13 Things You Didn't Know About Al Capone

Everyone loves a success story. It's the American dream come to fruition. Capone certainly fits the criteria for the classic American rags-to-riches narrative, albeit his hard work came in the form of racketeering and the occasional kidnapping. 

Still, despite his eventual infamy, Capone started out small. Born in 1899 to Italian immigrant parents in Brooklyn, Al was the youngest of nine children. The family lived in a rundown tenement near the Navy yard, their neighborhood overrun with sailors looking for booze and prostitutes. Unlike many other immigrants at the time, Capone's father was well-educated and cosmopolitan (from Naples). The Capone family was respectable and professional.

Although straight-and-narrow for much of his early years, Capone developed a wild streak in school that culminated in him hitting a female teacher at age 14. He was expelled, and eventually found his way into organized crime by way of boss Johnny Torrio who, like Capone's father, was from Naples. 

After getting booted out of school, Capone found work as a bouncer at a local club called the Harvard Inn. It was in this position that, with one random insult, Capone earned the nickname of a lifetime.  

Supposedly, it went down like this: one night, while Capone worked the door at the Harvard Inn, Frank Galluccio strolled into the joint with his sister, Lena, who caught Al's eye. Capone offered to take her for a walk on the beach, to which she refused. Later that evening, Al called out to her, "I'll tell you one thing, you got a nice a** honey, and I mean that as a compliment."

Needless to say, Frank didn't take this so well. Outsized by Capone, Galluccio busted out a knife, slashing Al across his face three times. This left Capone with 80 stitches and his legendary nickname. 

Capone had a thing for custom suits once he got a little change in his pocked. But what good is a tailored outfit if you're riddled with bullet holes and covered in blood? When you're shelling out $500 a pop just for fabric (about $6,500 in 2016), you gotta protect your investment. 

His solution? Outfit his ride, a 1928 Cadillac V-8 Town Sedan, with enough armor plating to laugh off anyone who might try to ruin his pin-stripes. Loaded with 3,000 lbs of steel plating and bulletproof glass windows, Capone's ride also came with some nifty extras, such as holes built into the sides and rear of the chassis so henchmen could return machine gun fire from would-be attackers.

It's one thing to earn the nickname Scarface, but Snorky? That conjures up an entirely different set of images. As it turns out, snorky was Chicago gamg slang for a snazzy dresser, making it a totally apt nickname for the man with the imported Italian silk suits. Capone's friends also called him "The Big Fellow," for obvious reasons. 

On September of 1928, Capone teed off with buddies "Machine-Gun" Jack McGurn, Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, and Fred "The Killer" Burke at Burnham Woods golf course. Capone was an avid golfer, and took to the course to raise hell as much as play the game. According to author John Binder, "His rounds were devoted to having fun with his gangster friends who drank plenty each hole, gambled recklessly on the stroke of a ball and carried loaded weapons in their golf bags for use in emergences."

On that fateful day in September, Capone accidentally discharging a revolver while rummaging through his bag for a club (why not put a revolver in with your clubs?). He was taken to St. Margaret's hospital under the name Geary, to keep a low-profile. 

Even with all the big spending on expensive suits, fancy jewels, and a tricked-out '28 Cadillac, Capone never had to worry about pinching any pennies. His net worth was staggering. By the end of the roaring '20s, the Chicago mob boss had a hand in bootlegging, prostitution, gambling, racketeering, and various vices in between, all of which earned him about $100 million per year. Adjusted for inflation, Capone would be worth about $1.3 billion in 2016.