The Myth of Elliott Ness and the Untouchables

It was a good movie.  Kostner as Elliott Ness was perfect and his wife was beautiful. She would later pop up on House of Cards as a power player but no one can forget the closeups between her and Kostner. He was the honest man in a world of vice and corruption. Sean Connery was the cop seeking redemption who helped him. Of course Deniro was Capone. Mamet wrote the script and The Untouchables played out as the way Al Capone was convicted. Except none of it was true.

A sports writer named Oscar Fraley cooked up the whole thing with a down on his luck alcoholic named Elliott Ness. Ness had been a prohibition agent and had written a twenty page memoir that Fraley took and then changed for a bestselling book that sold 1.5 million copies. He then sold it to television for a series with Robert Stack. And then of course it was sold to Hollywood where it was immortalized for all time. But again, it wasn't true.

Fraley came up with the whole concept of the Untouchables; a group of incorruptible cops and investigators who would get Capone. Ness had died before the book was even published and that left Fraley as the only guy who could set the record straight and he wasn't talking. Writers bend the truth to make a story good. That's what we do. The sports writer got a lot of mileage out of the twenty page dogeared manuscript Ness had given him. The real story is how the Secret Six got Al Capone but no has told that one...yet.

Al Capone and the 1933 Worlds Series

The Last Interview at WGN

I just finished up my last interview at WGN in the Chicago Tribune tower.  The revered station is moving across the river to 303 E Wacker and this would be it. It was the last time I would wait in the lobby of the Tribune building with the quotes from Presidents, poets, philosophers carved into the granite walls. The last time to go up to the seventh floor with WGN on the wall and walk past pictures of greats past and present. This last time was on Labor Day and the lights were off which made the old black and white photos more of their time.

I sat in the green room and waited once again listening to Rick Kogans interview before I went on. I held my book Al Capone and the 1933 Worlds Fair and readied myself. It is a ritual that I had followed many times going  back to my novel Rocket Man. Kogan is one of the few men who still read books in Chicago and then have authors on his show.  He is one of the greats of Chicago journalism and harkens back to a time when writers and reporters all gathered at Billy Goats tavern on lower Wacker.

And then I am in the studio looking out the window at the Wrigley building and Michigan Avenue below. The gargoyles sit on the ledges and the speaker warns us we have thirty seconds. Rick and I make small talk and then we are on and for next thirty minutes we talk about the book like two old friends. And then it is over and I'm back out on Michigan Avenue. It is raining and I walk over the bridge and look down on the Chicago river and then over at the Tribune building.

Time passes.

Al Capone and the 1933 Worlds Fair

Interview with Rick Kogan WGN

The Secret Six Who Got Rid of Capone

You think it was Kevin Costner who got rid of Capone if you saw The Untouchables. Elliott Ness was a treasury agent enforcing prohibition but he did not get rid of Al Capone. It took six Chicago Millionaires dubbed the Secret Six to put Al behind bars. They did it with money and bought a secret police force and formed the first witness protection program. And they were secret. Capone could never figure out the men though he had some ideas. Chicago was having a Worlds Fair in 1933 and something had to be done or no one would show up.

The Secret Six set up their own speakeasy to get information. They had their own gangsters who infiltrated Capones inner circle. They had their own enforcers who got information out of mobsters. And they had thousands to spread around, buy people off, and hire private detectives and investigators. Elliott Ness was running around at this time also but he was basically busting up stills, speakeasies and wiretapping phones. But to get the goods on Capone the Secret Six went after his business and began attacking Capone where it hurt and that was in the manufacturing of beer and whiskey.

They approached it like a business and studied Capones operation and began to wonder how he got his money. This would lead to the conviction on tax evasion that eventually would put Al Capone away. The Secret Six would never reveal their identities but even Capone recognized who put him away. "It was the Secret Six that put me away. They couldn't be bought."

Al Capone and the 1933 Worlds Fair