When other gangsters shouted and threatened, Carlo Gambino preferred to speak softly. While other rich mafiosos enjoyed opulent displays of wealth, Gambino retained a humble appearance that was more in line with your friendly neighborhood grocer than a Mafia don. When other mobsters mocked him or made threats, Gambino tolerated it, smiled, and looked ready to turn the other cheek.
Physically, Carlo Gambino was not an imposing figure. If the Mafia had a dodgeball team, he’d be the kid always picked last. Fellow don Joe Bonnano described him as “a squirrel of a man, a servile and cringing individual.” On the other side of the law, NYPD Chief of Detectives Albert Seedman said that Gambino “was like the hog snake, which rolls over and plays dead until trouble passes.”
This was all for show, though. From an early age, Carlo Gambino learned the value of being underestimated. He wanted others to think that he did not pose a serious threat and those who bought into the act were often in for a rude awakening.
This strategy worked out tremendously for Gambino. He was the head of the most powerful crime family in the country for almost two decades. Despite a criminal career spanning over five decades, he only spent 22 months in prison, and, when it was all said and done, he got to die peacefully of old age in his own home. That’s much more than most mobsters get, so it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to say that Carlo Gambino might have been the most successful Mafia don in American history.
Early Years
Carlo Gambino was born either on August 24 or September 1, 1902 (people seem a bit uncertain about that) in Palermo, Sicily, to Tommaso Gambino and Felice Castellano. Like many other mobsters we covered here at Biographics, young Carlo grew up in a world already dominated by the Mafia, or the Honored Society, as it was more commonly referred to in Palermo. They had money, power, and respect – everything one could ever want in life so, unsurprisingly, Gambino wanted to emulate them; to become a don himself one day and enjoy all the privileges that came with it.
Unlike most other mobsters we have covered, Gambino had something they didn’t – connections. His mother’s family, the Castellanos, were already involved in the Mafia both in Palermo and New York City, so it was easier for him than for others to get initiated into “the business.” As a teenager, he proved to be a hard worker, smart, and eager to please and was quickly labeled as a good prospect. Therefore, when he was 19 years old, Carlo Gambino was already inducted into the Honored Society after swearing a blood oath never to betray the brotherhood. Later that same year, in November 1921, Gambino climbed aboard the SS Vincenzo Florio and was smuggled into America among crates of lemons, olive oil, and Marsala wine.
As we said, Gambino already had relatives who were part of the New York mob, so his experience when he first arrived in America was markedly different than that of most other immigrants. He got a personal escort passed the immigration and customs office as everybody had already been paid off. His cousin was waiting for him in a car on the dock and drove him to his new rented apartment on Navy Street near the Brooklyn waterfront. Gambino already had a job lined up for a trucking firm belonging to the Castellanos but, of course, this was mostly just for the books – the mob wouldn’t have smuggled one man from Italy to the United States just to get a new truck driver. Instead, his cousins introduced Carlo to a few of their friends who liked to engage in illicit activities and happened to be looking for some extra help. Thanks to Prohibition, booze was the big moneymaker at the time, so Gambino soon found himself dealing in illegal hooch for the most powerful mobster in the city – Giuseppe Masseria aka “Joe the Boss.”
A New Era
The 1920s were fairly unremarkable for Gambino. He spent the years working as a low-level bootlegger for Masseria in Brooklyn. He did a little bit of everything: he made moonshine in basement stills, smuggled rum from the Caribbean, and occasionally “persuaded” speakeasy owners that his boss should be their exclusive distributor of alcoholic beverages. During this time, he also made the acquaintance of several other mobsters who, alongside him, would go on to play huge roles in the development of the American Mafia going forward. Guys like Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Vito Genovese, and Frank Costello who, by the way, we’ve already covered here at Biographics if you want more mob madness.
The 1930s were distinctly more eventful thanks to the Castellammarese War and the aftermath which significantly redistributed the balance of power in New York City. This is a subject we have talked about numerous times because it was such a pivotal moment in the history of the American Mafia so we’re just going through the cliffnotes version here.
Throughout most of the 1920s, Giuseppe Masseria was the most powerful mobster in New York. But then came a guy from Sicily named Salvatore Maranzano who challenged him. Maranzano won the war by getting Lucky Luciano, one of Masseria’s top lieutenants, to betray him and have him assassinated. With Joe the Boss dead, Maranzano organized New York’s criminal underworld into the Five Families, with himself ruling over the most powerful one and Luciano in charge of his own family as a reward for bumping off Masseria. The other three were the Profaci, Mangano, and Gagliano families. Of particular note here is the Mangano family which is the one that would eventually be taken over by Carlo Gambino.
