Carlo Gambino

• 1. Introduction

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  Carlo Gambino spent more than fifty years in organized crime and was locked in a prison cell for less than two of them. In New York, his name now belongs to an entire Mafia family. The men around him were shot, jailed, forced into retirement or driven into hiding, while he kept rising. How did an immigrant from Palermo come to sit at the top of the American Mafia? And why could the law never quite catch up with him?

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• 2. Stowaway From Palermo

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  On the 24th of August 1902, Carlo Gambino was born in Palermo, Sicily, into a family tied to the Sicilian Mafia in the Passo di Rigano neighborhood. His parents were Tommaso Gambino and Felice Castellano. He had two brothers. Gaspare stayed out of the Mafia, while Paolo became part of what would grow into the Gambino family.

  On the 23rd of December 1921, a stowaway aboard the SS Vincenzo Florio came ashore at Norfolk, Virginia. That stowaway was Gambino. He made his way north to New York City to join his cousins, the Castellanos, and found work at a small trucking firm that their family owned.

  At 2230 Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, Gambino eventually settled into a modest house. His summer home stood at 34 Club Drive in Massapequa, on Long Island. It was a two-story brick house at the end of a cul-de-sac in Harbor Green Estates, overlooking South Oyster Bay. A low fence ringed the property, and marble statues stood on the front lawn.

  Gambino married his cousin Catherine Castellano, the sister of Paul Castellano, who would one day lead the Gambino family himself. They raised four children. There were three sons, Thomas, Joseph and Carlo Jr., and a daughter, Phyllis Gambino Sinatra. Thomas, the oldest son, would later marry into another powerful family.

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• 3. The Bosses Before Him

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  In 1930, police in Lawrence, Massachusetts, arrested Gambino as a suspicious person, and that charge was dismissed. By then he had joined an organization in New York headed by Joe Masseria, another Sicilian-born gangster. A month after the Lawrence arrest, Gambino was seized in Brockton, Massachusetts, on a larceny charge. He failed to appear in court, and a warrant followed. Four years later he was picked up in Manhattan as a fugitive and returned to Brockton. There the charge was dropped after he paid $1,000 in restitution.

  Meanwhile, Masseria was locked in a fierce rivalry with Salvatore Maranzano, head of the Castellammarese clan. Their fight grew into the bloody Castellammarese War. Both men belonged to the old guard nicknamed the Mustache Petes. These bosses had started their careers in Sicily and prized what they called honor, tradition, respect and dignity. They refused to work with non-Italians and distrusted non-Sicilians. The most conservative dealt only with men from their own Sicilian village.

  When the war turned against Masseria, his second-in-command, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, spotted a chance. He struck a secret deal with Maranzano. Luciano would arrange Masseria's death, and in return he would inherit Masseria's rackets and become Maranzano's lieutenant. On the 15th of April 1931, Masseria was killed at Nuova Villa Tammaro, a restaurant on Coney Island.

  Maranzano then divided the Italian gangs of New York into Five Families, led by Luciano, Joe Profaci, Tommy Gagliano, Vincent Mangano and himself. At a meeting of bosses in Wappingers Falls, New York, he named himself capo di tutti capi, the "boss of all bosses." He also trimmed the rackets of the other families to enrich his own. Luciano pretended to go along while waiting for his moment. He had decided Maranzano was even greedier and more power-hungry than Masseria.

  By September 1931, Maranzano sensed the danger and hired an Irish hitman, Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, to kill Luciano. Tommy Lucchese warned Luciano in time. On the 10th of September, Maranzano summoned Luciano, Vito Genovese and Frank Costello to his office at 230 Park Avenue in Manhattan. They sent hitmen disguised as government agents in their place, and the hitmen murdered Maranzano.

  Later that year, Luciano called a meeting of bosses in Chicago. He proposed a governing body that would settle disputes and decide which family controlled which territory. It would become the Commission, often called Luciano's greatest innovation. Luciano meant it to keep the peace and to quietly preserve his own influence, and the bosses agreed. Of the Five Families, the one headed by Vincent Mangano was where Gambino and his cousins would land.

