Deep Cover- The Real Donnie Brasco: Legendary FBI Undercover Agent Joe Pistone Plays Undercover Tape of Mobster 'Lefty Two Guns' Ruggiero

When I first interviewed legendary undercover FBI Agent Joseph Pistone some years ago, he sent me a DVD of some of the undercover taped conversations he had with the New York mobsters he investigated when he spent six years undercover with the Bonanno Cosa Nostra crime family in the late 1970s. 

It made for interesting listening. 

Now one can listen to a tape of the late Bonanno Cosa Nostra soldier and hitman Benjamin “Lefty Two Guns” Ruggiero talk crime shop with Joe Pistone in his undercover role as “Donnie Brasco” and another undercover FBI Agent, on an episode of the podcast Deep Cover – The Real Donnie Brasco. 

Pistone notes on the podcast that he played the tapes of Ruggiero for actor Al Pacino, who portrayed the mobster in the film, Donnie Brasco. 

You can hear Ruggiero on the tape state his ludicrous claim that he is "known all over the world," which Pacino repeats in the movie. Thanks to the popular movie, Ruggiero is now in fact known all over the world.   

The podcast, hosted by actor Leo Rossi with Joe Pistone, can be heard via the below link:

Deep Cover: The Real Donnie Brasco | Podcast on Spotify

You can also read my Philadelphia Weekly Crime Beat column with Joe Pistone:

Paul Davis On Crime: The Real Donnie Brasco: My Philadelphia Weekly Crime Beat Column on Legendary Undercover FBI Agent Joe Pistone

And you can read my Philadelphia Weekly Crime Beat column with Leo Rossi (seen in the above photo on the left with Robert De Niro and Pat Cooper in the film Analyze This) via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Philadelphia Weekly Crime Beat Column On Philly Native Leo Rossi And His ‘Deep Cover’ Podcast With Joe Pistone, '10th & Wolf,' and Other Crime Films 

Note: The top photo is of Ruggiero and below are photos of Joe Pistone and Ruggiero, Johnny Depp as Pistone and Al Pacino as Ruggiero in the film Donnie Brasco, and a photo of Pistone undercover and a photo of Depp and Pistone:   

       

Real To Reel Crime: Whitey Movie Eerie Experience For "Black Mass" CoAuthor

Dick Lehr, coauthor with Gerard O'Neill of Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob, offers an interesting piece in the Boston Globe about the making of a movie from his book.

Whitey Bulger relaxes on Miami Beach on a sizzling hot day, sharing a lounge chair with his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, a gorgeous blonde in a bikini who cuddles like a cat between the crime boss’s legs. Nearby, Bulger’s partner, Stevie Flemmi, pulls on a cigarette. FBI agent John Connolly peels off twenties to pay for rum drinks as Boston businessman John Callahan, an executive with World Jai Alai, eagerly sips his. Bulger’s protege Kevin Weeks struts from the surf and joins them.
 

It’s the Whitey Bulger Gang, circa 1981, riding the wave of its unholy alliance with the deeply corrupted FBI. The notorious gangster is catching a break from the underworld grind, even as he mulls yet another murder, that of Callahan’s boss, the owner of World Jai Alai.

 

But this isn’t 1981. It’s July 11, 2014 — and it’s not Whitey Bulger, but Johnny Depp. Nor is that Catherine Greig, but Sienna Miller. John Connolly is Joel Edgerton, and so on. It’s also not Miami Beach, but our own Revere Beach, transformed magically with imported palm trees and popsicle-colored cabanas to resemble the Florida coast.

This is Scene 91 in director Scott Cooper’s adaptation of “Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI and a Devil’s Deal,” a book Gerry O’Neill and I wrote that built off of years of reporting we and others did for The Boston Globe.

Since May 19, Cooper and his vast crew have been moving around the area, making a movie out of the murderous collusion between Whitey and the FBI. I was invited to the set soon after, and it was a Chelsea morning in early June, under a gray, unfriendly sky, when I first met Depp — or, I should say, Whitey. I had arrived while they were shooting a scene where Depp as Whitey, driving a Malibu, gets pulled over by a Boston police officer on the payroll of Mafia underboss Gennaro “Jerry” Angiulo.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/07/30/whitey-bulger-film-black-mass-comes-revere-beach-and-suddenly-again/PszhmfhKxyoOx2x7SFwGON/story.html

You can also read my interview with Dick Lehr via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/06/crime-beat-column-q-with-dick-lehr-co_17.html

Actor Johnny Depp In Character As Boston Mobster Whitey Bulger

Eleanor Gower at the British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a piece on Johnny Depp portraying Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger in an upcoming film.

You can read the piece and see photos of Depp as Bulger via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2629535/Johnny-Depp-bald-cap-wig-role-mob-boss-James-Whitey-Bulger-begins-filming-biopic.html

You can also read my Washington Times review of Whitey: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/06/my-washington-times-review-of-whitey.html

And you can read my interview with Dick Lehr, co-author of Whitey and Black Mass via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/06/crime-beat-column-q-with-dick-lehr-co_17.html

Johnny Depp Talks "Whitey"

Stephen Schaefer at the Boston Herald offers a piece on actor Johnny Depp portraying Boston mobster and murderer James "Whitey" Bulger in an upcoming film.

