anyway, you know, being known as Robin Hood and doing all these donations and stuff like that. 

S: And he's Public Enemy Number One. 

J: Exactly. So he was convicted of 11 years federal prison. He did try to appeal it, but it failed. So eventually was sentenced to the Atlanta US Penitentiary on May 1932 and he was just 33 years old. So he did sh-, show signs of neurosyphilis early in his sentence. And how they determine that is they do a lumbar puncture and obtain fluid for analysis. And that's how they figured out that he did have syphilis, that imagined that he contracted when he was being a bouncer at brothels. Just saying. So he served a little bit of time there. And then in August of 1934, they did transfer him to Alcatraz Federal Prison, which was brand new, just off the coast of San Francisco. So. 

S: I heard they transferred him there so that they could help get the word out that Alcatraz was for the hardened criminals and the super bad guys of the bad guys kind of helped make their name a little bit scarier. 

J: Yeah. But it's it's so funny. You know, bad guy, but he was there for tax evasion.

S: Yeah. 

J: Not, not murder, like you would think or anything like that. But

S: Well, that's because if he was smart, he didn't do it himself. He had his lackeys do it. 

J: Well, that's exactly pretty much what happened. 

S: I’m just saying that's what I would do if I were the leader of this great big, huge, big time gang. I wouldn't do the dirty work. My hands are gonna stay nice and clean.

J: Exactly. Exactly. So. 

S: I pay my taxes, though. 

J: Yeah, I do, too, unfortunately. ugh, ugh. I don't think that I could afford not to pay my taxes. It's crazy. Anyway, he did just under eight years, and then he was released after serving his time, and transferred to the Federal Correction Institute, at Terminal Island in California on January 6, 1939. And this was for a contempt of court charge that he had for not showing up before, when they had sent several notices for him to come down for some kind of court hearing. He kept saying I can't do it, because I'm sick. And, you know, things like that, which, you know, looking back on it, he might have really been sick, you know, because he had syphilis and probably had it for a long time. So it really does something to him. So anyway, but he was released on November 16, 1939. And he was referred to a hospital in Baltimore for late, late stage syphilis. So after a few weeks of doing inpatient and outpatient care there, he was, he was grateful for it. He donated two Japanese weeping trees to the hospital, and then he left for his mansion in Palm Island, Florida. Which, you know, I think Florida is pretty nice all year long. I don't really know.

S: Except for the hurricanes. 

J: Well, yeah. But that's any coastal place, I think, really. So in 1942, they did do a mass production of penicillin. And compon -, Al Capone was one of the first American patients treated. Unfortunately, it was too late to reverse any kind of damage done to his brain because of the syphilis. But it did slow down the progression of it. So that was good, I guess. You know, I mean, unfortunately, he didn't get treatment early on, and because it can be cured. In 1946, his physician and a Baltimore psychiatrist examined him and said by this time, he only had the mental capacity of a 12 year old. And this is because of the syphilis, what it did to his brain.

S: His brain is Swiss cheese at this point.

J: Yeah. Yes, a lot of it. So he's spent, you know, the last years in his mansion in Palm Island, Florida, with his family, his wife, who's still with him. And on January 21, 1947, he had a stroke. He did regain consciousness and showed signs of improving, but he got broncho-pneumonia. And so on the 22nd he had a cardiac arrest. He hung on for a few more days. And unfortunately on January 25, 1947 he was surrounded by his family, you know his wife, he did pass after having a heart attack at - Oh, I'm sorry. He didn't technically have a heart attack, after his heart failed because of the stroke and the broncho-pneumonia and everything. At 7:25 pm, he was 48 years old and eight days, he passed away. So they did transfer him back to Chicago, about a week later, for a private funeral. And originally, he was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Chicago. But in 1950, along with his father and his brother, they were moved to Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois. So, there's been several movies made in regards to Al and probably a couple of them more famous movies. One of them was in 1959, called Al Capone. And it starred Rod Steiger. And I mean, everybody knows the 1987 film, Untouchables starring, Robert De Niro. You know, a couple of songs refer to Al Capone. One of the - Oh, I can't say...nah, I don't know it. Yeah, probably is like one of the best. 1974 British pop group Paper Lace came out with a song called The Night Chicago Died. '74 was a good year, you know, for music going on. Because - 

S: You would know.

J: Shhh. Don't tell everybody. Uh, the, in '74, the British rock band Queen, who doesn't know Queen, did, referred to Al Capone in a song called Stone Cold Crazy. And then it was covered in 1990 by the American rock band, Metallica. So, anyway. I mean, it's unfortunately, unfortunate that he lost his life. I hate it when anybody loses their life, no matter how bad they are. But they, they never specifically pinned any kind of murders on him. I mean, they knew he was responsible for murders, you know, but, I mean, he went to jail for tax evasion, so.  

S: Eh, he seemed to balance his karma out with all of his donations everywhere, though. 

J: You know, I tend to agree, you know, I mean, he he seen himself as you know, hey, I've got all this stuff. And I want people to like me, and I want to do something for the community. So, you know, he did a lot of a lot of donations. I agree. I agree. So, you know, and even towards the end of his life when he was at the hotel, I mean, at the hospital there in Baltimore, you know, they took good care of him and he was grateful. So he donated, you know, some trees to them, you know, so I mean, he, he tried to be a good guy, even though he wasn't, you know, but. 

S: Hey, you got to make your living somehow. 

J: Hey, that's true. That's true. Everybody, everybody got to do something. So anyway, that's, that's my case. And that's Al Capone. Y'all get a chance to listen to the music or check, check out the movies, you, you should go ahead. It's pretty cool. They're not bad movies. There's a long list of movies that and songs that I didn't know were out there that I'm probably gonna have to check out.

S: Yeah, I can't, can't say that. I won't be Googling some of them after this, either. 

J: Yeah. So there you go. 

S: Oh, good case, I enjoyed it. Thank you. 

J: No problem. Thank you for listening. 

S: Thanks for listening today. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of Crime With My Coffee.

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