In the end, Rosselli’s life of crime caught up to him in 1976 when he was found stuffed into a 55-gallon drum off the coast of Florida. There were certainly old scores to be settled, not unlike the recent hit on elderly mob boss Whitey Bulger. Nevertheless, Johnny Rosselli lived like a gangster from the movies — only he was real. Server’s biography not only provides a window into Rosselli’s life but also contextualizes it at a time when Hollywood, politics and organized crime were inextricably linked.
In his latest biography, Server sorts through a massive amount of information—grand jury testimony, police records, news reports, hearsay—to create a cohesive, engaging narrative of the life of a gangster and the 'Los Angeles underworld' in which he lived and worked ...Paced like a fine piece of fiction, this is a handsomely written chronicle of an interesting mob character.
Server traces the astounding life of gentleman gangster Johnny Rosselli in this exhilarating, exhaustively researched account, revealing how the dapper Al Capone protégé befriended mobsters and glamorous movie stars, and seduced beautiful showgirls while smoothly corrupting Hollywood unions and local politicians for more than 50 years ... Filled with crackerjack writing and Damon Runyonesque characters, this entertaining page-turner is a rich look at one of organized crime’s most intriguing characters.
