Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonanno (18 January 1905 – 11 May 2002) was the boss of the Bonanno crime family from 1931 to 1965, succeeding Salvatore Maranzano and preceding Gaspar DiGregorio. Bonanno was the second don of the Bonanno family, succeeding his mentor, Maranzano, after his murder in 1931.
Biography[]
Joseph Bonanno was born in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Italy on 18 January 1905, and his family moved to the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City when he was three. Bonanno became involved in bootlegging activities during Prohibition, and he joined Salvatore Maranzano's family. Bonanno became his protege, and he was awarded most of Maranzano's family after the American Mafia created the "Five Families" of New York to divide power. Bonanno took over Maranzano's family after his 1931 killing by Lucky Luciano, and he chose to work with Luciano rather than go to war with him.
Bonanno was a multi-millionaire by the time that he had acquired US citizenship in 1945, leading the now-renamed "Bonanno crime family" to become one of the most powerful Mafia families in the country. Bonanno and Colombo crime family boss Joseph Magliocco formed an alliance, plotting to assassinate rivals Tommy Lucchese, Carlo Gambino, Joseph Magaddino, and Frank DeSimone. Joseph Colombo betrayed his boss Magliocco to The Commission, and the Commission suspected that Bonanno was the plot's mastermind.
In October 1964, Bonanno disappeared for two years, and Gaspar DiGregorio took over the family. In May 1966, he returned to the spotlight in Foley Square, where he claimed that he was kidnapped. Bonanno rallied a faction of the family and rebelled against DiGregorio; in 1968, Bonanno chose to retire from the Mafia after suffering a heart attack. He subsequently moved to Arizona, and he was never convicted of a serious crime.
In 1983, he wrote the tell-all novel A Man of Honor, inadvertently allowing for the government to learn about the Mafia's secrets. He died of heart failure in Tucson in 2002 at the age of 97.
| Don of the Bonanno crime family | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Salvatore Maranzano |
1931 - 1968 | Succeeded by: Paul Sciacca |
| Capo dei capi | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Vito Genovese |
1959 - 1962 | Succeeded by: Carlo Gambino |