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• 4. Soldier Under Mangano

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  In 1937, Gambino was arrested for tax evasion linked to a million-gallon distillery in Philadelphia. He was sent to the United States Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

  Inside the Mangano family, the real tension lay at the top. Albert Anastasia was officially the underboss, but he was a mob power in his own right. Mangano had ruled for twenty years and deeply resented Anastasia's close ties to Luciano and Costello. Those two men had secured Anastasia's services without first asking Mangano's permission. That grievance and other business disputes led to heated clashes between the two, which nearly turned into fistfights.

  In 1951, Mangano and his brother Philip were murdered, reportedly on Anastasia's orders. Philip's body was found near Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, on the 19th of April 1951. Vincent's body was never found, and the Surrogate's Court in Brooklyn declared him dead on the 30th of October 1961, ten years after he vanished. Anastasia took over the family with Costello's backing. Costello had risen to lead Luciano's family after Genovese fled to Italy to escape criminal charges, and he kept that job after Genovese came back. Genovese, returned to find Costello in his old seat, would soon make his move.

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• 5. Barbershop and Barbecue

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  In 1957, Vito Genovese decided to move against Costello and Anastasia, and he recruited Gambino, Anastasia's own underboss, into the murder plot. Genovese ordered Vincent Gigante to kill Costello. The attempt came outside Costello's apartment building on the 2nd of May 1957. The wound was only superficial, but the close call convinced Costello to hand power to Genovese and retire. A doorman named Gigante as the gunman. At the 1958 trial, however, Costello claimed not to recognize him, and Gigante was acquitted of attempted murder.

  With Costello out of the way, Genovese and Gambino allegedly ordered Anastasia's death. Gambino reportedly passed the contract to Profaci, who allegedly handed the job to Joseph "Crazy Joe" Gallo. Anastasia was murdered on the 25th of October 1957 in the barbershop of the Park Sheraton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Gambino then took over the Mangano family, which carried his name from that point on. He made Joseph Biondo his underboss, and in 1965 he replaced Biondo with Aniello Dellacroce.

  On the 14th of November 1957, Genovese called a gathering at the home of mobster Joseph Barbara in Apalachin, New York. He had just taken control of Luciano's old family from Costello and wanted to legitimize that power. Leaders of both the American and Sicilian syndicates were invited. The agenda included Mafia interests in gambling and narcotics smuggling in Cuba before its revolution, as well as the garment industry in New York City.

  New York State Police trooper Edgar D. Croswell noticed that Barbara's son was booking rooms at local hotels. A large order of meat from the local butcher was also being delivered to the Barbara house. Croswell began watching the property. Troopers found many luxury cars parked there, copied the license plates and learned that the owners were known criminals. Reinforcements arrived and a roadblock went up.

  When the guests saw the police, they scattered by car and on foot, and many escaped through the woods around the estate. Gambino is thought to have been present, but he was not among those caught. Police stopped a car driven by Pennsylvania boss Russell Bufalino, carrying Genovese and three other men. Bufalino said they had come to visit a sick Barbara. Genovese said he had come for a barbecue. The police let him go.

  Gambino and Luciano allegedly helped pay part of $100,000 to a Puerto Rican drug dealer, who would falsely tie Genovese to a drug deal. On the 17th of April 1959, Genovese was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for drug offenses. He died in custody on the 14th of February 1969.

  Luciano himself died of a heart attack at Naples International Airport on the 26th of January 1962. Three days later, 300 people attended a service in Naples, where a horse-drawn black hearse carried his body through the streets. With the permission of the U.S. government, relatives brought the body back to New York for burial at St. John's Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens. More than 2,000 mourners attended, and Gambino, Luciano's longtime friend, delivered the eulogy.

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• 6. Ruling the Commission

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  With Genovese in prison, Gambino took control of the Commission. Under his leadership, his family counted 500 soldiers and more than 1,000 associates.

  In 1962, Gambino's oldest son, Thomas, married Frances, the daughter of Tommy Lucchese. More than 1,000 guests attended the wedding, where Gambino gave Lucchese a $30,000 gift. Lucchese returned the favor with a share of his rackets at Idlewild Airport, now John F. Kennedy Airport. Lucchese held sway over airport security and the airport unions. Together, the two men controlled the airport, the Commission and most organized crime in New York.

  In 1963, Joseph Bonanno, head of the Bonanno family, planned to assassinate several rivals on the Commission. His targets were Gambino, Lucchese, Stefano Magaddino and Frank DeSimone. To pull it off he needed Joseph Magliocco, who was still bitter that he had been denied a Commission seat after Profaci's death. Bonanno promised to make Magliocco his right-hand man, and Magliocco readily agreed.

