Editing Johnny Torrio

{{Short description|Italian mob boss}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2024}}
{{Infobox criminal
| name              = Johnny Torrio
| image_name        = Johnny Torrio - 1939.jpg
| image_caption     = Torrio in 1939
| birth_name        = Donato Torrio
| birth_date        = {{birth date|1882|1|20|mf=y}}
| birth_place       = [[Montepeloso]], [[Basilicata]], [[Kingdom of Italy]]
| death_date        = {{death date and age|1957|4|16|1882|1|20|mf=y}}
| death_place       = [[New York City]], U.S.<!--No boroughs/neighborhoods, just cities per format.-->
| resting_place     = [[Green-Wood Cemetery]], Brooklyn, U.S.
| other_names       = The Fox<br />The Brain<br />Papa Johnny<br />Terrible Johnny<br />The Immune
| occupation        = [[Crime boss]]
| allegiance        = [[Chicago Outfit]]
| spouse            = {{marriage|Anna Theodosia Jacobs|1912}}
| conviction        = [[Tax evasion]] (1939)
| conviction_penalty = 2 years' imprisonment (1939)
| criminal_status   = Released
| predecessor       = [[Big Jim Colosimo]]
| successor         = [[Al Capone]]
}}

'''John Donato Torrio'''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/id198.htm|title=John D. Torrio's Personal items|website=My Al Capone Museum|quote=Always known as John, his real name at birth was Donato Torrio. This fact was found in the registry office at Irsina (Montepeloso) [...] The name John was later added when arriving to America.|access-date=March 18, 2020}}</ref> (born '''Donato Torrio''', {{IPA|it|doˈnaːto ˈtɔrrjo|lang}}; 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]].<ref name=pleads>{{cite news |agency=[[Associated Press]] |date=April 12, 1939 |title=John Torrio Pleads Guilty |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=NchOAAAAIBAJ&pg=7083,1877925&dq=johnny+torrio&hl=en |access-date=August 6, 2012|quote=Johnny (the Immune) Torrio, deciding he wasn't immune to relentless government prosecution, pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court...}}</ref> Torrio proposed a [[National Crime Syndicate]] in the 1930s and later became an adviser to [[Lucky Luciano]] and his [[Genovese crime family|Luciano crime family]].

Torrio had several nicknames, primarily "The Fox" for his cunning and finesse.<ref>{{cite book|last=Nelli|first=Humbert S.|title=The business of crime|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=1981|page=163}}</ref> The [[United States Department of the Treasury|US Treasury]] official [[Elmer Lincoln Irey|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."<ref>{{cite book|last=Folsom|first=Robert G.|title=The Money Trail|publisher=Potomac Books|year=2010|page=231}}</ref> 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".<ref>{{cite book|last=Peterson|first=Virgil W.|title=The mob: 200 years of organized crime in New York|publisher=Green Hill Publishers|year=1983|page=156}}</ref> 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".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Johnson|first1=Curt|last2=Sautter|first2=R. Craig|title=Wicked City Chicago: From Kenna to Capone|publisher=December Press|year=1994|page=363}}</ref>

==Early life==
Torrio was born in [[Irsina]] (then known as Montepeloso), [[Basilicata]], in [[Southern Italy]], to Tommaso Torrio and Maria Carluccio originally from [[Altamura]], Apulia.<ref name="De Tullio">{{cite web|last=De Tullio|first=Maurizio| date=May 18, 2015|title=Non era orsarese Johnny Torrio, padre putativo di Al Capone|language=it|url = http://letteremeridiane.blogspot.it/2015/05/non-era-orsarese-johnny-torrio-padre.html|access-date=June 17, 2016}}</ref> When he was two his father, a railway employee, died in a [[work accident]]; shortly after, Torrio immigrated to James Street on the [[Lower East Side]] of New York City with his widowed mother in December 1884.<ref name="De Tullio"/> 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;<ref>{{Cite web|last=Hunt|first=Thomas|date=June 2015|title=Just how organized was Calabrian organized crime?|url=http://mafiahistory.us/a031/f_calabrian.html|access-date=June 27, 2020|website=The American Mafia – The History of Organized Crime in the United States}}</ref> 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 (criminal)|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]], who worked at Kelly's club, admired Torrio's quick mind and looked to him as his mentor.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sifakis|first=Carl|title=The Mafia Encyclopedia|publisher=Infobase Publishing|year=2006|page=168}}</ref>