Anyway, it turned out that Maranzano wasn’t an improvement over Masseria, as he still expected everyone else to treat him like the “boss of all bosses” and give him a cut of whatever operations they had going. The other gangsters were interested in a more egalitarian approach to crime, so Luciano and his associates had Maranzano whacked, as well. After that, they formed the Commission, a sort of “governing body” whose aim was to settle disputes and handle matters that affected their bottom line. Although, theoretically, all members of the Commission were equals, some were more equal than others, and nobody had any doubt that Lucky Luciano was the top boss, even if he didn’t have a fancy plaque that said it.
As far as Gambino was concerned, he mostly kept his head down and did as he was told as a soldier of the Mangano family, ruled over by Vincent Mangano with the aid of his brother and consigliere Philip Mangano. Gambino rose in the crime organization alongside two other men who were about as far removed from the quiet, unassuming Gambino as possible. One was Joe Adonis, a pampered and flashy narcissist who liked to show off his style and good looks to anyone within a hundred feet. He handled a lot of the shmoozing – bribes, favors, that sort of thing. And then there was Albert Anastasia, known as the “Mad Hatter” and the “Lord High Executioner.” Anastasia was an ultra-violent, fiery-tempered hitman with a “shoot first, ask never” mentality, and he was the one Mangano turned to when someone needed to be intimidated…or worse.
The 1930s had ups and downs for Gambino. He really showed his vision once Prohibition had ended. As other gangs were getting out of the moonshine business, he doubled down on it. Gambino was convinced that, even with alcohol made legal again, there was still a huge market for high-proof, cheap illegal liquor. He bought the stills and distillery equipment from other former bootleggers at heavy discounts and expanded his business. By the mid-30s, Gambino ran the largest bootlegging operation in the city and was making a fortune from it. He was rewarded for his efficiency when Mangano made him a capo and gave him his own crew. On a personal level, Gambino married his cousin, Kathryn Castellano, in 1932, and the two went on to have four children together.
Not everything went his way, though, as Gambino had troubles with the law throughout the decade. He was first arrested in 1930 in Lawrence, Massachusetts, as a suspicious person, but was let go without charge. That same year, he caught a larceny charge in Brockton and then had an arrest warrant issued for him when he failed to show up in court. Eventually, Gambino was arrested for it four years later, but the charge was dropped after he made a restitution of $1,000. In 1937, though, Carlo Gambino was found guilty of alcohol tax evasion in Philadelphia, and he was sentenced to 22 months in the Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. This would end up being the only time he spent in prison.
Changes in the Family
The 1940s were profitable for Gambino, as well. While many other people saw their entire lives upended by World War II, the mobster made a killing by selling ration stamps which he bought from corrupt officials with the Office of Price Administration. Gambino invested his money in a wide array of businesses such as restaurants, nightclubs, bakeries, factories, meat markets, olive oil importers, trucking companies, and pizza parlors. By the end of the decade, he was among the richest members of the Mangano syndicate.
But all was not well in the crime family. Tensions were high between Vincent Mangano and his underboss, Albert Anastasia. As we said, even in an organization filled with violent criminals, Anastasia stood out for his cruelty and bloodshed. And he was never particularly close to Mangano, either; instead preferring the company of guys like Luciano and Frank Costello. To be honest, it’s more surprising that he lasted 20 years as an underling for Mangano than the fact that he, eventually, decided he’d had enough and made a move to become the new boss.
His tactic, unsurprisingly, involved copious amounts of violence. Both Vincent and Philip Mangano were killed on the same day – April 19, 1951. Well, technically speaking, we can only say that with certainty about Philip Mangano. He was found in the wetlands of Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn with three bullets in the head. His brother’s body was never recovered so he was declared dead in absentia a decade later, but come on…What else could have happened to him?
You would think that whacking the boss of one of New York’s major crime families and his consigliere would get you in hot water with the Commission, but not in Anastasia’s case. He was too dangerous and had friends in high places – specifically, Frank Costello. By that point, Lucky Luciano had been deported to Italy and Costello was the acting boss of the Luciano family. With Lucky thousands of miles away, their influence was not what it once was and Costello was on the lookout for new and powerful allies and Anastasia fit the bill perfectly. So Costello persuaded the other bosses to accept Albert Anastasia as the new head of the Mangano family, and business resumed as usual.
