- Frank Nitti
Infobox Person
name=Francesco Nitto
image_size=150px
caption=
birth_date=birth date|1888|1|27|mf=y
birth_place=Sicily ,Italy
death_date=death date and age|1943|3|19|1888|1|27|mf=y
death_place=Chicago ,Illinois , U.S.Francesco Raffaele Nitto, better known as, "Frank 'The Enforcer' Nitti" (
January 27 ,1888 –March 19 ,1943 ) was an Italian-Americangangster , one of the top henchmen of Alphonse "Big Al," "Scarface" Capone and later the front man for themob Capone created, theChicago Outfit .Early life and prohibition
Frank Nitti was born in
Sicily in the 1880s; his gravestone lists his birth year as 1888, but his USimmigration documents say 1883. Heemigrated toNew York City after the end ofWorld War I , and later moved toChicago , where he set up business as abarber , with a profitable line as a small-time jewelthief and fence on the side. Nitti built an extensive network of associates in the Chicago underworld, and eventually came to the attention of Chicagocrime boss John "Johnny The Fox" Torrio.Under Torrio's successor,
Al Capone , Nitti's reputation soared. Nitti ran Capone'sProhibition -busting liquor smuggling and distribution operation, importingwhiskey fromCanada and selling it through a network of speakeasies around Chicago. Nitti was one of Capone's top lieutenants, trusted for his leadership skills and business acumen. In fact, Capone thought enough of Nitti that when he briefly went to prison in 1929, he named Nitti as a member of atriumvirate that ran the mob in his place. Nitti was head of operations, with Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik as head of administration andCharlie Fischetti as head of enforcement.Despite his nickname "The Enforcer", Nitti used Mafia "soldiers" and other underlings to commit violence rather than do it himself. Not that Nitti was averse to using firearms - he had, in earlier days, been one of Capone's most trusted personal bodyguards - but as he rose in the organization, his business instinct dictated that he must personally avoid the "dirty work" - that was what the hitmen were paid for.
The Outfit under Nitti
In 1931, both Frank Nitti and Al Capone were convicted of
income tax evasion and sent to prison. However, Nitti only received an 18-month sentence while Capone was sent away for 11 years. Nitti was not a troublesome prisoner, but he found the year-and-a-half confinement in a cell horrifying because of the closed-in space. When Nitti was released in 1932, the media hailed him as the new boss of the Capone Gang.In truth, however, Nitti was only a front man. According to crime reporter and Mafia expert
Carl Sifakis , "it was ludicrous" to expect people such as Felice "Paul 'The Waiter' Ricca" DeLucia, Tony Accardo, Jake Guzik and Murray "The Camel" Humphreys to take orders from Nitti. By all accounts, Ricca had the real power by at least 1932 and was clearly thede facto boss by 1939, even though he was technically Nitti'sunderboss . Ricca frequently overruled Nitti's orders by saying, "We'll do it this way. Now let's hear no more about it!" WhenLucky Luciano andMeyer Lansky organized theNational Crime Syndicate that year, they considered Nitti a humancipher . Lansky and Luciano dealt with Ricca, not Nitti, as the boss of the Capones.cite book |title=The Mafia Encyclopedia |last=Sifakis |first=Carl |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1987 |publisher=Facts on File |location=New York City |isbn=0816018561 ]With Nitti as the front man, the
Chicago Outfit branched out fromprostitution andgambling into other areas, including the control oflabor union s (which led to theextortion of many businesses). The mob became more streamlined at this time, and earned huge amounts of profit.On December 19, 1932, a team of Chicago police headed by
Detective Sergeants Harry Lang and Harry Miller,raid ed Nitti's office, in Room 554, at 221 N. LaSalle (Blvd.). Lang shot Nitti three times in the back and neck. He then shot himself (a minor flesh wound) to make the shooting look like self-defense, claiming that Nitti had shot him first. Court testimony later revealed that the murder attempt was personally ordered by newly-elected Chicago MayorAnton Cermak . Cermak wanted to push out the Capones in favor of gangsters who answered to him.Unfortunately for Cermak, Nitti survived the shooting. In February 1933, Nitti was
acquitted of attempted murder. During that same trial, Miller testified that Lang received $15,000 to kill Nitti. Another uniformed officer who was present at the shooting testified that Nitti was gunned down unarmed. Harry Lang and Harry Miller were both fired from the police force and each fined $100 forsimple assault .Two months later, Cermak was shot and killed by
Giuseppe Zangara , aCalabria nimmigrant . At the time, Cermak was talking toPresident-elect Franklin Roosevelt . Most historians believe that Zangara intended to kill FDR, but missed and hit Cermak instead. However, others believe that Nitti ordered a hit on Cermak, and thecontract eventually went to Zangara. Zangara had been known as one of the Italian Army's bestmarksmen before coming to the United States, leading to speculation that Cermak had been the intended target after all.Downfall and death
In 1943, many top members of the Chicago Outfit were indicted for extortion. These individuals included Nitti, Ricca, Louis "Little New York" Campagna,
Ralph Pierce , Filippo "John 'Handsome Johnny' Roselli" Sacco,Nick Circella ,Phil D'Andrea , and Charles "Cherry Nose" Gioe. The Outfit was accused of trying to strong arm some of the largest Hollywoodmovie studio s, includingMGM Studios ,Paramount Pictures ,20th Century Fox ,Columbia Pictures , andRKO Radio Pictures . The studios had cooperated with The Outfit to avoid union trouble stirred up by the mob.At a meeting of Outfit leaders at Nitti's home, Nitti underboss Ricca angrily blamed Nitti for the indictments. Ricca said that since this had been Nitti's scheme and that the FBI informant,
