Born: August 24, 1902, Palermo, Sicily
Died: October 15, 1976, Long Island, New
York
Nicknames: Don Carlo, The Godfather
Associations: Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Tommy
Lucchese, Paul Castellano, John Gotti Small in
stature with a prominent nose and sporting an
almost-permanent friendly grin used to disarm
detractors, Carlo Gambino was the American Mafia’s
most powerful and respected don from the late 1950s
until he died peacefully of natural causes in 1976
as the face of organized crime in New York City.
Known for his quiet, understated demeanor and
razor-sharp criminal savvy, Gambino was a teenage
hitman in Sicily, alleged to be “made” into the
Mafia overseas before coming to the United States in
1921 at age 19 and going to work for cousins
connected to gangland factions in New York. His
cousins were employed by East Coast Prohibition-era
Mob boss Salvatore “Toto” D’Aquila, for whom he too
immediately went to work.
When D’Aquila was killed by rival gangster Giuseppe
“Joe the Boss” Masseria in 1928, Gambino shifted his
allegiance to the Masseria gang, which fought a
four-year war for underworld supremacy in New York
against Salvatore Maranzano, a crime lord hailing
from a different section of Sicily than Masseria and
Gambino did. At the end of the war, Masseria and
Maranzano were gone, shot dead in ambushes, and the
modern-day American Mafia was formed.
Gambino went on to become an original member of one
of the five New York crime families designated under
the La Cosa Nostra banner, the one belonging to
Vincent Mangano and the one that eventually would be
named for him. In the 1930s, Gambino was convicted
of running an illegal liquor still and served almost
two years in federal prison, the last time he would
ever serve time behind bars.
Mangano and his brother, Philip, were slain on the
same day in 1951 on the orders of Mangano’s
underboss, Albert Anastasia, and six years later, in
the fall of 1957, Gambino himself orchestrated
Anastasia’s murder and assumed command of the crime
family for the next 19 years. Under his guidance,
the Gambino syndicate expanded into territories and
rackets it hadn’t in the past, taking almost
complete control of labor unions on the New York and
New Jersey waterfront, at JFK Airport and in the
trucking, construction and garment industries along
the entire East Coast. They profited handsomely from
an array of white-collar scams and finance-district
fleeces.
The unofficial chairman of the board of the Mafia’s
Commission – the ruling council made up of the
country’s most important dons – Gambino was beloved
by his men and many of his fellow godfathers in New
York and across the nation. He forged strong ties
with Mob bosses in New England, New Jersey, New
Orleans, Florida, Chicago, California, Pennsylvania
and Detroit, among other locales, broadening his
reach well beyond his Empire State stomping grounds.
Gambino discouraged narcotics trafficking among his
troops, instituting a “deal and die” policy. He was
leery of the long sentences they could incur for
drug offenses, which could provide reason for them
to cooperate with authorities. He preferred instead
to stick to traditional Mob rackets such as
bookmaking, loansharking, hijacking and extortion,
as well as maintaining as much a presence as
possible in the labor unions.
He married his son off to the daughter of fellow New
York Mafia boss Tommy “Three-Finger Brown” Lucchese,
and he was cousin and brother-in-law to Paul
Castellano, one of his highest-earning crew bosses.
Hounded by the FBI for decades, such as in 1970 when
he was indicted for masterminding a major East Coast
burglary ring, the government never nailed him. He
was known for offering arresting FBI agents coffee
and dessert at his home before they took him in for
booking.
Two years later, in 1972, Gambino’s 30-year-old
nephew Manny was kidnapped and murdered by an Irish
Mob crew led by James “Jimmy from Queens” McBratney.
The Irish hoodlums had been kidnapping Italian
Mafiosi and extorting six-figure cash ransoms for
their release for more than a year when they grabbed
the younger Gambino. Demanding swift vengeance,
Gambino called on John Gotti, then an up-and-comer
in the ranks of his crime family and the protégé of
his underboss Neil Dellacroce. Gotti, his best
friend Angelo “Fat Angie” Ruggiero and another
wiseguy named Ralph “Ralphie Wigs” Galione gunned
down McBratney in a Staten Island tavern in May
1973. They all eventually were convicted and
imprisoned for the crime.
Carlo Gambino battled health problems in his later
years, finally succumbing to heart disease on
October 15, 1976, at his Long Island waterfront
home. Before dying, Gambino controversially bypassed
his No. 2 in charge, Dellacroce, in favor of his
brother-in-law Castellano, a more corporate-style
goodfella, leaving his syndicate on shaky ground in
subsequent years. Dellacroce’s death from lung
cancer in early December 1985 and Castellano’s
decision to skip his underboss’s wake brought about
a Gambino clan coup, in which Dellacroce’s pupil,
Gotti, staged the murder of Castellano and his
right-hand man, Tommy Bilotti, on a crowded
Manhattan street in front of the popular Sparks
Steak House and grabbed control of the crime family
by force.
The title character in the most critically acclaimed
Mob movie of all time, The Godfather, was inspired
in part by Carlo Gambino.
More than 40 years after Gambino’s death, the New
York crime family is still named for him. Although
decimated by the federal crackdown during the Gotti
era, the Gambino family is still involved in various
criminal activities in Brooklyn and Staten Island.