A MAFIA KINGPIN GOES TO SEED

A recent two-page, full-color ad in Daily Variety proclaimed that Sonny Gibson and Reparatta Mazzola will star in a new movie called “Dark Before Dawn.”

This is the same team that once tried to raise money for a movie version of “Mafia Kingpin”--the 1981 book (from Grosset & Dunlap) by ex-convict-turned-actor-and-author Gibson. Mazzola co-authored and was president of Kingpin Productions, which attempted to make the movie.

The book supposedly was the true story of Gibson’s egregious life as a Mafia killer-dope dealer--prior to finding Jesus during his prison sentence.

At the time, Gibson was hitting the talk-show circuit and giving impassioned speeches to Christian youth groups, citing his experience as an example that, with the Lord’s help, “anyone can change.”

Problem was, law enforcement officials branded Gibson’s book a phony--and claimed he never was a member of the Mafia, much less a kingpin. Nor, they said, was he a killer or a dope dealer--just a small-time hood, con artist and liar.

Calendar related law enforcement’s view of “Mafia Kingpin” in May, 1983. A few months later, Gibson filed for bankruptcy, claiming assets of $1,900 against liabilities of $809,000.

After that, he pretty much dropped out of sight.

We aren’t the only ones whose interest in Gibson and Mazzola was piqued by the recent $5,800 trade ad (which was paid for up front).

It also caught the eye of a few creditors--including Atlantic Releasing, which claims in a lawsuit (filed in L.A. Municipal Court, Beverly Hills Judicial District) that Gibson and Mazzola skipped on nearly $25,000 in rent owed for Kingpin’s former offices on Sunset Strip. Atlantic had been trying to locate Gibson and Mazzola for months to serve papers for the lawsuit.

But the phone number that Gibson and Mazzola give out for their purported management company, C.N.A., is an answering service, and the address is merely a rented mail drop. This according to Dan Coleman, an attorney for Atlantic, who chuckled: “We had a Sonny sighting a week ago. He’s around; you can him feel out there. He collects his mail and phone messages--you just can’t find him. He’s a phantom.”

Actually, Gibson, Mazzola and “Dark Before Dawn” are currently on location in Hugoton, a community of 2,500 located in the southwest corner of Kansas.

Outtakes put in numerous calls to the movie production company, Lazy E Productions. We got the run-around. Half a dozen more calls were made to the Oklahoma City office of the movie’s executive producer, E. K. Gaylord II. They were never returned.

(Gaylord is the grandson of Oklahoma publishing magnate E. K. Gaylord, owner of the archconservative Daily Oklahoman and Oklahoma City Times newspapers and one of the most powerful men in the state when he died in 1974 at age 101.)

But local sources told us that Gibson and Mazzola are staying at the Flamingo Motel on Highway 51 at the edge of town.

And through an article in the Hugoton Hermes newspaper, we learned that “Dark Before Dawn” is a murder mystery (penned by Mazzola) set against the backdrop of the farm crisis. The Hermes quoted Gibson as saying the story falls somewhere between “Giant” and “Grapes of Wrath.” Or, as Gibson put it, “ ‘Silkwood’ on the farm.”

We also came across a critique of the script written by a story editor for a Hollywood film distributor that had turned the project down. It reads:

“Corporation exploits farm crisis hoping to corner the grain market. Laden with narrative dialogue, with characters telling each other what they already know. Farmers gripe to each other on the unfairness of price controls and foreclosures, corporate directors explain insider trading at a a board meeting, commodities brokers remind one another that the futures market is volatile. In case anyone could possibly miss a plot point, a convenient TV is on with a reporter repeating what just occurred. What’s occuring is the usual bum shake for the American farmer.

“As usual, an inquisitive reporter, Jessica (Mazzola) meets a real farmer, Jeff (Gibson), and he shows her what’s what. She suspects her fiance Roger, who is a Vietnam buddy of Jeff’s, met his death at the hands of another while uncovering a plot to corner the grain market. She’s right, exposes the bad guys and the Congress passes laws to aid the farmers. Mixed in story is a band of religious neo-Nazis who are murderous loose cannons on the farm belt, but good neighbors in the end.”

In a pitch letter to the distributor, Mazzola stated that a portion of the profits from the movie “will go to a foundation to help the farmers.”

Back when Gibson and Mazzola were trying to bring “Mafia Kingpin” to the screen, they pledged that half the profits would be donated to a foundation for troubled youngsters.