Curated playlist
American gangsters of the interwar period
- Bugsy SiegelBenjamin Siegel, the American mobster the world remembers as Bugsy, despised that name. It came from slang for crazy, and he told people to call him Ben or Mr. Siegel. During his murder trial in 1941, some reporters wrote that his eyes…
- Meyer LanskyShortly after The Godfather Part II reached theaters in 1974, Meyer Lansky picked up the telephone and called the actor Lee Strasberg. Strasberg had played Hyman Roth, a gangster based on Lansky, and had earned an Oscar nomination for it.…
- John DillingerJohn Dillinger stepped out of the Biograph Theater in Chicago on the evening of the 22nd of July 1934. He had just watched Manhattan Melodrama, a crime drama starring Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and William Powell. Within minutes he was dead.…
- Arnold RothsteinArnold Rothstein, a New York gambler nicknamed The Brain, lay wounded in a hospital while police asked who had shot him. He refused to help. "You stick to your trade," he told the officers. "I'll stick to mine." Pressed again, he answered…
- Al CaponeAl Capone always turned the left side of his face away from the camera. Three knife slashes had scarred that cheek, and he told people they were war wounds. The nickname they earned him, Scarface, was one he loathed. His closest friends…
- Bonnie and ClydeBonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, together known as Bonnie and Clyde, died on the 23rd of May 1934 on Louisiana Highway 154 in Bienville Parish. Six lawmen crouched in the roadside bushes as a car came toward them at high speed. They fired…
- Lucky LucianoLucky Luciano, born Salvatore Lucania, was arrested 25 times between 1916 and 1936 and spent no time in prison. The charges ranged from assault and illegal gambling to blackmail and robbery. Then a trial over a prostitution racket ended…
- Frank CostelloFrank Costello, an Italian-American crime boss, tried to keep his face off television during the Senate's organized crime hearings. The attempt backfired. Cameras settled on his hands instead, and his fidgeting and evasive answers played…
- Sam GiancanaSam Giancana, who once ran the Chicago Outfit, died on the night of the 19th of June 1975 in the basement kitchen of his house in Oak Park, Illinois. At around 11 p.m., his caretaker, Joseph DiPersio, found the body on the floor. A gunman…
- Albert AnastasiaAlbert Anastasia was born Umberto Anastasio in Calabria, Italy, and died in a barber's chair in Manhattan on the 25th of October 1957. Along the way he collected the nicknames The Earthquake and The One-Man Army. Few figures in American…