LOS ANGELES - Johnny Depp tackles one of the most challenging roles of his storied career next month in Boston when he begins filming "Black Mass" where he plays convicted mobster Whitey Bulger.

“I don’t think of him as Whitey – it’s James ‘Whitey’ Bulger,” Depp said at the Four Seasons Hotel yesterday during a press day for his science fiction thriller “Transcendence” which opens April 18.
While Depp, 50, played an undercover FBI agent getting the goods on a mobster in the 1997 true crime classic “Donnie Brasco,” Bulger is definitely a shift to the dark side.

“The reason to play it is obvious to me,” said the three-time Oscar nominee.  “He’s a fascinating character. I don’t think it’s like anything I’ve done before and I’m very excited to slide into that skin for a little bit.”

“Black Mass,” directed by “Out of the Furnace” writer-director Scott Cooper, is based on the 2001 New York Times bestseller “Black Mass: The True Story of the Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob” by Dick Lehr and Gerald O’Neill.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://bostonherald.com/entertainment/movies/movie_news/2014/04/johnny_depp_talks_whitey

You can also read my interview with Dick Lehr, co-author of Black Mass and Whitey via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/06/crime-beat-column-q-with-dick-lehr-co_17.html

Johnny Depp To Portray Boston Gangster Whitey Bulger In Film Version Of "Black Mass"

Mike Fleming Jr. at Deadline.com reports that actor Johnny Depp will portray convicted murderer and mobster James "Whitey" Bulger in upcoming film, Black Mass.

Johnny Depp has made his deal to star in Black Mass, the drama Scott Cooper will direct about the Boston crime kingpin-turned-fugitive Whitey Bulger, for Cross Creek Pictures and Exclusive Media. Now, they are in early  talks with Tom Hardy to play John Connolly, the FBI agent and childhood pal of Bulger, who is in prison for tipping Bulger that he was about to be indicted.

That led Bulger to go from ruthless Boston crime kingpin to the top of the FBI's most wanted list.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.deadline.com/2014/02/berlin-johnny-depp-seals-deal-to-play-whitey-bulger-in-black-mass-tom-hardy-in-talks-to-play-fbi-pal-john-connolly/

You can also read my interview with Dick Lehr, one of the authors of Black Mass and Whitey via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/06/crime-beat-column-q-with-dick-lehr-co_17.html

Johhny Depp Channels His Old Pal Hunter S. Thompson In "The Rum Diary'

Sara Stewart at the New York Post offers an interesting piece on how Johhny Depp, a friend of the late writer Hunter S. Thompson, was instrumental in having Thompson's novel The Rum Diary published and came to star in the film adaptation.

"It was the kind of town that made you feel like Humphrey Bogart: you came in on a bumpy little plane, and, for some mysterious reason, got a private room with a balcony overlooking the town and the harbor; then you sat there and drank until something happened.”

Hunter S. Thompson wrote this about San Juan, Puerto Rico, in his novel “The Rum Diary,” itself a passenger on a bumpy ride. Penned in the early 1960s and rejected by a half-dozen publishers, the long-forgotten manuscript was unearthed in Thompson’s basement by one of his house-guests -- Johnny Depp.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/movies/rum_dinger_ViMPW3MbLiEdZqqQdizUML

You can also read an earlier post on a collection of Hunter S. Thompson's Rolling Stone pieces via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2011/10/look-back-at-great-comic-writer-hunter.html

Legendary FBI Special Agent Joe Pistone, AKA Donnie Brasco, Spoke to Civic Group in El Paso About His Life Undercover in the New York Mob

Legendary FBI Special Agent Joe Pistone (seen in the above photo) recently spoke to an FBI civic group in El Paso, Texas about his time undercover in the Bonnano crime family in New York.

 

Known as "Donnie Brasco" or "Donnie the Jeweler," Pistone spent six years undercover and his testimony put more than 100 mobsters in jail. (The photo above is of Pistone undercover as Donnie Brasco).

 

Pistone later wrote a book about his time with the mob called Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia.

 

Pistone spoke of his undercover years, the film Donnie Brasco, which starred Johnny Depp as Pistone, and how he would prefer to go undercover with Italian organized crime rather than the violent Mexican drug cartels.

 

The photo above shows Pistone undercover relaxing with "Sonny Black" Napolitano.

 

You can read about Pistone via the below link to The El Paso Times:

 

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_15737526?source=most_viewed

 

Below is a photo of Benjamin "Lefty Two Guns" Ruggiero.

 

 

Above is a photo of Sonny Black with Florida mob boss Santo Trafficante. Below is a poster of the film Donnie Brasco.
 

Below is a photo of Johhny Depp as Pistone and Al Pacino as Ruggiero.


Below is a link to my review of Joe Pistone's book The Way of the Wiseguy, which appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/WayWiseguy.jpg

I interviewed Joe Pistone a while back. Below is a link to my column about Pistone:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/01/look-back-at-joseph-pistone-aka-donnie.html