Al Capone plays Santa Claus. A True Story.

This article first appeared in the Nov. 6, 1972, issue of Sports Illustrated. Written by Tim Sullivan who caddied for Al Capone at Burnham Golf Club.


1930. It was a terrible year for most of us. The Depression had set in deep. My old man, along with a lot of other heads of families, was laid off without an hour's notice. Small businesses closed down, hundreds of them. Families doubled up to save rent. In Burnham there were exactly three people outside of city hall with steady jobs—the mailman, the milkman and a schoolteacher, and the schoolteacher only got paid every three or four, months. Mom got work as a scrubwoman at the school. And now when Al and the boys came around for volleyball he'd slip her $10 and apologize for dirtying up the floor she'd just been washing. I hung on to my shoeshine stand for dear life.
The breadlines. The soup kitchens—Al ran his own in Chicago. Beggars coming around to your back door for a crust of bread. Food was cheap enough, but nobody had money to buy it. The corner drugstores sold cigarettes two for a penny. Who could afford a full pack? There was always a long line in front of the roll-your-own cigarette machine. If you rolled them thin enough, you could get 50 cigarettes out of a 10-cent package. We practically lived on the three-day-old bread Dad brought home from a bakery. A gunnysack full cost 25-cents and we kids would rummage through it, hoping to find a sweet roll or two.
Christmas 1930. I'll remember it as long as I live. None of the kids expected any presents. But maybe a chicken dinner. We still had a few hens scratching around the backyard. Then the miracle happened. We were gathered around the Christmas tree—such as it was, just bare branches—when there comes a loud knocking on the front door. Dad opens up and it's Santa Claus, whiskers, red suit and a big bag on his back. I yelled "Al!" and threw myself at him. He clapped his hands and six of his boys came in, each lugging a box of groceries that could have fed the whole neighborhood. They helped Mom stack them neatly on the pantry shelves. There were expensive gifts for everybody—a watch set in diamonds for Babe, slipover sweaters for my brothers Edward, Sam, Don, and me. Don got a wind-up train and a whole set of tracks. My sister Kathy got the most beautiful doll I ever saw, with a whole wardrobe. And the turkey with all the fixings. I never tasted anything so good in my life.

BBC radio show Witness

I was interviewed for a BBC radio show titled Witness. It aired in January. BBC wants me now to do a one hour show. They will come here to record it. Here is the link to the show in January.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gyp5v

Deirdre Marie Capone on WINK TV

I gave a presentation at the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center in Ft. Myers, Florida on Monday April 20, 2015. My appearance was cover by WINK TV. Deirdre Capone on WINK TV

Amazon.com Review

Amazon.com Review

Gangster Al Capone once commented that “This American system of ours…gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it.” Despite the fact that it’s coming from a known gangster, it says a great deal about the mind of the man. He sees himself as an average, successful American businessman, even if his comment understates the whole picture. It’s this human quality that Deirdre Marie Capone evokes in Uncle Al Capone, a fascinating book that’s one part biography, one part memoir, and one part remembrance of Public Enemy Number One. As the grand-niece of Al, Capone recounts how she hid her family name for years. When a school research project leads her to come clean to her kids, she begins recalling the rich family history she once knew. It’s a tale that starts after the family emigrates from Angri, Italy to Brooklyn, New York. Capone shows that Al and her grandfather, Ralph, weren’t always members of a crime syndicate. In fact, their childhood is fairly normal, with Al finishing high school, and Ralph working odd jobs to help support the family. Everything changes when their father dies and Prohibition becomes law. Forced to earn a living for his family, Al, and eventually Ralph, head to Chicago and down the path to criminal celebrity. Throughout the book, Capone tries to reconcile what she knows about her family with recorded history. Early in the book she writes, “I will not pretend to be able to paint a rosy picture of my uncle Al. I cannot make him out to be a perfect man, or even a good man. But what I want people to know is that he was a complex man. He was human and he had a heart.” Capone succeeds, balancing both the public history of Al, from the Valentine’s Day Massacre to his incarceration at Alcatraz, with personal photos, family recipes, and her own memories. The author recalls how loving certain members of the Capone family were, particularly her great-aunt Maffie who helps the author to see good in the men. It’s not always an easy task as the author recounts losing friends, jobs, and other opportunities, once people learned she was a descendant of the notorious Al Capone. Overall, Uncle Al Capone is a memoir that is as complex and human as the man that it’s about. It brings a fresh perspective to the other Al Capone biographies, and finally gives the larger-than-life gangster the one thing that may have eluded him in life: to be seen as simply a human being. Katerie Prior

Berne Davis Art Center, Ft. Myers, FL

Sponsored by FineMark National Bank & Trust Enjoy lunch and lecture with Deirdre Marie Capone. Born in Chicago, Illinois, to a large Italian family, Deirdre is the author of the recently published UNCLE AL CAPONE: The Untold Story from Inside the Family (Recap Publishing, 2015) She is the only remaining Capone family member with first-hand knowledge of her historical family's legacy

Monday April 20, 2015 12:00 Noon

Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center, 2301 1st Street, Fort Myers, Florida, United States 33901

Miami Curbed Article

http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2015/03/26/al-capone-house-media-tour.php

Uncle Al Capone - The Untold Story from Inside His Family: Al Capone's Florida Home gets a make over.

Uncle Al Capone - The Untold Story from Inside His Family: Al Capone's Florida Home gets a make over.: On March 18, 2015 there was an event at which I was invited where the press got a chance to tour the home where my uncle Al Capone l...