With Anastasia as boss, his top three men were Frank Scalise, Joe Adonis, and Carlo Gambino. This sounded like a step in the right direction for Gambino, but the situation wasn’t quite as cut and dry. Anastasia often showed Gambino great disrespect, sending him on small errands or publicly raising his hand at him, threatening to hit him. He treated him like some low-level punk fresh off the streets instead of one of the highest earners in his organization. Most other gangsters would not have tolerated such treatment, but Gambino simply responded with a “fawning grin.” This made other mobsters think that Carlo Gambino was just a spineless weasel but, in reality, he was simply biding his time.
If Gambino was going to strike, he was going to wait until Anastasia was at his most vulnerable, and, to be fair, he only had to wait a few years. Anastasia and Frank Costello relied on each other for support so to get rid of one, you’d have to get rid of the other. Fortunately for Gambino, he had a counterpart in the Luciano crime family whose ambitions matched his own – Vito Genovese. Once Lucky Luciano had been deported, Genovese felt that he should have become the new don instead of Costello. He was hungry for power and was busy making his own moves to get rid of the old bosses and proved to be a useful ally for Gambino.
The first to go from Anastasia’s inner circle was Joe Adonis, who chose deportation over a lengthy prison sentence in 1956. Then, on May 2, 1957, Frank Costello was shot outside his apartment building on Genovese’s orders. He only suffered a grazing wound, but his close brush with death made him realize that his position of power was untenable, so Costello willingly relinquished all control of the family to Genovese and retired.
Next up was Frank Scalise, who was gunned down in front of a fruit & veg stand in the Bronx just a month later. Ostensibly, the reason for his assassination was that Scalise was caught selling memberships into the mob for $50,000 a pop, which was a big no-no in the Mafia. But who actually ordered the hit remains unclear. Genovese made the most obvious choice, but some speculate that it might have been Anastasia himself, either out of genuine outrage at Scalise’s actions or, more likely, because he was also involved in the racket and was trying to protect himself. Either way, Scalise was dead and Anastasia named Carlo Gambino his new underboss. Little did he realize, though, that his underboss hated his guts and had been conspiring with Genovese against him.
Only one thing was left for Gambino – take out the Mad Hatter. On the morning of October 25, 1957, Albert Anastasia was getting a shave and a haircut at the barbershop of the Park Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan. Suddenly, two men wearing scarves over their faces entered the shop, pushed the barber out of the way, and started plugging holes into Anastasia. Apparently, the don still had the strength to get out of his chair and lunge at his attackers but, in the panic and confusion, he actually lunged at their reflection in the mirror before plummeting to the ground.
Albert Anastasia was dead, but who killed him remains a mystery. Undoubtedly, both Gambino and Genovese were involved in the plot, but according to street-level scuttlebutt, the shooters actually came from the Profaci family – specifically, Joe Gallo and his crew. We’ll never know for sure, but we know that there was one thing left on the agenda – crowning Carlo Gambino as the new boss of the family.
Taking Over
With Anastasia dead, Costello retired and Luciano in Italy, there was about to be another major redistribution of power in the New York mob. Carlo Gambino was going to be named the new head of the Mangano family, while Vito Genovese, as the new don of the most powerful of the Five Families, would become the new Chairman of the Commission – the position that only Lucky Luciano had held up until that point.
This was all supposed to happen in November 1957, in Apalachin, New York, at the estate of gangster Joseph Barbara where Genovese had convened a meeting of all the major mob bosses. This was supposed to be his crowning moment and, to a lesser extent, that of Gambino, but the police rained on their parade by noticing so many fancy out-of-state cars arriving at Barbara’s mansion and launching a raid on the place.
Okay, so things didn’t turn out the way Gambino envisioned them, but Genovese held up his end of the bargain later at a less formal meeting in New York. It was official – the 57-year-old Gambino was now the head of the Mangano family, which was renamed after him, and he would be known from then on as Don Carlo.
Being head of your own family was pretty sweet, but you know what was even better? Being in charge of the whole Commission. Which meant that Vito Genovese had to go. We don’t really know when Gambino turned on Genovese, nor do we know his full role in the don’s downfall. It could be that Gambino never truly trusted Genovese to begin with because he regarded him as too power-hungry and volatile, or it could be that he saw an opportunity and took advantage of it. However it happened, Gambino started conspiring with Genovese’s enemies such as Costello, Luciano, and Meyer Lansky. They weren’t crazy enough to take on Genovese in a war; that would have been suicide. However, there were other ways to get him out of the way. Specifically, by implicating him in a heroin smuggling operation.