  Magliocco took on the job of killing Lucchese and Gambino and handed the contract to Joseph Colombo, one of his top hit men. Colombo saw an opportunity and revealed the plot to the very men marked for death. The other bosses quickly worked out that Magliocco and Bonanno were working together and summoned them both. Bonanno, fearing for his life, went into hiding in Montreal. That left Magliocco to face the Commission alone.

  Magliocco was badly shaken and in failing health, and he confessed. The Commission spared his life but forced him to retire as boss of the Profaci family and pay a $50,000 fine. As a reward for betraying his boss, Colombo took over the family, which came to be called the Colombo family. Gambino had survived the plot, but his dealings with Colombo were far from over.

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• 7. Illness and Blood Feuds

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  Immigration and Naturalization Service officials began deportation proceedings against Gambino as early as 1953. They made no headway for years because of his heart condition and constant hospital stays.

  On the 23rd of March 1970, Gambino was arrested after being indicted for conspiring to hijack an armored car carrying $3 million. He was released on $75,000 bail and never went to trial because of his health. That same year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a 1967 order, which he had appealed, directing his deportation because he had entered the country illegally. When the government tried to enforce it, Gambino suffered a massive heart attack and was rushed to a hospital.

  On the 28th of June 1971, Jerome A. Johnson shot Colombo three times, once in the head, at the second Italian Unity Day rally in Columbus Circle. The Italian-American Civil Rights League sponsored the rally. Colombo's bodyguards killed Johnson on the spot. Colombo was left permanently paralyzed and died in 1978.

  Many in the Colombo family blamed Gallo, but police questioned Gallo and concluded that Johnson had acted alone. Johnson had spent time a few days earlier at a club run by the Gambino family, so one theory held that Gambino organized the shooting. Colombo had refused to hear Gambino's complaints about the League and allegedly spat in Gambino's face during one argument. Even so, Colombo family leaders were convinced that Gallo ordered the attack after a falling out with the family. Gallo was murdered on the 7th of April 1972.

  Gerardo Catena became boss of the Genovese family after Genovese's death, but he was indicted and jailed in 1970. Thomas Eboli then served as the family's front boss for two years. Eboli wanted to truly run the family. He borrowed $4 million from Gambino to finance a new drug trafficking operation. Law enforcement soon shut down the drug racket and arrested most of his crew.

  Gambino allegedly ordered Eboli's murder. At first, observers assumed the cause was the unpaid loan. It is now believed that Gambino wanted to put Frank "Funzi" Tieri in Eboli's place and used the default as a pretext.

  On the 16th of July 1972, Eboli left his girlfriend's apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and walked to his chauffeured Cadillac. As he sat in the parked car, a gunman in a passing truck shot him five times in the head and neck. Eboli died instantly. No one was ever charged in his murder.

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• 8. The Last Night

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  On the night of Thursday the 14th of October 1976, Gambino watched on television as the New York Yankees won the American League pennant. He died at his Massapequa home in the early morning hours of Friday the 15th of October 1976, aged 74. The official cause was natural causes. Given his history of heart disease, his death was not unexpected.

  Cusimano & Russo Funeral Home held the wake over the weekend of the 16th and the 17th of October. The funeral mass took place on Monday the 18th of October at the Church of Our Lady of Grace in Brooklyn. Gambino was then entombed in his family's private room in the Cloister building at St. John Cemetery in Queens. Several hundred people attended the wake and funeral, while plainclothes police and FBI agents mingled outside. The procession included thirteen limousines, around a dozen private cars and one flower car.

  Against expectations, Gambino had chosen Castellano as his successor instead of his underboss, Dellacroce. He seems to have believed the family would profit from Castellano's focus on white-collar crime. Dellacroce was in prison for tax evasion at the time and could not contest the choice.

  At a meeting on the 24th of November, with Dellacroce present, Castellano's succession was confirmed. Castellano arranged for Dellacroce to stay on as underboss, directly running traditional Mafia work such as extortion, robbery and loansharking. Dellacroce accepted the arrangement. Still, the deal effectively split the Gambino family into two rival factions.

  Gambino has remained a figure on screen. Robert Loggia played him in the 1995 television film Between Love and Honor, and Anthony Skordi played him in the 2022 series The Offer.

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