Capone had belonged to the Junior Forty Thieves, the [[Bowery Boys (gang)|Bowery Boys]] and the Brooklyn Rippers; they soon moved up to the Five Points Gang.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Burch|first1=Brian|last2=Stimpson|first2=Emily|title=The American Catholic Almanac: A Daily Reader of Patriots, Saints, Rogues, and Ordinary People Who Changed the United States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w50sDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA17|access-date=October 5, 2017|date=March 21, 2017|publisher=Image Books|isbn=978-0-553-41874-3|page=17}}</ref> One of Torrio's associates, [[Frankie Yale]], eventually hired Capone to bartend at the Harvard Inn, a bar in the [[Coney Island]] section of Brooklyn.<ref name="LScarface">{{cite web|first=Marilyn|last=Bardsley|url=http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/mob_bosses/capone/scarface_4.html|title= Scarface|access-date=March 29, 2008|work=Al Capone|publisher=Crime Library|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104161021/http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/mob_bosses/capone/scarface_4.html |archive-date=November 4, 2013}}</ref>

==Move to Chicago==
[[File:Johnny Torrio, 1903.jpg|thumb|Torrio in 1903]]

By 1909, Torrio moved to [[Chicago]]. [[James Colosimo|"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 (extortion)|Black Hand]] extortionists. After doing so, Torrio became a top lieutenant in Colosimo's organization, rising to underboss by 1914.<ref name="Binder-2017">{{cite book|last=Binder |first=John J.|year=2017 |title=Al Capone's Beer Wars: A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago during Prohibition|publisher=Prometheus|isbn=978-1633882850}}</ref>

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.<ref name=Binder-2017/>

==Colosimo murder==
When [[Prohibition in the United States|Prohibition]] went into effect in 1920, Torrio pushed for the gang to enter into [[Rum-running|bootlegging]], but Colosimo stubbornly refused. In March 1920, Colosimo secured an uncontested divorce from Victoria Moresco.<ref name=chicagodead>{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/103733013/the-vice-lord-who-fell-in-love-with-a/ |title=The Vice Lord Who Fell in Love With a Choir Singer |first=June |last=Sawyers |newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]] |page=163 |date=July 26, 1987 |access-date=2022-06-14 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> A month later, he and Dale Winter eloped to [[West Baden Springs, Indiana]]. Upon their return, he bought a home on the South Side.<ref name=chicagodead/> 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. <ref name=Binder-2017/> Contract killer [[Frankie Yale]] had allegedly traveled from New York to Chicago and personally killed longtime gang boss Colosimo at the behest of Torrio.<ref>Schoenberg, pgs. 62-66</ref> Although suspected by Chicago police, Yale was never officially charged.<ref>Schoenberg, pgs. 62-65</ref> Colosimo was allegedly murdered because he stood in the way of his gang making bootlegging profits, having "gone soft" after his marriage with Winter.<ref name=chicagodead/>

==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.<ref name="Binder-2017"/> 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.<ref>{{cite book|title=Capone:The Man and the Era|url=https://archive.org/details/caponemanera00berg|url-access=registration|author-link=Laurence Bergreen|last=Bergreen|first=Laurence|year=1994|publisher=Simon and Schuster Paperbacks|location=New York|isbn=978-0-684-82447-5|pages=[https://archive.org/details/caponemanera00berg/page/131 131–132]|access-date=March 18, 2020}}</ref> 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.<ref name=Binder-2017/>

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 [[Italian-American National Union|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.<ref name=Binder-2017/>

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.<ref name=Binder-2017/>

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.<ref>Bergreen, pp&nbsp;134–135</ref><ref>Bergreen, p. 138</ref><ref name="myalcaponemuseum.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/id89.htm|title=Hymie Weiss|website=My Al Capone Museum|access-date=October 2, 2018}}</ref>

==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.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sifakis|first=Carl|title=The Mafia Encyclopedia, 2nd ed.|publisher=Checkmark Books|year=1999|page=362}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author-link=Gus Russo|last=Russo|first=Gus|title=The Outfit|publisher=Bloomsbury|year=2001|pages=39, 40}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Newton-Maza|first=Mitchell|title=Disasters and Tragic Events|page=258|year=2014}}</ref><ref name=Binder-2017/>

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."<ref name="Paul Sann">{{cite book|last=Sann|first=Paul|title=The Lawless Decade: Bullets, Broads and Bathtub Gin|publisher=Courier Corporation|year=1957|page=111}}</ref> 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.<ref name = "Paul Sann"/>

==Later years and death==
[[File:Johnny Torrio (mugshot, 1936).jpg|thumb|Torrio following his 1936 arrest for [[tax evasion]]]]

