Al Capone was born in Naples, Italy and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where he engaged in petty crime and acquired a razor slash which gave him his nickname. He moved to Chicago on his way up in the criminal world.
Capone was notorious during Prohibition for his control of the Chicago underworld, raking in vast amounts of money from illegal gambling, prostitution and alcohol. Due to witness intimidation, he could not be prosecuted for many crimes that the authorities knew about, including murder. He was eventually imprisoned for tax evasion, on the undeniable and visible evidence that the amount of money he was spending was far greater than his supposed income. He was harassed by Prohibition Bureau agents, Eliot Ness and his "Untouchables" and brought down by IRS agent, Frank Wilson.
Although he was vacationing in Florida at the time, he is responsible for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in which members of a rival gang led by Bugs Moran were killed in a North Side Chicago garage.
Eventually sentenced for income tax evasion, Al Capone spent time in Alcatraz. Upon being imprisoned, Capone gave his pet dogs to his Florida neighbor, Damon Runyon. Although sentenced to eleven years in prison and fined $80,000, Capone was released in 1939 due to illness and he retired to Florida, where he eventually died of syphilis.
Capone has been portrayed in the movies by Wallace Beery, Paul Muni, Barry Sullivan, Rod Steiger, Neville Brand, Jason Robards, Ben Gazzara and Robert De Niro.
See also: The Untouchables