Showing posts with label Joe Adonis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Adonis. Show all posts

26 November 2024

Joe 'Adonis' Doto dies in exile

On this date in 1971:

New York Daily News

Giuseppe Doto, better known by gangland nickname Joe Adonis, died Friday, November 26, 1971, at the general hospital in Ancona, Italy. He was sixty nine years old. Death was caused by complications of pneumonia and heart disease.

Born in Montemarano, near Naples, late in 1901, young Doto entered the U.S. with his parents and settled in Brooklyn. As Adonis, he grew into a U.S. Mafia powerhouse from the days of Prohibition into the 1950s. Hounded by city authorities in the early 1940s, he relocated to the Fort Lee, New Jersey, area. Though involved in numerous rackets for decades, he managed to avoid prison until a New Jersey gambling conviction in 1951 earned him a two- to three-year sentence.

In 1954, he got into some trouble due to his under-oath claims of being born in Passaic, New Jersey. A supporting record was found to be fraudulent, and Adonis was traced to his origin in Montemarano. Faced with prison sentences and likely deportation for perjury, Adonis agreed to leave the country.

Leaving behind his wife Jean and four children in New Jersey, he sailed for Italy aboard the ocean liner Conte Biancamano in 1956 (reportedly booking an expensive three-room cabin for the trip). He stayed for a time with relatives in the Naples area, but eventually settled in downtown Milan in northern Italy.

He was reported to be weak and in poor health in spring of 1971, when authorities decided that his apparent continuing underworld connections were a threat to order. A court sentenced him to four years of close police surveillance in the small community of Serra de Conti, about twenty five miles inland of the Adriatic coastal community of Ancona. At the time, Adonis protested his relocation: "I'm just a poor old man. I don't understand what you've got against me." He called the sentence an exile within an exile and expressed his certainty that the move "will kill me."

On appeal, Adonis succeeded in having the surveillance sentence reduced from four years to three. But he was losing a battle against pneumonia. On November 23, 1971, he was admitted to the hospital in Ancona. When he died, a few days later, his thirty-two-year-old secretary, Rosemarie Bloch, was by his bedside. According to one report, Adonis's wife and two of their four children, learning of his illness, flew to Italy and arrived in Ancona just minutes before he passed away.

Rosemarie Bloch and Adonis's daughter, Mrs. Dolores Maria Olmo, made arrangements with the U.S. consulate at Rome to have Adonis's remains flown back to the U.S. for burial. The body arrived at Kennedy Airport in New York on December 2. It was contained in a burnished bronze coffin in the cargo hold of an Alitalia jet. The A.K. Macagna Funeral Home of Anderson Avenue in Fort Lee, New Jersey, handled the final arrangements. 

Adonis was buried at Madonna Cemetery in Fort Lee on December 6. His send-off was modest by gangland standards. Three cars of floral tributes led a cortege of fifteen cars between the funeral home and Epiphany Church, where a funeral Mass was celebrated. Family members and close friends proceeded on to Madonna Cemetery, straddling the Fort Lee-Leonia boundary. They were met there by a group of newsmen. The family left the site before the coffin was lowered into the ground.

Sources 

  • "Adonis to lie in N.J. grave," New York Daily News, Nov. 30, 1971, p. 80.
  • "Adonis' body returned for U.S. burial," Newsday (Nassau Edition), Dec. 3, 1971, p. 33.
  • "Adonis' mourners," photo caption, Newsday (Nassau Edition), Dec. 7, 1971, p. 32.
  • "Joe Adonis one of 8 cited in Dewey reply," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 3, 1937, p. 1.
  • "Joe Adonis, underworld gambling king, dies," New York Times, Nov. 27, 1971, p. 34.
  • Charlton, Linda, "Returned to Italy in '56," New York Times, Nov. 27, 1971, p. 34.
  • Lee, Henry, "Joe Adonis dies unwanted," New York Daily News, Nov. 27, 1971, p. 2.
  • Murray, Leo, "Offer birth certificates from Italy in Adonis case," Paterson NJ Morning Call, Jan. 15, 1954, p. 1.
  • Packard, Reynolds, "Adonis' kin here asks for body," New York Daily News, Nov. 28, 1971, p. 14.
  • Plosia, Les, "Few turn out for Adonis burial," Passaic NJ Herald-News, Dec. 7, 1971, p. 12.
  • Pugh, Thomas, "The late Joe Adonis home again," New York Daily News, Dec. 3, 1971, p. 4.
  • Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Part 7, New York - New Jersey, U.S. Senate, 81st Congress 2nd Session, 82nd Congress 1st Session, Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951, p. 280-301. 

26 January 2017

55 Years Ago Today: Lucky Luciano's Death

January 26, 1962. Charles 'Lucky' Luciano suffers fatal heart attack.
Having just endured yet another session of police interrogation (this time was about a drug ring), Lucky Luciano was exhausted but determined to keep a scheduled meeting with would-be biopic producer Martin Gosch.  The latter was arriving from Spain, where he'd taken up a home-away-from-home in the late 1950's. Gosch had been meeting with Luciano periodically since at least 1960.  Both wanted a movie made, although Lucky and movie producers historically had great differences of opinion in storyline.