In 1928, Torrio returned to the United States, as [[Benito Mussolini]] began putting pressure on [[Sicilian Mafia|the Mafia]] in Italy. He is credited with helping to organize a loose cartel of East Coast bootleggers, the [[The Combined (Group)|Big Seven]], in which many prominent gangsters, including [[Lucky Luciano]], [[Longy Zwillman]], [[Joe Adonis]], [[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,<ref>{{cite book|last=Abadinsky|first=Howard|title=Organized Crime|publisher=Cengage Learning|year=2009|page=115}}</ref> and a [[Atlantic City Conference|conference was hosted in Atlantic City]] by Torrio, Lansky, Luciano and Costello in May 1929; the [[National Crime Syndicate]] was created.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/press/atlantic_city/years-ago-the-mob-came-to-atlantic-city-for-a/article_3d2aedaa-856e-5e81-8e5a-9db020bed549.html?mode=image&photo=0|title=80 years ago, the Mob came to Atlantic City for a little strategic planning|date=May 13, 2009 |publisher=Press of Atlantic City|access-date=August 6, 2012}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite news|date=March 29, 1940|title=U.S. Sells Capone Land for Taxes|work=Daily News|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/54115188/us-sells-capone-land-for-taxes/}}</ref> After his release, he lived quietly until his death.<ref name="brit">{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Johnny-Torrio|title=Johnny Torrio|website=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]|access-date=March 18, 2020}}</ref>

On April 16, 1957, Torrio had a heart attack in the [[Brooklyn]] borough of [[New York City, New York]] while he was sitting in a barber's chair waiting for a haircut; he died several hours later in a nearby hospital.<ref>{{cite news|title=Johnny Torrio, Ex-Public Enemy 1, Dies; Made Al Capone Boss of the Underworld|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1957/05/08/archives/johnny-torrio-expublic-enemy-1-dies-made-al-capone-boss-of-the.html|quote=The man who put Al Capone into business died unnoticed in a Brooklyn hospital three weeks ago, it was learned yesterday...|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=May 8, 1957|access-date=August 6, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Torrio Dies. Gave Capone Racket Start|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=538yAAAAIBAJ&pg=4929,3048501&dq=johnny+torrio&hl=en|quote=Johnny Torrio, first of the bigtime bootleggers, died after a heart attack in a Brooklyn barber's chair April 16. So obscure had he become that his death went....|agency=[[Associated Press]]|date=May 8, 1957|access-date=August 6, 2012}}{{Dead link|date=March 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

==In popular culture==
Torrio has been portrayed several times in television and motion pictures:

* by [[Osgood Perkins]] in the 1932 film, ''[[Scarface (1932 film)|Scarface]]'' (as Johnny Lovo).<ref>{{cite book|last=Adler|first=Tim|title=Hollywood and the Mob: Movies, Mafia, Sex and Death|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|year=2011|page=40}}</ref>
* by [[Nehemiah Persoff]] in the 1959 film, ''[[Al Capone (film)|Al Capone]]''.
* by [[Charles McGraw]] in the 1959 television series of ''[[The Untouchables (1959 TV series)|The Untouchables]]''.
* by [[Harry Guardino]] in the 1975 film, ''[[Capone (1975 film)|Capone]]''.
* by Guy Barile in the 1992 film, ''[[The Babe (film)|The Babe]]''.
* by [[Frank Vincent]] in the 1993 ''[[Young Indiana Jones|The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles]]'' episode "Young Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Blues".
* by [[Byrne Piven]] in the pilot episode of the 1993 television series, ''[[The Untouchables (1993 TV 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]] 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==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book|last=McPhaul|first=Jack|year=1970|title=Johnny Torrio: First of the Gang Lords|location=New Rochelle, NY|publisher=Arlington House}}
* {{cite book|author-link=Gus Russo|last=Russo|first=Gus|year=2001|title=The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld In the Shaping of Modern America|publisher=Bloomsbury USA |isbn=1-58234-279-2}}
* {{cite book|author-link=Laurence Bergreen|last=Bergreen|first=Laurence|year=1994|title=Capone: The Man and the Era|location=New York City|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=978-0-684-82447-5}}

==External links==
* {{Find a Grave|1424|name=John Torrio|work=Organized Crime Figure|date=January 1, 2001|access-date=March 18, 2020}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/id37.htm|title=John D. Torrio|website=My Al Capone Museum|access-date=March 18, 2020}}

{{S-start}}
{{S-other|[[American Mafia]]}}
{{S-break}}
{{S-vac|unknown}}
{{S-ttl|title = [[Chicago Outfit]]<br />Underboss
|years = 1910–1920}}
{{S-aft|after = [[Al Capone]]}}
{{succession box
| title = [[Chicago Outfit]]<br />Boss
| before = [[Big Jim Colosimo]]
| after = [[Al Capone]]
| years = 1920–1925
}}
{{S-end}}

{{Chicago Outfit}}
{{American Mafia}}
{{Authority control}}

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