He married but was rarely faithfully and once asked why he had no children replied "I didn't want no son of mine to go through life as the son of Luciano, the gangster. That's one thing I still hate Dewey for, making me a gangster in the eyes of the world."

Lucky Luciano Fact Sheet: Who was Lucky Luciano? The following short biography and fact sheet provides interesting facts about the life, times and history of Lucky Luciano.

Lucky Luciano Fact File Biography: Lifespan: 1897 - 1962 *** Full Name: Salvatore Luciano – Charles Luciano *** Nickname: Lucky *** Occupation: Italian Crime Boss, Gangster and Bootlegger *** Date of Birth: Lucky Luciano was born on November 24th 1897 *** Place of Birth: Lucky Luciano was born in Lercara Friddi, Sicily, Italy *** Family background: His father was Antonio Luciana and his mother was Rosalia. His father worked in a sulfur mine until 1907 when his father decided to take his family to America where they settled in New York City *** Early life and childhood: He grew up with four siblings, Bartolomeo, Guiseppe, Filippa and Concetta *** Education: Lucky Luciano attended school until he was fourteen years of age when he dropped out ***

Lucky Luciano Fact 1: Lucky Luciano was born on November 24th 1897 and during the 19th century period in history when there was much change across Europe and the world, the first and second French, Spanish, Chinese and Holy Roman Empires all collapsed and Europe would see two World Wars.

Lucky Luciano Fact 2: When Luciano was a boy of nine years of age his father decided to uproot his family and move them to America, where they settled in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City.

Lucky Luciano Fact 3: By the time Luciano was fourteen he had decided to drop out of school and got a job delivering hats.

Lucky Luciano Fact 4: During his teenage years he also joined the Five Points Gang as well as starting his own gang but not to be like other local gangs who were involved in petty crime, he offered the local Jewish community youngsters protection from the Irish and Italian gangs for a small fee each week.

Lucky Luciano Fact 5: During this time he became aware of how the pimp trade worked and would make the acquaintance of Meyer Lanksy.

Lucky Luciano Fact 6: Between 1920 and 1933 the Eighteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution was ratified bringing in Prohibition until 1933 when it was repealed.

Lucky Luciano Fact 7: During these early years Luciano made contact with many of the future Mafia heads including Frank Costello and Vito Genovese. He also worked for Joe Masseria as one of his gunmen.

Lucky Luciano Fact 8: Another area he became interested in was gambling and bootlegging and in that area there was no one bigger than Arnold “The Brain” Rothstein who with the advent of Prohibition was quick to register the potential goldmine that would be bootlegging for which he gave Luciana an extensive education in how to run such a business.

Lucky Luciano Fact 9: Rothstein also educated Luciano in other areas including socializing.

Lucky Luciano Fact 10: During 1925 Luciano was already grossing in excess of twelve million dollars a year with a net income from bribing the police and political body of close to four million dollars a year.

Lucky Luciano Fact 11: Where Rothstein taught Luciano the about the finer things in life, Masseria was the complete antithesis of Rothstein, uneducated and uncouth he also had very limited management skills.

Lucky Luciano Fact 12: Salvatore Maranzano was Masseria’s chief competitor. Maranzano having been recruited from Sicily to oversee the Castellammarese clan undertakings and the rivalry between the two was so fierce by 1931 both bosses would be dead.

Lucky Luciano Fact 13: Both Maranzano and Masseria were known as “Mustache Petes” meaning old school mafia bosses who had learned the trade back in Sicily and would only deal with old school bosses themselves. Luciano was part of the more progressive group known as the “Young Turks” because they were more than happy to do business with the Irish, Jewish and Italians making the business more multicultural and consequently lucrative.

Lucky Luciano Fact 14: With both of the previous local head crime bosses dead, Luciano filled the gap as head becoming the dominant boss of organized crime in America.

Lucky Luciano Fact 15: Having seen what opening declaring himself as the supreme boss could mean, he preferred to keep things low key and on a much more personal footing, keeping close ties to the other families and in so doing would keep the original five Maranzano families.

Lucky Luciano Fact 16: Eventually however he would become the head of what became known as the Luciano crime family and on the advice of a former Chicago boss he set up the Commission which would serve as organized crime governing body.

Lucky Luciano Fact 17: By know Luciano was controlling much of the prostitution business in Brooklyn and Manhattan and although he and the Commission had put a stop to Schultz’s plans to murder Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey, Dewey was however in the process of trying to take down the local crime bosses by busting their prostitution rings.

Lucky Luciano Fact 18: A police raid of two hundred brothels was arranged and instead of the women being released they were all taken to court and given bail at ten thousand dollars each, which of course meant they weren’t released. Several of the women implicated Luciano as the top boss and Dewey was preparing to arrest Luciano.

Lucky Luciano Fact 19: He got wind of what was about to happened and fled to Arkansas where he was recognized and a warrant for his arrest there was issued. He was refused bail and stood trial and found guilty of sixty two counts of compulsory prostitution. He was sentenced to 30-50 years in prison on July 18th 1936.

Lucky Luciano Fact 20: As World War II approached is was decided that Luciano could potentially provide information for the U.S. Navy and a deal was struck that he would be released and deported back to Italy at wars end in exchange for his assistance. He agreed and on February 10th 1946 he left the shore of the United States for Italy.

Lucky Luciano Fact 21: Always and still in control of his many businesses in America Luciano sadly missed what he had come over many years, to feel was his country and attempted to get as close as possible to moving to Havana in Cuba. Unfortunately, the powers that be in America were made aware of his presence and were able to persuade the Cuban government to deport him or they would block all prescription drug shipments to Cuba. The government agreed to deport him.

Lucky Luciano Fact 22: Once returned to Italy he would remain under close surveillance by the Italian police.

Lucky Luciano Fact 23: Lucky Luciano died on January 26th 1962 of a heart attack aged sixty four years. He died in Naples, Campania but his body would be laid to rest in St John’s Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens in the United States with the permission of the U.S. Government.

Influence & Legacy of Lucky Luciano: It has often been speculated on who between Luciano and Capone was the better mobster and it is also usually noted that Capone’s much publicized exploits may have led to his notoriety but in truth he never had the same influence over the Mafia families that Luciano did and Luciano was also responsible for The Commission which would bring huge stability the crime world.