The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America by Gus Russo

Author:Gus Russo [Russo, Gus]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: American Government, WI), Political Science, Midwest, Organized Crime, Midwest (IA, Murder, Government, True Crime, Local, ND, NE, Serial Killers, State & Local, United States, IL, IN, History, Chicago (Ill.), OH, MO, MN, MI, General, KS, Mafia, SD, Midwest (IA; IL; IN; KS; MI; MN; MO; ND; NE; OH; SD; WI)
ISBN: 9780747566519
Google: d5V8PwAACAAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2004-07-31T22:00:00+00:00

Other

Outfit

members

had

maintained a presence in the Cuban

paradise. As captured in photos in

extant

family

albums,

Curly

Humphreys had been traveling with

his family to Cuba at least since the

early 1940s. Likewise, it was oft

reported that Joe Accardo enjoyed

regular deep-sea-fishing vacations

to Cuba and other Caribbean

destinations.

However,

it

is

unknown if they conducted gang

business on these outings. Despite

the dearth of offshore intelligence,

hints of the Chicago gang’s growing

interest

can

be

seen

most

conspicuously in the movements of

Johnny Rosselli, always the most

visible of the core Outfit members.

After the Kefauver circus, Johnny

Rosselli’s star began to dim in

Tinseltown. When his friend Brian

Foy left Eagle Lion Studios, the

owners let Rosselli’s contract

expire, while Johnny’s parole

adviser was telling him that the best

way to avoid suspicion was to hold

down regular employment. The loss

of the Eagle Lion gig was stressful,

but it was the dismissal of Johnny

by his longtime pal Harry Cohn of

Columbia that convinced “Mr.

Smooth” to seek out greener

pastures. Cohn stunned Rosselli

when he refused to give him a

producer’s job on the studio lot.

“Johnny, how could I give you a

job?”

Cohn

asked.

“The

stockholders would scalp me.”

“You’re a rotten shit,” an angry

Rosselli fired back. “Did the

stockholders complain when I got

ten years of prison because of you?”

There

is

some

compelling

evidence

that

before

Rosselli

abandoned Flollywood he managed

to redress his snub by Cohn. At the

time, the once meteoric career of

gangster hanger-on Frank Sinatra

was in free fall. With his voice in

great disrepair, his marriage to Ava

Gardner failing fast, and his MGM

film contract recently canceled,

“The Voice” was believed by his

closest friends to be on the verge of

suicide. Meanwhile, Harry Cohn

was casting for the World War II

film From Here to Eternity. Sinatra

had read the book and was

obsessed with landing the role of

Private Angelo Maggio, a scrawny

Italian-American soldier with a

heart bigger than that of GI Joe. It

was believed at the time that the

film would be awash in Oscar

nominations the following year, and

Sinatra

envisioned

the

film’s

resuscitating his flagging career.

The trouble was that Harry Cohn

wanted only legitimate seasoned

actors to read for the part.

Sinatra managed to sit down with

Cohn, and over lunch the producer

pulled no punches. “Look, Frank,

that’s an actor’s part, a stage actor’s

part,” Cohn told the crooner.

“You’re nothing but a fucking

hoofer.”

Dismayed but not yet resigned to

defeat, Sinatra had his white-hot

actress wife, Ava Gardner, lobby

his case with Cohn’s better half.

Other friends were conscripted into

the cause, but Cohn gave little

indication that he was interested in

Sinatra. At this point, according to a

number of well-placed sources,

Sinatra enlisted the aid of the

Outfit’s Johnny Rosselli. News

reports initially surfaced that noted

New York Commission boss Frank

Costello was telling friends that his

longtime pal Frank Sinatra had

approached him for help with the

Cohn situation. Columnist John J.

Miller told writer Kitty Kelley that

this was not uncommon. “Sinatra

and Frank C. were great pals,”

Miller

remembered.

“I

know

because I used to sit with Frank C.

at the Copa and Sinatra would join

us all the time. He was always

asking favors of the old man, and

whenever Sinatra had a problem, he

went to Frank C. to solve it.”

Apparently,

this

newest

accommodation was facilitated by

the Outfit’s Johnny Rosselli.

Although studio executives have

denied that a Rosselli intervention

ever took place, Rosselli admitted

his role to his niece shortly before

his death many years later. Former

publicist and Rosselli pal Joe Seide

said in 1989 that one of Costello’s

key men told him how he had flown

to L.A. to enlist the Outfit’s

Rosselli in the cause. According to

Seide: “The Maggio role, Sinatra

wasn’t going to get it.

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