John Torrio
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John Donato Torrio (born Donato Torrio, ; January 20, 1882 – April 16, 1957) was an Italian-born mobster who helped build the Chicago Outfit in the 1920s later inherited by his protégé
Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone ( ; ; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American organized crime, gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-foun ...
. Torrio proposed a National Crime Syndicate in the 1930s and later became an adviser to
Lucky Luciano Charles "Lucky" Luciano ( ; ; born Salvatore Lucania ; November 24, 1897 – January 26, 1962) was an Italian gangster who operated mainly in the United States. He started his criminal career in the Five Points Gang and was instrumental in the ...
and his Luciano crime family. Torrio had several nicknames, primarily "The Fox" for his cunning and finesse. The
US Treasury The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. It is one of 15 current U.S. government departments. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and ...
official Elmer Irey considered him "the biggest gangster in America" and wrote, "He was the smartest and, I dare say, the best of all the hoodlums. 'Best' referring to talent, not morals." Virgil W. Peterson of the Chicago Crime Commission stated that his "talents as an organizational genius were widely respected by the major gang bosses in the New York City area". Crime journalist Herbert Asbury affirmed: "As an organizer and administrator of underworld affairs, Johnny Torrio is unsurpassed in the annals of American crime; he was probably the nearest thing to a real mastermind that this country has yet produced".


Early life

Torrio was born in Irsina (then known as Montepeloso),
Basilicata Basilicata (, ; ), also known by its ancient name Lucania (, , ), is an administrative region in Southern Italy, bordering on Campania to the west, Apulia to the north and east, and Calabria to the south. It has two coastlines: a 30-kilometr ...
, in
Southern Italy Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern Regions of Italy, regions. The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or cultu ...
, to Tommaso Torrio and Maria Carluccio originally from Altamura, Apulia. When he was two his father, a railway employee, died in a
work accident A work accident, workplace accident, occupational accident, or accident at work is a "discrete occurrence in the course of work" leading to physical or mental occupational injury. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), more th ...
; shortly after, Torrio immigrated to James Street on the
Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it w ...
of New York City with his widowed mother in December 1884. She later remarried. His first jobs were as a porter and bouncer in Manhattan. While he was a teenager, he joined a street gang together with another James Street resident Robert Vanella and became its leader; he eventually managed to save enough money and opened a billiards parlor for the group, and from there grew illegal activities such as gambling and loan sharking. Torrio's business sense caught the eye of Paul Kelly, the leader of the Five Points Gang. Torrio's gang ran legitimate businesses, but its primary concern was the numbers game, supplemented by incomes from bookmaking, loan sharking, hijacking, prostitution, and opium trafficking.
Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone ( ; ; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American organized crime, gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-foun ...
, who worked at Kelly's club, admired Torrio's quick mind and looked to him as his mentor. Capone had belonged to the Junior Forty Thieves, the Bowery Boys and the Brooklyn Rippers; they soon moved up to the Five Points Gang. One of Torrio's associates, Frankie Yale, eventually hired Capone to bartend at the Harvard Inn, a bar in the
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section of Brooklyn.


Move to Chicago

By 1909, Torrio moved to
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
. "Big Jim" Colosimo, who had become head of a burgeoning vice empire in Chicago is reputed to have invited him to the city to help him deal with Black Hand extortionists. After doing so, Torrio became a top lieutenant in Colosimo's organization, rising to underboss by 1914. In 1919, Al Capone arrived in Chicago and started working as a bouncer and bartender at one of the Colosimo gang establishments, the Four Deuces at 2222 S. Wabash Street.


Colosimo murder

When
Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...
went into effect in 1920, Torrio pushed for the gang to enter into bootlegging, but Colosimo stubbornly refused. In March 1920, Colosimo secured an uncontested divorce from Victoria Moresco. A month later, he and Dale Winter eloped to West Baden Springs, Indiana. Upon their return, he bought a home on the South Side. On May 11, 1920, Colosimo drove to Colosimo's Cafe to meet an associate he had never met before. He was shot and killed a few minutes after entering the restaurant by a gunman hiding in the cloak room. A bullet entered Colosimo's brain, behind his right ear. Contract killer Frankie Yale had allegedly traveled from New York to Chicago and personally killed longtime gang boss Colosimo at the behest of Torrio. Although suspected by Chicago police, Yale was never officially charged. Colosimo was allegedly murdered because he stood in the way of his gang making bootlegging profits, having "gone soft" after his marriage with Winter.


