Sam Giancana Biography

Gangster, crime boss. Born Gilormo Giancana, on May 24, 1908, in Chicago, Illinois. Baptized Momo Salvatore Giancana and known as Sam, he grew up in a rough neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago, as the son of Sicilian immigrants. As a teenager, Giancana led a street gang called "The 42s," who carried out low-level tasks for members of the powerful Chicago Mafia of the 1920s, led by the notorious gangster Al Capone. Giancana got a job as a "wheelman," or driver, in the Capone organization, and was arrested for the first time in 1925, for auto theft. He soon graduated to "triggerman," and by the age of 20 had been the prime subject in three murder investigations, but was never tried.

In 1933, Giancana married Angeline DeTolve; the couple had three daughters. (Their daughter Antoinette published a memoir, Mafia Princess, in 1984.) Giancana climbed the mob ranks throughout the rest of the decade, as the leadership in Chicago changed with the jailing of Capone in 1931 (he died in 1947). He first served prison time starting in 1939, for illegally manufacturing whiskey. After his release in the early 1940s, Giancana set out to take over Chicago's illegal lottery gambling operations, particularly those in the city's predominantly African-American neighborhood. Through a brutal string of events, including beatings, kidnappings, and murder, he and his associates won control of the numbers racket, increasing the Chicago Mob's annual income by millions of dollars.

A psychologist who interviewed Giancana during his Selective Service physical examination during World War II classified the gangster as a "constitutional psychopath" who showed "strong antisocial trends." As a result, Giancana received 4-F status and was disqualified from military service. He profited from the war on the homefront, making a fortune manufacturing counterfeit ration stamps. By the end of the war, the Giancana family had moved from the city to a house in the affluent Chicago suburb of Oak Park.

When Anthony "Tough Tony" Accardo stepped down as the head of the Chicago Outfit (as the city's branch of the Mafia was known) in the mid-1950s, Giancana ascended to the top spot. By 1955, he controlled the gambling and prostitution operations, narcotics trafficking, and other illegal industries in his hometown. Under his leadership, the Chicago Mafia grew from a relatively small-scale racket to a full-fledged criminal organization. He later told an agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that he "owned" not only Chicago, but Miami and Los Angeles as well.

In 1959, FBI agents planted a microphone in a room at the Armory Lounge in the suburb of Forest Park, which served as Giancanas headquarters. For the next six years, they were able to eavesdrop on the workings of the Mafia and gain knowledge of many criminal activities in Chicago and around the country. Though Giancanas reign as Chicago's preeminent crime boss was already heading towards its end by the close of the 1950s, his path in the 1960s would cross with two of America's most powerful men: Robert and John F. Kennedy.