Real Life Bootleggers: How and When They Died

Al Capone, Arnold Rothstein, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky are some of the real life gangsters that appear in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire using their real names.

Nucky Thompson, as we already know is based upon Enoch “Nucky” Johnson, but since they are using an alias, they can and have changed quite a bit about his life. Likewise Eli Thompson, based upon Nucky’s brother, Alfred Higbee Johnson.

The same goes for Mickey Doyle who is based upon real life gangster, Mickey Duffy, who was shot to death at the Ambassador Hotel in Atlantic City on 8/31/1931. Duffy was approximately 43 years old when he met his violent end, but it doesn’t look like Mickey Doyle will ever reach that ripe age.

As for the prominent bootleggers who figure in Boardwalk Empire and are going by their real names, here’s how and when they really died.

Al Capone, 48, was sent to prison in 1932, convicted of five counts of tax evasion and failing to file tax returns. He got out on parole in November of 1939, suffering from neurosyphilis. He spent the last 8 years of his life at his mansion in Palm Springs, FL, Capone had a stroke on 1/21/1947, then contracted pneumonia. He had a heart attack the next day. He died on 1/25/1947 and was buried at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois.

Arnold Rothstein, 46,was found shot to death in a hotel room at Park Central Hotel in New York City on 11/4/1928. He refused to identify the shooter and died the next day. There was apparently enough circumstantial evidence to arrest and try George “Hump” McManus on the theory that Rothstein was knocked off for failing to honor a huge gambling debt. It wasn’t enough for the judge, however, who acquitted McManus. The case remains unsolved.

Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, 41, was killed in the home of Virginia Hill on 6/20/1947. Shots were fired through the window, hitting him multiple times, with two bullets to the head. No one was ever charged with his still officially unsolved murder. He was buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California.

Charles “Lucky” Luciano, 64, was deported and lived out most of his final years in Naples, Italy. On 1/26/1962, he had a heart attack while en route to the airport to meet an American producer named Martin Gosch, who was going to make a film about Luciano’s life. Permission was obtained from the U.S. Government to bury him in the United States and his remains were transported back to the States. He was buried in St. John’s Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens.

Dean O’Banion, 32, was killed in his flower shop on 11/10/1924. Frankie Yale came by with two Torrio/Capone gunmen, John Scalise and Albert Anselmi. When O’Banion attempted to shake Yale’s hand, he was killed.

Frankie Yale, 35, was killed with a tommy gun on 7/1/1928 in Manhattan. Al Capone is believed to have ordered his killing. The tommy gun that killed him was later used in the St. Valentine’s Massacre. Al Capone was questioned extensively but no charges were ever filed in the murder. Buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Queens, he was given a lavish funeral that set a standard later mobland funerals would be compared to.

Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria, 45, was shot to death on 4/15/1931 at a favorite eatery, Nuova Villa Tammaro in Coney Island. He was shot 5 times with 2 different caliber guns. His murder has been attributed to Albert Anastasia, Bugsy Siegel, Joe Adonis and Vito Genovese, with Ciro Terranova as a get-away driver so rattled that Siegel had to drive. Lucky Luciano was said to have been dining with Joe the Boss at the time; however, this account has been frequently disputed and only two gunmen appeared in other versions. No one was ever charged with the crime.

Hymie Weiss, 28, was gunned down on 10/11/1926 outside the Schofield Flower Shop, where his boss was murdered two years earlier. Legend has it that one bullet nicked the cornerstone of Holy Name Cathedral across the street.

Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, 69, died of a heart attack at St. Hubert’s Old English Grill and Chop House in Chicago on 2/21/1956. The incident where Capone kills a man who beat on Guzik is true to some extent but it occurred in May of 1924. The man was a freelance hijacker named Joe Howard and Capone murdered him with a gun after Howard insulted him.

Johnny Torrio, 75, survived an attempt on his life on 1/24/1925 in retaliation for the O’Banion murder. After recovering and doing a little time for Prohibition violations, he turned over the reins to Capone. He died in Brooklyn, NY on 4/16/1957, after suffering a heart attack in a barber shop.

Meyer Lansky, 80, died of lung cancer at his Miami Beach home on 1/15/1983. Unlike Capone, he had beaten (in 1974) the government’s attempt to get him on tax evasion.

Owney Madden, 73, succumbed to emphysema in a hospital on 4/24/1965, some 30 years after he had left New York. He settled down in Hot Springs, AK, and ran a casino and supper club.

Salvatore Maranzano, 45, was shot and stabbed to death on 9/10/1931 by four assassins (some sources name Bugsy Siegel and Samuel “Red” Levine as two of them) at his offices on the 9th floor of the New York Central Building (now the Helmsley Building) at 230 Park Avenue in Manhattan. Who sent the killers? Various sources say it was Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lanksy while others say it was Dutch Schultz and Lanksy.

Waxey Gordon, 64, went into the heroin business in his later years and that proved his undoing. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for tax evasion and 25 years for drug trafficking. He died of a heart attack in Alcatraz on 6/24/1952.