You couldn't make it up dept no.83 - Brothers under the skin

[fpb]

Al Capone's oldest brother, Vincenzo (who took the name of an early Western movie star, Richard Hart), became, quite independently of his younger brother, a frontier lawman in Nebraska. The same opportunity made both brothers: while young Al went to Chicago and swiftly grew rich on Prohibition smuggling, his brother went to Homer, Nebraska,

Comments

[jordan179]

I can see why having Al Capone as a baby brother might be something that an honest lawman would want to hide! :)

[fpb]

As I heard it, at first he had no idea of what had happened. He had left the family when Al was still a child, and fought in WWI (where he managed to be promoted form private to lieutenant!) and gone West in search of adventure. Even his taking a different name was not due to wanting to hide anything, but to his admiration for the actor Richard Hart.

[jordan179]

I'd bet that when Richard found out, he avoided Al for a long while, because both of them must have realized that their Worst Nightmare might be each other. I mean, a confrontation when both were active in their careers could have meant (literal) fratricide!

[fpb]

Likely enough. Al did not stick to Cicero, and travelled a lot around America, but always to large towns with expensive hotels (and useful safe houses); Vincenzo/Richard, on the other hand, seems to have had a real predilection for the open air and from 1920 on rarely saw a larger town than Homer (current population, 570). So their tastes would have made pretty sure they would not easily meet. Even so, I dare say that it was not a coincidence that Richard did not allow his family to know, nor arrange a family reunion, until Al was defanged and wrecked by syphilis