Lucky Luciano was born Salvatore Lucania on November 11, 1897 in Lercara Friddi, Sicily, Italy, the son of Antonio Lucania and Rosalia Capporelli. His father worked in the sulfur mines. The family came to the United States when Salvatore was nine and settled on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Luciano left school at age fourteen, with a fifth-grade education. Because of his constant truancy, in June 1911 he was sent to the Brooklyn Truant School for four months.
In 1914 Lucania began work in a hat factory at a salary of five dollars per week, the only honest job he ever held. After two years he quit and became involved in criminal activities. His first arrest, in June 1916, was for the illegal possession of heroin. He was convicted and served six months at the New York City Penitentiary on Blackwell's Island. Over the next twenty years he was arrested a number of times for various infractions, including illegal possession of heroin, unlawful possession of weapons, and robbery, but he was never convicted.
By 1926, Charles Luciano (after several arrests he had changed the name Salvatore to Charles, and by 1931 Lucania had been changed to Luciano) had reached crime's upper echelons. He had worked for Jack ("Legs") Diamond and was now working for Giuseppe ("Joe the Boss") Masseria, the leader of the Mafia in New York City. He handled bootlegging and hijacking for Masseria. His criminal career almost ended, though, on the night of October 16, 1929, when he was "taken for a ride" by rivals, assaulted, and left for dead on Staten Island. Nevertheless, Luciano survived, and it has generally been assumed that he was given the sobriquet "Lucky" for this accomplishment. He also managed the East Side gangs for Masseria and the numbers racket. He was again involved with narcotics.
At the beginning of the 1930's, the younger men under Masseria were becoming dissatisfied with his Old World ways. Under the direction of Luciano (who was present for the event), "Joe the Boss" was murdered in a Coney Island restaurant on April 15, 1931. A new "boss of all bosses"--Salvatore Maranzaro--appeared, but he could not keep control. On September 10, 1931, Maranzaro was killed on Luciano's orders, and "Charlie Lucky" (as many now called him) became the leader of the New York City Mafia. He took a modernizing approach to Mafia activities. He put the New York Mafia into one family, his own; was willing to work with non-Italian gangsters; maintained and strengthened his association with such racketeers as Louis ("Lepke") Buchalter, Albert Anastasia, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky, Joe Adonis, "Dutch Schultz, " and Abner "Longie" Zwillman. Luciano placed racketeering on a business basis; he helped stop the indiscriminate killing of fellow gangsters. Luciano was now at the height of his power. With Prohibition at an end, he added prostitution to his rackets. He lived in the Waldorf Towers under the name Charles Ross, wore expensive clothes, drove fast cars, and was seen with beautiful women; in short, he was the epitome of a movieland gangster of the time.
In June 1936 , through the efforts of special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, Luciano's $12-million-a-year prostitution ring was shattered. He was convicted on sixty-two counts of compulsory prostitution and sentenced to thirty to fifty years in Clinton State Prison at Dannemora, New York. While in prison, though, he still wielded power in the underworld. At the beginning of 1946, Dewey, who had been elected governor, commuted Luciano's sentence provided the racketeer was deported to Italy. Luciano had never become a United States citizen.
His assistance to the war effort was the reason given for the shortening of his sentence. Luciano had apparently passed the word to all waterfront workers in the New York City area to cooperate in preventing sabotage and to report any information about a possible enemy attack. He also seems to have persuaded Sicilian-born Italian-Americans to provide United States military intelligence with data in preparation for the Allied invasion of their homeland. There has been considerable controversy over the value of this assistance, and even whether it was given. The army, navy, and Office of Strategic Services deny receiving any help from him.
In February 1946, Luciano left the United States for Genoa, where he became involved in the Italian black market and the narcotics traffic. In 1951 the Kefauver Committee was told that the flow of heroin from Italy to the United States increased after Luciano was deported. He also kept his connection with organized crime in the United States through couriers who brought messages and cash. At the beginning of 1947, Luciano appeared in Havana, using the name Salvatore Lucania. He patronized the gambling facilities there and apparently met with many leaders of organized crime. When United States narcotics officials learned of his presence there, they put pressure on the Cuban government to deport him. After some resistance the Cuban authorities complied, and Luciano found himself back in Italy.
During the ensuing years he lived chiefly in Naples, maintained his American underworld connections, gave handouts to other deportees, and engaged in several legitimate business enterprises, not all of which were financially successful. Until his death, United States narcotics authorities suspected him of heavy involvement in illegal drug traffic.
Lucky was well-known as the dominant organized crime boss in the United States. He directed criminal rules, policies, and activities along with the other family bosses. He was instrumental in establishing the Unione Siciliano, a national Mafia organization. He had major influence in labor and union activities and controlled the Manhattan Waterfront, garbage hauling, construction, Garment Center businesses, and trucking.
Luciano's philosophy of life was "I never was a crumb, and if I have to be a crumb, I'd rather be dead. " He defined "crumb" as someone "who works and saves and lays his money aside. "
In November 1949 a Roman newspaper reporter wrote that Luciano had married a dancer, Igea Lissoni, but the couple denied the marriage.