Willie Bioff , had been Nitti's trusted associate, Nitti should take the fall for the Outfit and go toprison . A severeclaustrophobic as a result of his first prison term, Nitti dreaded the idea of another prison confinement. It was also rumored that he was suffering from terminalcancer at this time. For these or other reasons, he ultimately decided to take his own life. The day before his scheduledgrand jury appearance, Nitti shared breakfast with his wife in theirRiverside, Illinois home at 712 Selborne Road. As his wife was leaving for church, Nitti told her he planned to take a walk. After his wife left, Nitti began to drink heavily. He then loaded a .32 caliber revolver, put it in his coat pocket, and walked five blocks to a local railroad yard. Two railroad workers (William F. Sebauer andLowell M. Barnett ) spotted Nitti walking on the track of an oncoming train and shouted a warning. They thought the train hit him, but Nitti had managed to jump out of the way in time. Then two shots rang out. The trainmen first thought Nitti was shooting at them, but then realized he was trying to shoot himself in the head. The two bullets went through his hat. Nitti finally sat on the ground against a fence and, with the railroad workers watching from a distance, shot himself in the head. Frank Nitti died on anIllinois Central railroad siding inNorth Riverside, Illinois onMarch 19 ,1943 .References in film
*Bruce Gordon plays Nitti in the 1959 television series "The Untouchables". This famous series depicted Treasury Department officer
Eliot Ness 's version of his struggle against the Outfit after Capone goes to prison.
*Nitti is played byHarold Stone inRoger Corman 's 1967 film, "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre".
*In a third season episode ofGreen Acres , [http://www.tv.com/green-acres/not-guilty/episode/12126/summary.html?tag=ep_list;ep_title;16:"Not Guilty"] , several characters make references to Nitti, a former client of Oliver's who gave him a still, which eventually draws the attention of a Treasury agent.
*Sylvester Stallone plays Nitti in the 1975 film "Capone", directed by Steve Carver.
*Nitti also appears inBrian DePalma 's 1987 movie "The Untouchables", in which actorBilly Drago portrays him as Capone's hitman. In the film, Nitti kills two of the members of the Untouchables before Eliot Ness, played byKevin Costner , throws him off a building and (through the roof of a car). Almost everything about Drago's character was inconsistent with Nitti in real life.
*Nitti is portrayed byAnthony LaPaglia in the 1988 TV film "Frank Nitti: The Enforcer". This film offers a relatively sympathetic portrayal of Nitti, emphasizing his double life as a gangster and devoted family man.
*Stanley Tucci 's portrayal of Nitti in the 2002 film "Road to Perdition " is much closer to the historical Nitti than Drago's character in "The Untouchables" film, although the events depicted in "The Road to Perdition" are fictional. Tucci plays Nitti as Capone's ruthless, but levelheaded advisor/right hand man who assigns the violent criminal acts to his underlings. This characterization differs from Drago's Nitti, a violent sociopath who personally (and enthusiastically) performs Capone's dirty work.
*In 1997 the Mexican lucha libre promotionAsistencia Asesoría y Administración introduced on its roster a new 3-man masked tag team, called "Los Hampones". Two of these wrestlers got gimmicks with the names of Frank Nitti andAl Capone and masks and clothes with facial traits similar to the ones of these gangsters. The third member, "El Goyo" was related to a Mexican thug bent on looting and pillaging on peasants during theMexican Civil War .Music
In the song "
Lifestylez Ov Da Poor & Dangerous " byBig L , he raps "We stormed the city, shootin shit up like Frank Nitty//We robbed kids and split the dough 50/50.Allusions in popular culture
Frank Nitti is also referenced in Brother Arthur's classic hip-hop 12-inch "Year of the Nine". The lyric - Isn't it a pity, that livin' in the city is like livin' in the times of Frank Nitti - was perhaps made more famous by Group Home in the chorus to their popular song "Up Against The Wall"
Frank Nitti is referenced in twiztid's track "bonus flavor" by jamie madrox the lyrics referencing are "Cause “this is how we do it” like Montel JordanI'm from Detroit city, Frank Nitti is a monerI'm blowin' it up like Oklahoma"
Frank Nitti appears on the goalie mask of Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Antero Niittymaki"
References
Further reading
*Binder, John J. "The Chicago Outfit". Arcadia Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-7385-2326-7
External links
* [http://crimemagazine.com/nitti.htm Crime Magazine: The First Shooting of Frank Nitti] by Allan May
* [http://www.gambino.com/bio/franknitti.htm Gambino.com - Frank Nitti]
* [http://members.fortunecity.com/moran9/id41.htm My Al Capone Museum: Frank Nitti]
* [http://www.carpenoctem.tv/mafia/nitti.html Seize The Night: Frank Nitti]
* [http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/nitti_frank.htm Federal Bureau of Investigation - Freedom of Information Act: Frank Nitti]
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=nitti&GSfn=f&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=2742& Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti] atFind A Grave
* [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9055959/Frank-Nitti Frank Nitti] atEncyclopædia Britannica Category:Italian-American mobsters
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.