Charles Lucky Luciano may be history’s most famous gangster, a man of few words but outsized deeds, who famously during a dynamic stretch from before the great depression into the mid 1930’s organized the mafia from a tribe of warring fiefdoms into a well-oiled machine that printed money on the order of a fortune 500 company. Many a casual observer might have looked at his life with envy, what with the thousand dollar silk suits recommended by his mentor, Arnold Rothstein, his elegant suite at the Waldorf or the beautiful women on each arm as he mingled with movie stars and politicians alike at the Stork Club.
But here’s the rub: Lucky Luciano never considered himself lucky. Not in the knife fight that scarred up his face when he defied his former boss, Salvatore Maranzano (and his associates and the media started calling him Lucky) and not in his club fed prison setting in upstate New York, prior his exile to Sicily, the tarred and feathered victim of New York governor, Thomas Dewey.
Our story concerns itself with two compelling chapters in Luciano’s life, his formulation of The Commission which forged co-operative relations between five New York-based mafia families and Al Capone in Chicago and Stefano Magaddino in Buffalo and forever changed the ways in which the mafia would operate; and the aid he provided the U.S. government and the allied forces during his subsequent imprisonment during World War II. These two chapters will run on concurrent tracks, providing crucial insights into who he was and why he remains one of the most compelling figures of his era.
As our story begins, Luciano chairs the meeting where The Commission is formed. First item on the agenda: the retirement of the traditional moniker Boss of Bosses, fighting over which had always been an inefficient distraction from business and had led to unwanted attention from law enforcement. This scene is intercut with the key murders of old line bosses Joe Masseria and Maranzano over this very issue. Their murders had paved the way for Luciano’s ascension to head of The Commission. As the key events in Luciano’s life over the next five years play out, ending with his imprisonment on a trumped prostitution charge, the story of Luciano’s efforts to aid his country during World War II will run on a concurrent track, beginning with US Naval Intelligence’s discovery of German U-boats dangerously close to New York’s harbors and urgent calls to Luciano’s friend and trusted associate, Meyer Lansky, seeking help. This will lead to Luciano’s protection of New York’s waterfront via his close ties to waterfront boss, Albert Anastasia and the crucial support he lends to the allied forces that result in German troops retreating from Italy.
In Sicily, Luciano’s name and influence will provide local intelligence and manpower that result in one of World War II most stunning and history shaping victories as German forces are blinded by unanticipated strength and are eventually driven out of the country.
Luciano always knew there would be a price to pay for living the life of a mafia don. Once you go down that road, you don’t get to wash it off. There are always going to be uncomfortable consequences you have to live with. It’s the price you pay. In Lucky’s case, you don’t marry and you don’t have kids lest they become targets for your enemies.
In a life like his, you accept the good with the bad and you trust virtually no one. But when you help your government defeat the greatest existential threat in its history, can you trust them to let you stay in the country you love?
A 68,350 TON MOB HIT?
The SS Normandie torched on the New York waterfront.
VITO GENOVESE
A wolf in sheep’s clothing, Genovese will play the role of Iago to Luciano’s Othello. Genovese and Lucky’s relationship is seeded as soldiers for both Masseria and Maranzano. When Luciano assumes the role of Chairman of The Commission, Genovese works overtime to curry favor with him. Ruthless and a good earner, with a toughness that belies his 5’7” frame, Genovese bides his time and is able to briefly become boss of Luciano’s family when Lucky is sent to prison. But when Genovese flees for Italy in the wake of a murder indictment, he gets involved in the heroin business with the son of Benito Mussolini, Sicily’s sworn enemy. Soon, his unbridled greed and long-suppressed ambitions to usurp Luciano’s power and organizational directives will become abundantly manifest. When it becomes clear that Genovese’s efforts in Sicily put him on the wrong side of history, he will switch sides.
But his relations with Luciano will never be the same again. In the distant future, Genovese will assume Luciano’s family name.
