My Washington Times Review Of 'Handsome Johnny: The Life And Death Of Johnny Rosselli: Gentleman Gangster, Hollywood Producer, CIA Assassin'

The Washington Times published my review of Handsome Johnny: The Life and Death of Johnny Rosselli: Gentleman Gangster, Hollywood Producer, CIA Assassin.

From the Prohibition era to the mid-1970s, Johnny Rosselli traveled first class through the nexus of Hollywood movies, Las Vegas gambling, shady business deals, secret government assassination plots and organized crime.

He always had money and tipped generously. He was always groomed perfectly. He was always with a beautiful actress. He was always seated at the best spot in a nightclub or restaurant. He was always in the company of wealthy and powerful men on the golf course and tennis court and at a card table. He was the intimate friend of movie studio bosses, casino bosses, major entertainers and notorious mobsters. He was called “Gentleman Johnny” or “Handsome Johnny.”

Johnny Rosselli lived a charmed life right up until he ended up dead in a 55-gallon oil drum floating in the Atlantic. 

Lee Server’s “Handsome Johnny: The Life and Death of Johnny Rosselli: Gentleman Gangster, Hollywood Producer, CIA Assassin” offers a complete picture of a smooth operator who began life as Filippo Sacco in Frosinone, Italy, on July 4, 1905. Raised in Boston, his early travels took him across the country to Chicago, where he changed his name and then changed his life.

In the 1950s, the FBI noticed that Rosselli spelled his name differently at times. Sometimes with double “s” and sometimes with only one “s.” The FBI thought that when a man spells his name differently in different years, something is definitely wrong.

“He covered his tracks well — his origins, his early years. The FBI was sure he was not who he said he was. But who was he? What was he hiding?” Mr. Server writes. “For a guy whom everybody in law enforcement knew about for decades — one of Al Capone’s boy wonders, the Mob’s man in Hollywood, big wheel in Las Vegas, the hundreds of pages of police reports in which he figured, numerous arrests and trials, headline convictions — he was a mystery.”

You can read the rest of my review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/13/book-review-handsome-johnny-by-lee-server/ 

'Handsome Johnny: The Life And Death Of Johnny Rosselli - Gentleman Gangster, Hollywood Producer, CIA Assassin'

Larry Getlen at the New York Post offers a piece on a new book about Cosa Nostra mobster Jimmy Rosselli, the CIA and Fidel Castro.

In the summer of 1960, a former FBI and sometime CIA man named Robert Maheu was handed an important mission by the latter agency — engaging the Mafia to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Maheu knew exactly whom to call. The new book “Handsome Johnny: The Life and Death of Johnny Rosselli — Gentleman Gangster, Hollywood Producer, CIA Assassin,” by Lee Server (St. Martin’s Press), provides the most detailed description of the plot against Castro to date, and introduces Rosselli as the link between the mob, Hollywood and the CIA.

Rosselli had been friends and associates with the likes of Al Capone, Charlie Chaplin and Columbia Pictures co-founder and President Harry Cohn.

He was one of the most powerful gangsters in Los Angeles, and the right person for Maheu to enlist.

Still, it was an odd and risky request. Certainly, the mob hated Castro, as it had made Cuba its playground before Castro took over and confiscated its property. But the Mafia wasn’t a fan of the US federal government, either.

According to Server, Maheu offered $150,000, which Rosselli told him to keep. If he did the job, it would be for love of country, although getting the mob’s Cuban properties back was a not-insignificant benefit.

Before he could say yes, though, he had to clear it with the big boss in Chicago, Sam Giancana. (The mob there was known as the Outfit.)

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

https://nypost.com/2018/11/28/meet-the-mafia-gangster-the-cia-wanted-to-assassinate-fidel-castro/