Owney Madden was born on December 18, 1891, in Liverpool, England. His family immigrated to New York City when he was eleven.
He soon became involved in gang warfare and proved adept at using a pipe covered with newspaper, a blackjack, a slingshot, brass knuckles, and a pistol.
When Madden was seventeen, he murdered a man, and by the time he was twenty-three, he had killed four more, thereby earning the nickname "Owney the Killer. " At the age of eighteen, Madden became the leader of the Gopher Gang in the Hell's Kitchen area of New York City. As a leader, he received $200 a day from underlings for planning beatings, robberies, extortions, killings, gang raids, and union beatings.
The Gopher headquarters was the Winona Club, a second-floor bistro established by Madden and Tanner Smith. On the night of November 6, 1912, at the Arbor Dance Hall, Madden was confronted by a group from the Hudson Dusters, the Gophers' chief rivals. In the ensuing shoot-out, he fell with at least six bullets in his body. He survived but refused to identify his assailants to the police. Before he fully recovered, six of them had been killed.
By 1914, Madden had been arrested at least five times but never convicted of a crime. At the end of the year, though, he was indicted, tried, and convicted of the murder of Patrick ("Little Patsy") Doyle, who had assaulted Tony Romanello, a member of the Madden gang. Madden was sentenced to ten to twenty years in Sing Sing Prison. He was a model prisoner and was praised by warden Lewis E. Lawes as a good influence on other convicts.
Madden was paroled in January 1923 but found his gang dispersed, some in prison and others in Prohibition mobs. After a brief period as a "troubleshooter" for a taxicab company, he and a partner, William Vincent ("Big Bill") Dwyer, established the Phoenix Brewery, which produced Madden's No. 1 lager, reportedly "the creamiest" beer in New York City.
Production eventually reached some 300, 000 gallons a day, and a rival characterized Madden as a "good businessman. " During this period of his career, he was associated with Dutch Schultz and "Legs" Diamond and was arrested twice. In December 1923, Madden was accused, with others, of robbing the Liberty Storage Warehouse of 900 cases of whiskey; a month later he was again detained when the police stopped a truck in which he was riding and found stolen liquor. No further action resulted from these arrests.
Madden was also involved with nightclubs, and with Arnold Rothstein owned the Cotton Club in Harlem. He became part of the New York nightlife along with Mae West and Jimmy Walker. He and his partners owned more than one establishment, and used the services of Joseph Urban, noted architect and theatrical designer, to decorate one of them.
Madden also owned three laundries. He apparently lost money on them and was reported to have said: "I like an investment where you can put your money in this week and pull it out double next week or the next. But these legitimate rackets you've got to wait for your money. " In 1932, Madden was employed by Charles Lindbergh to help find his kidnapped son, but he had no success.
In July of that year, despite a court fight and a recommendation from Lindbergh to the New York State Parole Board, he was sent back to Sing Sing for parole violation. Again the warden praised him as a model prisoner. Upon his release in July 1933, Madden was employed as a dispatcher by the E. H. Thompson Trucking Company, whose owner was also president of the Champion Coal Company.
In 1934, the latter company was charged with fraud in supplying coal to New York City, and Madden's name on the trucking firm's payroll was noted. He subsequently appeared as a witness, but no action was taken against him.
Madden died on April 24, 1965, in Hot Springs.
Madden was in charge of gambling and operated casinos in this spa that became a refuge for gangsters. His wealth at the time of his retirement has been estimated to be $3 million.
In his later life, Madden became more respectable, and in March 1943 he was granted United States citizenship.
In 1934, Madden's first marriage ended in divorce; the following year he married Agnes Demby and retired to Hot Springs, Arkansas, supposedly to escape a "contract" on his life.
