LAS VEGAS– It was in a schoolyard where she learned that her last name carries weight when another girl pointed a finger at her and ordered the other children to follow her.
“Let’s go,” said the girl. “That’s a Capone.”
Diane Capone Pette is the granddaughter of Al Capone, one of the most infamous gangsters in American history who was nicknamed ‘Scarface’ because of a cut he received during a fight. His legacy in the public eye is marked by violence, imprisonment and crime. His rule over the Chicago Outfit in the 1920s has inspired dozens of shows and films, including the 1983 film “Scarface” starring Al Pacino.
At home, Pette said Capone lived a very different life.
“He wasn’t one-dimensional. He was a man of many facets,” Pette told The Associated Press. “He seemed to have the capacity to be quite ruthless and aggressive,” and on the other hand, she said, “this was also a man who was incredibly loving and loyal to family and friends.”
A rare glimpse into that part of Capone’s life will be on public display in a new exhibit, “The First Public Enemy,” opening Wednesday at the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas. For the first time, audiences can get an up-close look at Capone’s favorite personal weapon and watch a short home video shot by the mob boss himself in 1929.
After Capone’s death in 1947 from natural causes, his belongings remained in the family for decades. First with his wife and son, and after their deaths with his four granddaughters. Two, including Pette, are still alive.
Pette, 81, and her sisters auctioned off some of their grandfather’s belongings a few years ago, fearing that they would lose them to the wildfires common in California, where they now live, or that the items would be lost or forgotten after their own deaths.
One of their most valuable hand-me-downs was Capone’s weapon of choice, a Colt 1911 .45-caliber pistol popular during World War I.
“He called her – we call it a her – his sweetheart,” Pette said.
In family history, the gun has taken on its own identity as a faithful companion of Capone, who saved the gangster more than once.
“She saved him, and so she was very special to him and so special to us,” Pette said.
Geoff Shumacher, historian and vice president of exhibitions and programs at the museum, said the artifacts from the Capone family collection are unique. Most of the items the family already sold at auction went to personal collectors, he said, adding: “This is a slice of life you can’t get anywhere else except the museum.”
In 1929, a few years before Capone was convicted of federal tax evasion and sent to prison for seven years, he filmed a short home movie at his waterfront mansion in Miami.
Capone is behind the camera and never appears in the black and white silent film, but shows a day with friends at the pool and on a boat. Two of those friends are fellow gangsters Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello.
The Mob Museum has the only physical copy of the 12-minute, 20-second home video, which was captured on 16mm film. A shorter version of the film is showing in the museum.
In it, Luciano is on the high dive above the pool with a towel around his neck, while Costello sits poolside and watches people take turns jumping into the water. Later, they get on a boat and Capone’s footage shows Luciano and Costello sitting together, smiling.
After Capone was released from prison in 1939, he retired from mob life and spent his last years in the mansion in Miami.
Pette was three when her grandfather died, but some of her earliest memories are of her “Dad.” Their January birthdays were days apart, and she remembers sitting on his lap as they blew out the candles on their cake together.
Her last and most vivid memory of him was just before his death. Capone was sick and in bed, and Pette’s father – Capone’s only son – laid her down to say goodbye.
Pette kissed the gangster’s cheek. Capone said, “I love you, girl.”
“And that was the last thing he said to me,” Pette said.