Thug Life

My paean to the joys of Boardwalk Empire having been pushed off the main page, I feel compelled to keep the fire alive by acquainting you with four real-life inspirations of the show’s most colorful gangsters.

Charles “Lucky” Luciano

Okay, so this one isn’t as cute in real life as Vincent Piazza, the fine young actor who portrays him on the small screen. Such is life. Lucky was born in Sicily and emigrated to New York as a child, where he befriended fellow gangster Meyer Lansky and became a protégé of Arnold Rothstein. Early success as a drug trafficker and a bootlegger allowed him to rack up both millions of dollars and a 6-month prison sentence by his 20s. Luciano had a hand in organizing all the major Mafia families in the 1930s and setting up a common governing body, with himself at the top. After a successful life of crime that brought him millions and took him to the penitentiary, he was deported back to his native Sicily. Lucky slipped out of Italy and had a successful foray into pre-revolutionary Cuba, where he rejoined his pal Meyer Lansky and resumed his criminal activities.  Lucky ultimately returned to Italy and died of a heart attack at age 64.

Arnold Rothstein

Known as the man who fixed the 1919 World Series, Rothstein was the son of a wealthy businessman and the brother of a rabbi. He made his money in gambling, eventually branching out to bootlegging and narcotics in the 1920s. Known for his impeccable manners and elegant attire, Rothstein was the inspiration for various fictional characters, among them Guys & Dolls’ Nathan Detroit and The Great Gatsby’s Meyer Wolfsheim. He often operated out of Lindy’s Restaurant on 49^th & Broadway in Manhattan, and had a hand in establishing the Mafia’s National Crime Syndicate.  Rothstein was gunned down over some gambling debts in 1928, when he died at the age of  46. (Spoiler alert!) His businesses were passed down to Meyer Lansky and his associates. Nick Tosches wrote a book about him, it’s kind of fun. Rothstein is played by Michael Stuhlbarg, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for his role in 2009’s A Serious Man.

Meyer Lansky

A Jewish immigrant from present-day Belarus, inside what was once the Pale of Settlement, Lansky was a teenage friend of Luciano’s in New York City. He operated a set of gambling establishments that stretched from New York City to Las Vegas to Miami and on to Cuba, where his brother Jake managed Havana’s National Hotel. Lansky was quite the enterprising gangster. Besides being one of the first figures in organized crime to operate in Cuba, where he formed close ties with then-leader Fulgencio Batista and set up some kind of grand meeting of criminals called the Havana Conference in 1946, Lansky went as far as acquiring his very own bank in Switzerland, which he used to launder money, and collaborated with the US government during World War II, providing security for the US Navy’s shipyards in New York in exchange for the release of his buddy Lucky Luciano. Lansky had a hand in the murder of fellow mobster Bugsy Siegel, and took over Bugsy’s lucrative Flamingo casino in Las Vegas. Most of Lansky’s assets were wiped out after the Cuban Revolution, when Fidel Castro took over all the Casinos and hotels in Cuba and outlawed gambling in the country. Lansky never spent a day in jail and eventually died of cancer in his Miami home in 1983, at age 80. He is played by little-known actor Anatol Yusef.

Al Capone

Boardwalk Empire portrays Al Capone at the beginning of his career, working as an employee of fellow Brooklynite Johnny Torrio in Chicago. The show covers several minor points in his personal life, like his son’s deafness from congenital syphilis, his relationship with his Irish wife, and his false claim that his distinctive facial scars were a result of wounds inflicted during World War I. He was the oldest of nine siblings, and many of his brothers eventually came to join his chosen profession. Capone would eventually take on the reigns of the Chicago operation and become quite a success performing various illegal activities, which would garner him lots of media attention. Following the bloody St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1928, where several of his gangland enemies were brutally murdered, Capone caught the eye of famed agent Eliot Ness. As we all know, Capone was eventually caught and convicted of “tax evasion”, among other things, and spent time behind bars. He spent his last years  languishing from the very same syphilis that had afflicted him most of his life. His memory lives on in several rap songs and dozens of movies. Capone is played by English-Jamaican actor Stephen Graham, who has appeared in Snatch, Gangs of New York, and This is England. He’s going to be in the new installment of  Pirates of the Caribbean next year.

Boardwalk Empire: Don’t give up on it yet!