Giuseppe Antonio Doto “JOE ADONIS”
Handsome and unusually narcissistic as his self-applied name would imply, Adonis never met a mirror he didn’t love. His relationship with Lucky is seeded when, through an introduction to Philadelphia bootlegger Waxey Gordon, Luciano funds the initial transactions which will eventually morph into New York’s pre-eminent bootlegging operation. This in turn helps seed Adonis’s other businesses, which include vending machines that carry stolen and counterfeit goods as well as straight up legit businesses such as car dealerships.
A close associate of Luciano’s prior to his incarceration, Adonis’s loyalty to him will begin to fade when Adonis moves his base of operation from Brooklyn to New Jersey and he achieves significant success apart from the influence of the other families.
But Luciano’s not about to let him forget the score: I made you.
MEYER LANSKY
People often remarked that Lansky could finish Luciano’s sentences; he was so attuned to the way Lucky organized his thoughts that long-winded explanations and planning between them was rarely necessary.
But where Lucky is flashy, runs with a lot of different women and enjoys the limelight and the company of politicians and celebrities, Lansky maintains a low profile, a fastidious, stealthy, operator with a mathematician’s brain committed to a long-running, if somewhat loveless marriage. As The Commission is formed, Lansky becomes its CFO, the man Lucky trusts to make sure that gargantuan profits from the mafia’s various businesses get allocated in ways that keep the peace among mafia family members with often changing agendas.
During Lucky’s imprisonment, it is Lansky who will provide the critical connective tissue between Lucky, the government and Lucky’s associates in New York and in Sicily, carrying messages and handling crucial negotiations between the various parties. But Lucky’s imprisonment will dilute his authority with members of the other mafia families and also begin a long, slow change in Lansky’s relationship with him, one that was seeded as teenagers running small scams on New York’s lower east side. When Lansky’s business interests, principally gambling, shift to south Florida and Cuba, their communication becomes less frequent and Lucky begins to wonder to what extent Lansky really has his back.
FRANK COSTELLO
A longtime associate of Luciano’s, Costello is, like Lansky, a thinking man’s mobster. Well dressed and an inveterate skirt chaser despite his confirmed marital status, Costello argues internally for movement into businesses that are both lucrative and non-violent in nature. Even so, when the feud between two bosses of the old Sicilian order (Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano) threatens to destroy much of the business he’s set up with partners, Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, it is Costello who plots the demise of both and becomes Luciano’s consigliere. As one of the Luciano family’s biggest earners, Costello becomes New York’s slot machine king with 25,000 of them placed in virtually every gas station and convenience store in the area.
After Luciano is sent to prison and acting boss Vito Genovese flees for Italy in the wake of a murder indictment, Costello will become the acting boss of Luciano’s family. Costello’s selfless ways in helping determine financial allocations and steady hand with Lansky in massaging Lucky’s interests to key government officials, make him a popular leader in Lucky’s absence. But he underestimates the growing menace that Vito Genovese will come to represent.
ALBERT ANASTASIA
As one of the founding members of Murder, Inc., Anastasia is generally considered the most dangerous and feared hitman of his era.
A longtime Luciano ally, Anastasia’s instinct for killing —even at random— and otherwise erratic, psychopathic behavior threatens Lucky’s ability to keep the peace within La Costra Nostra, especially when Vito Genovese begins invading Anastasia’s rackets. But when Genovese seeks exile in Italy and begins business dealings with the son of Benito Mussolini, the mafia’s sworn enemy, it is Anastasia who becomes a key player in Luciano’s war plan, putting Genovese on notice for his betrayal and using his power as the mafia’s CEO of the New York harbors to discourage the menacing advance of German U-boats.
