I was reading a site about the upcoming HBO show Boardwalk Empire. Guys like “Lucky” Luciano, Al Capone and several other notorious gangsters from the '20’s and '30’s are supposed to be characters in it. I was wondering if any of the well known guys from back then are still alive. I know the biggest ones are gone but is it possible someone who made a big name for themselves back in those days could still be around?
According to this list, the crime bosses from the Prohibition era (1919-1933) and the Great Depression and World War II eras (1933-1945) are all dead. Post-World War II (1945-1970) the following are listed as still alive: Giuseppe Calò (b. 1931), Gaetano Fidanzati (b. 1935), Jeff Fort (b. 1947), Frank Lucas (b. 1930) and Howie Winter (b. 1929).
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Luciano and Capone were born in the 1890s, so their contemporaries would be over 110 years old. So, no.
I don’t know how many huge names are still around, but I know there are still a handful of Balistreri’s in Milwaukee. Probably others as well, but that’s the name I hear most often since they are in a related business to mine, so a lot of the people that I know have been friends with or been doing business with them for years. My father dealt directly with them for quite some time as well.
ETA, now that I think about it, I don’t think the Balistreri’s were huge names over all, but they did run Milwaukee during the 60’s and 70’s IIRC. I believe they part of the Goodfellas story line (using different names though).
Huh. Al Swearengen (of Deadwood fame) is on the list of crime bosses. I’d never thought of him as a ‘crime boss’ in the traditional sense, but his activities are commensurate with one.
John Franzese is the Colombo family underboss - he is 92 years old. He became a member of the Profaci (later Colombo) family sometime in the mid-to-late thirties.