Joseph Bonanno

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Bonanno was born in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, where his father was also involved in organized crime. At the age of three, Bonanno immigrated to New York City with his family, for about 10 years before he moved back to Italy. He later slipped back into the United States in 1924, by stowing away on a Cuban fishing boat bound for Tampa, Florida. After the Castellammarese War, Salvatore Maranzano was murdered in 1931, and Bonanno took control of most of the crime family, and at age 26, Bonanno became one of the youngest-ever bosses of a crime family. In 1963, Bonanno made plans with Joseph Magliocco to assassinate several rivals on the Mafia Commission. When Magliocco gave the contract to one of his top hit men, Joseph Colombo, he revealed the plot to its targets. The Commission spared Magliocco's life but forced him into retirement, while Bonanno fled to Canada. In 1964, he briefly returned to New York before disappearing until 1966. The "Banana War" ensued and lasted until 1968, when Bonanno retired to Arizona. Later in life, he became a writer, publishing the book A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno in 1983. Bonanno died on May 11, 2002, in Tucson, Arizona.

Early life

Bonanno was born on January 18, 1905, in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, to Salvatore Bonanno and Catherine Bonventre. Joseph's uncles, Giuseppe Bonanno and his older brother and advisor, Stefano, led a clan in Castellammare del Golfo. The clan's strongest ally was the leader of the Magaddino clan Stefano Magaddino, the brother of Joseph's maternal grandmother. During the 1900s, the clans feuded with Felice Buccellato, the boss of the Buccellato clan. After the murders of Stefano and Giuseppe, their younger brother, Salvatore, took revenge by killing members of the Buccellatos. In 1902, Magaddino arrived in New York and became a powerful member of the Castellammarese clan. When Joseph was three years old, his family moved to the United States and settled in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for about 10 years before returning to Italy. His father had returned to Sicily in 1911, and died of a heart attack in 1915. In 1921, Magaddino fled to Buffalo, New York to avoid murder charges.

Bonanno slipped back into the United States in 1924, by stowing away on a Cuban fishing boat bound for Tampa, Florida with Peter Magaddino. According to Bonanno, upon arriving at a train station in Jacksonville, Bonanno was detained by immigration officers and was later released under $1,000 bail. He was welcomed by Willie Moretti and an unidentified man. It was later revealed that Magaddino was responsible for bailing him out as a favour for Giovanni Bonventre, Bonanno's uncle. Bonanno first worked at a bakery owned by his uncle and later took up acting classes near Union Square, Manhattan. He had become active in the Mafia during his youth in Italy, and he fled to the United States after Benito Mussolini initiated a crackdown. Bonanno himself claimed years later that he fled because he was ardently anti-Fascist.

Bonanno became involved in bootlegging activities. He operated a distillery located inside an apartment building basement with Gaspar DiGregorio and Giovanni Romano, who was later killed in the distillery due to an accidental explosion. During this time, boss Salvatore Maranzano took a liking to Bonanno and became his mentor.

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Later career in Arizona and California

In 1974, Bonanno and his son subsequently moved to Arizona, living in the Catalina Vista neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona with his family.

In the late 1970s, his two sons, Bill and Joe Jr., brought high heat in Northern California after getting involved with Lou Peters, a Cadillac-Oldsmobile dealer, in San Jose, Lodi and Stockton. Louis E. Peters turned into an undercover for the FBI, helping them indict Bonanno.

In April 1983, Joseph Bonanno and his son Bill appeared on the CBS News TV program 60 Minutes to be interviewed by correspondent Mike Wallace.

Later in 1983, he served eight months in prison for obstruction of justice. In 1985, he was imprisoned for 14 months for contempt of court after refusing to testify in a federal racketeering case. Assigned federal inmate number 07255-008, he was transferred from the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona to the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri due to ill health at his advanced age and released on November 1, 1986.

During Salvatore Bonanno's trial, he gave interviews to author Gay Talese that formed part of the basis of his 1971 true crime book Honor Thy Father. Joseph Bonanno was initially infuriated by the book and refused to speak to Salvatore for a year. By the late 1970s, however, Bonanno's attitude had changed; he had become interested in writing an autobiography to offer his own take on his life. Bonanno's book was published in 1983 as A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno. Bonanno justified his decision to write A Man of Honor on the grounds that omertà represented a lifestyle and tradition greater than or beyond just the code of silence it is generally understood to be: as he had not been compelled to reveal his secrets by becoming an informant or government witness, Bonanno reasoned, he did not violate his code of honor. Bonanno's editor for A Man of Honor was publisher Michael Korda who said of Bonanno, "In a world where most of the players were, at best, semiliterate, Bonanno read poetry, boasted of his knowledge of the classics, and gave advice to his cohorts in the form of quotes from Thucydides or Machiavelli."

Bonanno died on May 11, 2002, of heart failure at the age of 97. He is buried at Holy Hope Cemetery and Mausoleum in Tucson.

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