first in Canada and then in New York City, where he grew up in Brooklyn’s teeming tenement district. He was the eldest of seven brothers, the rest of whom drifted into a life of crime. One of those brothers, Alphonse, was destined to attain worldwide notoriety as “Scarface Al” Capone, the foremost racketeer and gangster of the Prohibition era, and the man responsible for many gangland murders, including the infamous St. Valentine’s Day massacre of 1929, in which seven men were machine-gunned to death in a North Side Chicago garage.

The notorious underworld mob boss acquired his facial scars in Brooklyn at an early age. When a fight broke out between rival street gangs, a knife-wielding delinquent slashed Al. Rushing to his younger brother’s defense, Vincenzo knocked the attackerthrough a plate-glass window. It was this incident that led to the departure of the older brother. Fearing retaliation from other gang members, 16-year-old Vincenzo Capone fled New York City, joined a circus as a roustabout and eventually adopted the last name of his idol, William S. Hart, the foremost star of Western silent films in the 1920s. Not satisfied with taking Hart’s surname, the Italian-born refugee from the mean streets of Brooklyn also adopted the actor’s attire, his mannerisms and much of his cinematic charisma, in time even earning the “Two-Gun” moniker long attached to the motion picture star.

For years following his departure from Brooklyn the runaway Capone had no communication with his family. They knew nothing of Vincenzo’s invented life or his growing fame as an