According to Luciano’s autobiography, he, Costello, Lansky, and Gambino bribed a Puerto Rican small-time criminal named Nelson Cantellops $100,000 to testify in court that he personally saw Genovese buying large shipments of heroin. It was awfully convenient, but the Narcotics Bureau wanted Genovese so bad that they weren’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Thanks to this information, the government arrested Vito Genovese and 24 associates on drug charges, and in 1959 Genovese was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He died ten years into his sentence.
With the position of the Chairman of the Commission open again, there was only one man who could fill it – Carlo Gambino. The “squirrel of a man” had become the most powerful mob boss in the country.
Don Carlo
During the 1960s, under Don Carlo’s leadership, the Gambino family became the most powerful faction of the criminal underworld. They had a tight grip on all illegal activities that went through JFK International Airport, the Brooklyn waterfront, and the Teamsters’ Union. Just like before, Gambino used his ill-gotten gains to invest in legitimate businesses all over the city which, in turn, were used as fronts for more illicit shenanigans. However, as the Gambinos grew more powerful, the other families became more dissatisfied as they saw their piece of the pie getting smaller and smaller.
The Lucchese were good. They were strong allies of the Gambino family, and Don Carlo and Lucchese mob boss Tommy Lucchese even solidified their alliance medieval-style by marrying two of their children to each other. But the other three families…that was another story. Joe Bonanno, head of the Bonanno crime family, in particular, really didn’t like Gambino and, in 1963, began plotting to kill not just Don Carlo, but all of his allies on the Commission. It might have been the most audacious hit in mob history if he pulled it off, but things, once again, went Gambino’s way.
Bonanno’s ally in this conspiracy was Joe Magliocco, the new boss of the Profaci family who was struggling to hold on to his position following the death of his predecessor, Joe Profaci. Bonanno tasked hitman Joe Colombo with the assassination of Carlo Gambino and Tommy Lucchese. However, Colombo thought it would be a better career move if he informed Gambino of the plot. He was right. As a reward, Gambino named Colombo the new head of the Profaci family, which he renamed after himself. But what to do with Bonanno and Magliocco?
All things considered, both men got off lightly. As soon as he heard that his plot had been discovered, Bonanno fled the country to Montreal. He returned a few years later and, surprisingly, was allowed to retire and move to Arizona. Magliocco didn’t run. Instead, he faced the music, even admitted his role, and begged for forgiveness. Again, rather uncharacteristically, he received it. He was allowed to retire as long as he ceded control of the family to Colombo. He died of a heart attack later that same year and, although everyone assumed he had been killed, an autopsy performed years later found no traces of poison in his body.
Two of the families had been dealt with. That just left one – the Genovese. At that point, Vito Genovese was alive and in jail, so he was still the true don, with a guy named Tommy Eboli serving as acting boss. But Eboli wanted to become the boss for real, so he borrowed millions from the Commission to get his own drug operation off the ground. The scheme fell through and Eboli found himself owing Carlo Gambino a lot of money which he did not pay back so the predictable happened. One night, in July 1972, Eboli was found sprawled on the ground outside his car, shot five times in the face and neck. He was replaced as the acting boss of the Genovese family by Frank “Funzi” Tieri at Gambino’s personal recommendation, which has led people to speculate that Gambino always intended to get rid of Eboli so he could substitute him with one of his loyalists.
Carlo Gambino effectively dealt with all of his enemies and maintained his position at the top of the ladder, but there was one enemy that nobody could beat – time. Gambino had been in poor health ever since the 50s. Initially, this worked out in his favor as it allowed him to successfully fight attempts to deport him by the Immigration Services. Remember that he came into the country illegally. But during the 1970s, his health and old age took their toll on him and he retired to a private life, even more so than usual.
Up until his last moments, Carlo Gambino ran his organization from his home in Massapequa, Long Island. He died on October 15, 1976, at the age of 74. Controversially, Gambino appointed his cousin, Paul Castellano, as his successor, instead of his own underboss, Aniello Dellacroce. This ruffled a few feathers and created a division within the family, one that wasn’t settled by either Dellacroce or Castellano, but by Dellacroce’s protégé, John Gotti aka the Teflon Don.
