Public Enemy
Born Alphonse in 1899
in New York to Italian immigrants – a barber and a seamstress – Capone had eight siblings. Brothers Ralph and Frank eventually joined his criminal gang. Despite being a
strong student he showed violent tendencies and was expelled from school aged 14 for punching a female teacher in the face. He worked in a sweet
shop, bowling alley and played semi-professional baseball before falling in with streets gangs like the
Junior Forty Thieves and the Five Points Gang. Working as a bouncer at
Harvard Inn he insulted a woman and was slashed in the face with a knife pulled by her brother. It left him with a scar and a new lifelong nickname which he hated. Also known as “Snorky”
for his snappy dressing, a 19-year-old Capone married Mae Coughlin. They had a son and remained together until Capone’s death despite his philandering. Gangster mentor Johnny
Torrio brought Capone to Chicago where he became a bouncer in a brothel and got syphilis.
Cashing in on alcohol
bootlegging during the Prohibition era, a murderous Capone slowly worked his way up to become one of the Windy City’s top mobsters. By 1925 he led the
Chicago Outfit with an empire built on illegal booze, betting and brothels. Capone survived assassination attempts by rivals and accidentally shot himself while playing golf!
He blew up the premises
of people who didn’t co-operate – killing 100 – while warring with other mobsters and driving around in an armour-plated Cadillac. Raking in $100million a
year, he loved gourmet food, cigars, flash suits and bedding a string of women. He mansion in Miami Beach recently sold for £11.4m. With police and politicians in his pocket, Capone became a celeb. He was cheered at baseball games and backed charities. He is reckoned to have
been behind the St Valentine’s Day Massacre of
1929, when seven members of Bugs Moran’s North Side Gang were gunned down. The murders
were never pinned on
Capone, but after serving a few months in a luxury cell for carrying a concealed weapon, the authorities labelled him Public Enemy No1. Convicted of tax evasion
he was later sent to Alcatraz. Weakened by ill health and with a hole in his nose from cocaine addiction, he spent his time playing the banjo.
Capone was
released in
1939, his brain rotted by syphilis, and died in 1947 of a heart attack aged
48. The secret of where he stashed his huge fortune was lost with him.