The pair did in fact meet at the Capodichino airport in Naples on January 26, 1962. Gosch's plane arrived just after 4:00 pm, and he was greeted by Lucky and an English-speaking police officer named Cesare Resta (Luciano invited Resta to help prove he was not making drug deals). Inside, Lucky sipped on a fruit drink, chatting with Gosch. Shortly after 5:00 pm, as they were walking toward Lucky's car in the parking lot, the aging gangster stumbled, uttering the last words, "Martin, Martin."

Gosch knew Lucky had a heart condition, but it was too late (when onlookers saw the producer trying to place a pill in the fallen man's mouth the foundation for conspiracy theories was inadvertently laid).  The airport's on-staff physician arrived, placed a stethoscope to Luciano's chest, then clearly stated the finality of situation, albeit in a laconic, matter-of-fact way - "This man is dead."

Prior the the official autopsy report, rumors of 'poisoning' were published.  Once the autopsy was revealed to the public (months later) it showed the true non-dramatic reality... Lucky Luciano had a bad heart and that bad heart gave out..  Still, there continued to be whispers of assassination, carried out to silence the once great mob boss ( be it for the proposed movie, or his alleged drug ring). Despite the media misreporting, conspiracies, and - even if it was true - the 'International Drug Ring' implications that dogged him for decades... Lucky Luciano got to have his day, because soon he would be going home. 
1962, Naples Italy. Mourners pay last respects to Lucky Luciano at the Cemetery of Poggioreale.


"No solemn funeral service can be celebrated for someone who lives in 'obvious concubinage'." - Don Guido San Martino, officiating priest of the Most Holy Trinity Church of St. Joachim.

On January 29th, Don Guido San Martino, priest of the Most Holy Trinity Church of St. Joachim, gave requiem mass for Luciano.  The priest publicly stated the mass would be "without special pomp" and he felt great discomfort knowing the deceased party's 'live-in' relationship with twenty-four year old Adriana Risso (sometimes identified as Rizzo).  As for the whole 'gangster' element, the priest apparently wasn't quite as concerned, stating the service was - "For his soul and has nothing to do with what his life may have been."

Well, the service contradicted the priest's plans, yet surely unfolded just as the hordes of cops (American and Italian, plainclothes and uniform) expected.  There was pushing, shoving and verbal threats, mostly all aimed at the estimated one-hundred and fifty reporters present. Among those in attendance who were not press or police:  Lucky's brother Bartolo, nephew Salvatore, girlfriend Adriana Risso, a few American wiseguys, and although confined by law to remain in the town of Avellino's borders,  another deported gangster/friend, Joe Adonis, sent a wreath adorn with the phrase, "So Long Pal."

"Be quiet or I warn you I am going to knock someone on the head." - Unidentified elderly mourner threatening a photographer.

Luciano's mahogany casket left the church in an ornate hearse pulled by eight horses. Brother Bartolo had been trying secure permission to bring Lucky's remains back to New York for burial in the family mausoleum, so in the interim the casket would be kept in the chapel of the Cemetery of Poggioreale.  On February 7th, 1962, Salvatore 'Charlie Lucky Luciano' Lucania officially came home.  Without any religious service this time, Luciano reached his final resting place - St. John's Cemetery in Queens, New York.  He purchased the mausoleum in 1935 (reports of the pricetag vary in range from $25,000 and $30,000), and was designed with capacity for up to sixteen coffins.




A few interesting things that happened within the weeks and months and years following Lucky Luciano's death:

  • Bartolo Lucania evicted Adriana Risso from Lucky's apartment.
  • The official autopsy report was released that June, debunking the 'poison' theories.
  • Cameron Mitchell, the American actor who agreed to play the role of Lucky in Gosch's planned movie production, received multiple death threats, presumed to be from Italian Mafia.
  • Gosch never made a biopic, but did collaborate with Richard Hammer to create the highly-contentious book 'The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano.'
  •  Gosch was actually working for producer Barnett Glassmen, according to a 1975 New York Times 'Letter to the Editor.' The letter further claims Luciano didn't particularly like Gosch and basically discussed a 'fictional' story, not memoir.
  • Adriana Risso, Lucky's last love interest, was one of five beneficiaries listed to receive royalties from the book's sales.
  •  
Sources:

Tension Marks Lucky's Funeral. Reuters. New York Post, January 29, 1962, p. 20.
Luciano's Funeral is Today. AP. The Kingston Daily Freeman, January 1962, p. 1.
Cipollini, Christian. Lucky Luciano: Mysterious Tales of a Gangland Legend, Strategic Media Books, 2014.
Summers, Anthony & Robbyn Swan. Sinatra: The Life, Vintage, 2006.
Rick Porrello's American Mafia
Scaduto, Tony. Letter to the Editor. New York Times. 27 April 1975.