The Story of Tony Delvecchio

"THE STORY OF TONY DELVECCHIO"

by: Gayle Kendall and Tony Delvecchio

"This is the story of a man who grew up, lived, worked with, and became friends with some of the most famous and infamous people of our time and he lived to tell the tale."

A father angrily picks up his son from jail who was arrested with a couple of local wise guys. As they leave the prison, the son is confused by his father's behavior. He thought his father would be proud since he heard all the stories of his father's past, being best friends with John Gotti and Frank Sinatra. The father takes him up to the cabin to tell him the story of his life. The father's name is Tony Delvecchio. He begins telling his son the story of his life as a wise guy. Tony used to take beatings from his father, after his father got through beating his mother. Tony grew up in the poor town of Newark, New Jersey. To escape the beating Tony became a fighter working out in the local gym. That is where he caught the eye of the local wise guys. It was his first fight and Tony was killing his opponent. He took the rage of his father out on the other fighter. This is when the two local wise guys thought that he could be useful. Smudgie and Demus ran Newark for the Mafia. They invited Tony to dinner and brought him to Jillys, the hottest nightclub in New York at the time. Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and Peter Lawford were there. From the day on, he knew that this was the life he wanted. Smudgie started liking him and became like a father figure. This took him in to a life of collecting debts and running numbers for the mob. He had everything he thought he ever wanted. He had money and could do what ever he wanted. He learned quickly the rules and the most important rule of them all never to rat. After a while, the big boss's son wanted to make an example of Smudgie, mostly because he was getting too much power. Therefore, they put a hit out on Smudgie. The hit went bad and Smudgie took out most of them but Smudgie, himself was hit. They were still after him and Tony helped the only father he really knew escape. That meant he had to lay low for a while. He just could not live the life. Therefore, he opened a bar with an old gangster in middle of nowhere.