BENJAMIN “BUGSY” SEIGEL
Hot headed and impulsive, Bugsy earned his stripes with Luciano through his willingness to be in the first man to battle in any fight. A co-founder of Murder, Inc. with Anastasia, Siegel is hands on in the murder of Joe Masseria, plays a critical role in the building and growth of many of the mafia’s enterprises including the lucrative bootlegging operation and is a close, loyal associate to both Lucky and longtime friend, Meyer Lansky. But Siegel’s shoot first, ask questions later mentality does not serve him well when, in the wake of Luciano’s incarceration he exiles to Hollywood and decides to take over the construction of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas from a developer who has run out of money. Taping mafia funds and over promising, Siegel’s antics will become a huge headache for Lucky as he attempts to sustain his power during his incarceration.
VINCENT BARBI
At the height of his fame and notoriety just before Dewey locks him up on a trumped up prostitution charge, Luciano sizes up a new doorman, Vincent Barbi, at a club owned by Vito Genovese. Barbi is on the down stroke of his life, scraping by, trying to make ends meet after a broken hand ended a promising boxing career. Luciano, ever a master at sizing people up, senses qualities in Barbi that he values above all else—a man with a strong instinct for loyalty, a man who can handle himself in any situation and a man whose life experiences thus far has left him with something to prove.
Barbi morphs into Luciano’s man for all seasons, his valet, bodyguard, sounding board, protector, cook and, when Luciano’s sentenced to prison, the man who becomes his most frequent visitor, the carrier of his messages to the outside world.
But as their relationship develops into perhaps the closest one Luciano will ever have, there is one thing Barbi wants that Lucky will never give him. He’ll never allow him to be a made man in the mafia, to be the person Lucky had to become to be who he is. As our story unfolds, ending with Luciano’s exile to Italy and the further erosion of his power, Barbi’s character will understand that Luciano’s refusal to allow him to enter the mafia was the ultimate act of friendship and love. As Barbi watches Lucky’s ship depart for Sicily, he realizes that, as much as he admires Luciano and coveted his life, he has something Luciano will never have again: the ability to live in the city he loves.
THOMAS DEWEY
As New York’s attorney general, Dewey is bent on making his name by destroying Lucky’s name and reputation and enters our story as Luciano’s arch nemesis. To bolster his outsized political ambitions, Dewey presents himself as a beacon of moral certitude. And what better target than New York’s most famous king of vice. His strategy? Tarnish Lucky’s glamorous image by connecting him to New York’s many mob-run houses of ill repute.
When Lucky is sent to prison after Dewey obtains forced confessions from numerous women, Luciano unveils a plan to secure an early release by assisting US Naval Intelligence in their war effort with the Allied Forces. This puts Dewey personal animus for Lucky on a collision course with the needs of his own government, in particular the reasoning of Charles Haffenden, Naval Intelligence’s lead wartime investigator.
Luciano, assisted principally by Costello and Lansky will engage in a lengthy dance with Dewey who will eventually put his political aspirations ahead of his veiled promises regarding the conditions of Lucky’s early prison release.
GAY ORLOVA
A Russian émigré and former Broadway actress, Orlova meets Lucky shortly before his sentencing for prostitution and just after her own failed marriage to a Broadway ticket taker. Orlova’s attraction to Lucky is instant and she falls hopelessly in love. She proceeds, knowing that many women are vying for his attention and that the likelihood of a permanent union is remote at best. But for Orlova, hope springs eternal for this unusually determined woman and throughout Lucky’s incarceration, she earns Lucky’s respect through her loyalty and his sense that it is he and not his money, fame or notoriety that she desires.
“L” is for LUCIANO – Sicliy 1943
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SS NORMANDIE to USS LAFAYETTE to MOB VICTIM
It was one of the greatest spectacles of its era. On February 9, 1942, with Hitler’s troops advancing steadily across Europe and rumors of German U-boats lingering just outside New York’s harbors, the SS Normandie, once the pride of the French Navy and the largest ocean liner in the world sank like a wounded beast on the city’s waterfront.
Newspapers across the U.S. screamed in unison that it could only have been an act of war. But was it actually the handiwork of Luciano associate, Albert Anastasia? One intended to send a message of what could be given where the war was going?
LOUIS “LEPKE” BUCHALTER
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