Rivalry with North Side Gang

Torrio headed an essentially Italian organized crime group that was the biggest in the city, with Capone as his right-hand man. However, many other gangs were active in Chicago at this time, and Torrio was wary of being drawn into gang wars and tried to negotiate agreements over territory between rival crime groups. In 1920, Torrio built an agreement between most of Chicago's bootlegging gangs into a city-wide cartel. The smaller North Side Gang led by Dean O'Banion was of mixed ethnicity and was a member of the bootlegging cartel. In 1924, the North Side Gang discovered that the Genna brothers, close to Torrio's gang, were selling their booze in North Side Gang territory. O'Banion went to Torrio, who was unhelpful with the encroachment of the Gennas into the North Side despite his pretensions to be a settler of disputes. As a result, the North Side Gang responded by hijacking Genna beer shipments. In May 1924, O'Banion learned that the police planned to raid the Sieben brewery on a particular night. Before the raid, O'Banion approached Torrio and told him he wanted to sell his share in the brewery, claiming that he wanted to leave the rackets and retire to Colorado. Torrio agreed to buy O'Banion's share and gave him half a million dollars. On the morning of the deal, the police (including the police chief) raided and shut down the brewery. Torrio, O'Banion, and several others were arrested. Torrio was indicted on bootlegging charges, a repeat offense for him with mandatory jail time. Torrio realized he had been betrayed and conned out of $500,000 by O'Banion. Torrio would have immediately attempted to retaliate against O'Banion and the North Side Gang had it not been for Mike Merlo, head of the Unione Siciliana labor organization. Merlo had a vested interest in keeping the peace between Chicago's gangs, and he convinced Torrio to forestall any violence against the North Side Gang. Mike Merlo died of cancer on November 8, 1924. On November 10, three men entered O'Banion's Schofield's Flowers shop under the pretense of buying flowers for Merlo's funeral and shot O'Banion dead. The killers are reputed to have been Frankie Yale, John Scalise, and Albert Anselmi, acting on Torrio's behalf. O'Banion's death placed Hymie Weiss at the head of the North Side Gang, backed by Vincent Drucci and Bugs Moran. Weiss had been a close friend of O'Banion, and the North Siders made it a priority to get revenge on his killers.


Assassination attempt and handover to Capone

In January 1925, Capone was ambushed, leaving him shaken but unhurt. Twelve days later, on January 24, Torrio and his wife Anna were ambushed outside their home by Weiss, Drucci, and Moran. Torrio was shot several times and nearly killed. After recovering, he effectively resigned, handed control of the gang to Capone, and fled to New York. In late 1925, Torrio moved to Italy with his wife and mother, where he no longer dealt directly with the mob business. He gave total control of the Outfit to Capone and said, "It's all yours, Al. Me? I'm quitting. It's Europe for me." Torrio left a criminal empire which grossed about $70,000,000 a year ($1,241,304,000 in 2024 dollars) from bootleg liquor, gambling and prostitution.


Later years and death

In 1928, Torrio returned to the United States, as
Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...
began putting pressure on the Mafia in Italy. He is credited with helping to organize a loose cartel of East Coast bootleggers, the Big Seven, in which many prominent gangsters, including
Lucky Luciano Charles "Lucky" Luciano ( ; ; born Salvatore Lucania ; November 24, 1897 – January 26, 1962) was an Italian gangster who operated mainly in the United States. He started his criminal career in the Five Points Gang and was instrumental in the ...
, Longy Zwillman,
Joe Adonis Joseph Anthony Doto (born Giuseppe Antonio Doto, ; November 22, 1902 – November 26, 1971), known as Joe Adonis, was an Italian-American mobster who was an important participant in the formation of the modern Cosa Nostra crime families in New Y ...
, Frank Costello, and Meyer Lansky played a part. Torrio also supported the creation of a national body that would prevent all-out turf wars between gangs that had broken out in Chicago and New York. His idea was well received, and a conference was hosted in Atlantic City by Torrio, Lansky, Luciano and Costello in May 1929; the National Crime Syndicate was created. Torrio was charged with income tax evasion in 1936 and, after several failed appeals, was sent to prison in 1939, serving two years. In 1940, a property that Torrio co-owned with Vanella, Jack Cusick, and Capone was sold at auction to satisfy Capone's tax delinquencies. After his release, he lived quietly until his death. On April 16, 1957, Torrio had a heart attack in the
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borough of
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while he was sitting in a barber's chair waiting for a haircut; he died several hours later in a nearby hospital.


In popular culture

Torrio has been portrayed several times in television and motion pictures: * by Osgood Perkins in the 1932 film, '' Scarface'' (as Johnny Lovo). * by Nehemiah Persoff in the 1959 film, ''
Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone ( ; ; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American organized crime, gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-foun ...
''. * by Charles McGraw in the 1959 television series of '' The Untouchables''. * by Harry Guardino in the 1975 film, '' Capone''. * by Guy Barile in the 1992 film, ''
The Babe ''The Babe'' is a 1992 American Biographical film, biographical Sports film, sports drama film about the life of famed baseball player Babe Ruth, who is portrayed by John Goodman. Directed by Arthur Hiller, written by John Fusco, it was release ...
''. * by Frank Vincent in the 1993 ''
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles ''The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles'' (sometimes referred to as ''Young Indy'') is an American television series that aired on ABC from March 4, 1992, to July 24, 1993. Filming took place in various locations around the world, with "Old Indy" ...
'' episode "Young Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Blues". * by Byrne Piven in the pilot episode of the 1993 television series, '' The Untouchables''. * by Kieron Jecchinis in a 1994 episode of the television series, '' In Suspicious Circumstances'' entitled "No Witness, No Case". * by Greg Antonacci in the
HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
series, '' Boardwalk Empire''. * by Paolo Rotondo in the 2016 television miniseries '' The Making of the Mob: Chicago''. * by Al Sapienza in the 2017 film '' Gangster Land''.


References


Further reading

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External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Torrio, Johnny 1882 births 1957 deaths Al Capone associates American gangsters of Italian descent American shooting survivors Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery Chicago Outfit bosses Five Points Gang Gangsters from Chicago Italian crime bosses Italian emigrants to the United States Italian gangsters People from Irsina American gangsters of the interwar period