Joshua Gendron
Biographical essay – Al Capone
Alphonse Capone was also known as Al Capone and Scarface. He was one of the most notorious gangsters in the history of the United States. Alphonse Capone ran Chicago with violence, blood and guns. He led a life of violence and crime beginning at a very young age. It seemed he had always had a problem with anyone in authority.
Capone was born in Brooklyn in 1899 to two Italian immigrants, Gabriel and Teresa. His last name was originally Caponi, but was changed when they came to the United States. Al went to school with Salvatore Lucania, later known as Lucky Luciano. At about the age of ten he began to follow the later-to-be gangster, Johnny Torrio. When he was about 14 he beat a female teacher when he was in the sixth grade and quit school after the principal punished him for what he did. Facing a life of low paying jobs, Capone and Lucky Luciano joined a gang known as the Five Pointers, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Capone worked for Frank Yale, president of the Union, as a bouncer and bartender. One night he made a remark about the sister of Frank Galluciano, and Galluciano slashed Capone's face with a pocketknife, leaving three large scars on the left side of his face. For most of his criminal career, newspapers would call Capone by the name he really hated, "Scarface.” Capone chose to forgive Galluciano and, years later, hired him as a bodyguard.
