Actor-Writer Provides a New Take on Gangster Capone in ‘King of the City’

Nobody can ever leave Al Capone alone.

Eliot Ness pursued him in “The Untouchables,” and Geraldo opened his vault on national television.

Now, 45 years after America’s most famous gangster died, actor-writer Robert Gallo has resurrected Capone again in “King of the City,” a one-man play at the Group Repertory Theatre in North Hollywood.

Gallo promises to unveil a different Capone. The public perceives Capone as a ruthless murderer who terrorized Chicago. Who can forget the scene in 1987’s “The Untouchables,” when Capone, portrayed by Robert De Niro, killed one of his henchmen with a baseball bat?

But Gallo, 46, of North Hollywood said Capone was a cultured, sophisticated man who was generous to his family and friends. During the Depression, he added, Capone fed thousands of poor people in soup kitchens. He courted politicians and police with grace unimaginable for someone in his profession.

“I felt people should see the other side of the gangster,” Gallo said. “People should see the loving father. He was just the product of his times, the wide-open 1920s. Like Ruth and Valentino, he was larger than life.”

The play, however, focuses mostly on Capone’s prime--the late 1920s--with brief detours into his childhood and later years in prison. Gallo talks directly to the audience, and stages conversations with gang members and family. He also demonstrates Capone’s reputation as a womanizer by constantly trying to seduce a woman reporter.

Juanin Clay, the play’s director, said the misconceptions about Capone exist because “it’s easier to believe in a certain formula than to deal with the complexities of a person.”

Clay said the public even helped create Capone.

“Here is someone who was the result of our fascination, our need for what he had to give,” she said. “He gave us pleasure. The chilly thing is that you can understand why he made the decisions he made. We want to make the audience charmed and then horrified.”

At first, Gallo was just curious. In 1985, he played Capone in “Vespers Eve,” which appeared at the Cast Theatre in Hollywood. Over the years, Gallo couldn’t get Capone out of his head. He pored through clips from the Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune and the New York Times. He found the man behind the myth, and was shocked. “Everyone said he was a murderer, but he was never convicted,” Gallo said.

According to Gallo, both the government, which for years had protected Capone from prosecution, and the public turned against the mobster after the highly publicized St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929 when his subordinates, dressed as policemen, killed rival gang members.

But among the victims was an innocent bystander, an eye doctor, and that fueled the public outcry.

“After that, the government began to put together a case against him,” Gallo said. “If the doctor hadn’t been there, it would have just been gangsters against gangsters, and there probably wouldn’t have been an effort to put him in jail.”

The government never linked Capone to the murder, but did convict him of tax evasion in 1931. He spent nearly seven years in prison, becoming the first celebrity prisoner to serve time on Alcatraz Island. He died a virtual recluse in Florida in 1947.

Gallo is now starring in the Group Repertory’s production “The Only Thing,” and has appeared on television in “Cheers” and “Hunter.” The Capone play is the first major piece he’s written. Clay, a veteran actress, has appeared in “WarGames” and “The Legend of the Lone Ranger.” This marks her directing debut.

“King of the City,” starring Robert Gallo, is playing indefinitely at the Group Repertory Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood. Show time is 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Tickets: $10. Call (818) 769-PLAY.