Producer Joseph Isgro nails the rights to a legendary mobster’s life story.

BEFORE Tony Soprano or Don Corleone or Tony Montana there was Lucky Luciano — the real-life patriarch of modern organized crime.

Luciano was the Sicilian immigrant who rose to power in the Mafia in the U.S. in the 1920s and transformed it into a flourishing enterprise based on legitimate economic models. He ordered gangland killings, consolidated warring crime factions and began laundering profits from narcotics and prostitution through lawful businesses.

Criminals paid attention. So did the cops. Even the White House deferred to Luciano during World War II, imploring him to marshal the Mafia to help the Allies crush the enemy — a covert intervention that earned him a presidential pardon. Major studios struggled for decades to secure the rights to the mobster’s life story but failed because Luciano’s family was reluctant to bring his crime-filled saga to the screen.

Finally, a movie about Luciano is in the works, and the driving force behind the project is Joseph Isgro, a producer once branded a Mafia soldier by the FBI. Isgro was a producer on the 1992 film “Hoffa” while under indictment on racketeering charges.

How Isgro secured the rights remains a mystery — one he will not discuss except to say that he got them legitimately. Isgro says he was dogged by the same type of skepticism decades ago when he beat out Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and the studios to lock down the Jimmy Hoffa life-story rights.

“Listen, I was 15 years old when Luciano died,” the 60-year-old Isgro said in a recent interview. “If someone wants to try to associate me with Luciano, then so be it. The government has wasted millions of dollars of taxpayer money chasing me. You know what those guys say about me, right?”

Here’s what they say: In a 2000 affidavit, the FBI singled out Isgro as one of 192 identifiable members of the Gambino crime family — a mob soldier who has been under federal investigation for many years.

Isgro scoffs at those charges.

“I’m a soldier all right,” Isgro said. “A decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, and a proud member of the Isgro family.”

Isgro broke into Hollywood 15 years ago, producing “Hoffa,” a 20th Century Fox film about the mobbed-up union leader, which starred Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito. He and Gary Arnold are co-executive producing “Baby-O,” a movie starring Theresa Russell and David Proval that began shooting recently in Las Vegas.

For “Luciano,” Isgro has approached a specific A-list actor to play the lead role (whom he cannot yet publicly identify) and is wooing several actors from “The Sopranos” to join the cast. Isgro and his associate Dan Michaels, chief of Full Force Films, have also interviewed a number of writers and directors, including Charles Matthau, son of the late actor Walter Matthau. Isgro already signed hit music producer Scott Storch to score the soundtrack and is in talks with New Line Cinema to distribute the movie, according to New Line’s Joseph Khouri.
Isgro says his film will follow Luciano’s entire life but is likely to focus more on his later years in jail and in exile. Luciano was a young man, 39, when he was incarcerated, and he lived to be 64 before dying of a heart attack in Naples, Italy, on Jan. 26, 1962. (There is speculation that his death might have been caused by poisoning).

Isgro says the movie will detail the “crucial” role that Luciano played in the U.S. war effort. The film will also show how Luciano was able to build the American syndicate from behind bars and control it later from Cuba and Italy.

“We’re going to show another side of Luciano,” Isgro said. “Did the man deserve to be canonized as a saint? Probably not. But he wasn’t 100% bad either. Nobody is — no matter what the government would lead you to believe.”

Before entering the film world, Isgro was the nation’s most powerful record promoter during the 1980s, pitching songs to radio stations for stars including Prince, Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson. He is currently developing a movie about the inner workings of the music business.

Isgro spent the 1990s fending off a 51-count payola and racketeering indictment filed by the Department of Justice. The U.S attorney’s office spent 10 years and $10 million to pursue Isgro, but the case against him was thrown out because of government misconduct. In 1999, the FBI investigated Isgro for possible ties to a Los Angeles-based international prostitution ring but determined that he had no involvement in the operation.

One year later, Isgro was busted for loan sharking in Beverly Hills. Prosecutors alleged that proceeds from a tiny loan sharking operation run by Isgro fed the coffers of the Gambino crime family. The government never proved any mob ties during Isgro’s trial. He was convicted in 2000 and sentenced to 50 months in prison for extortion and loan sharking.

The lesson he learned behind bars, Isgro says, can be summed up in three words: “The food stinks.”

Film bio of Lucky Luciano in the works - From the Los Angeles - By Chuck Philips - Times Staff WriterTimes - - http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-

I'd be interested in this movie. I hope he does a better job than an earlier version:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071782/

The standard accounts of Luciano's "contributions to labor peace" during WWII are greatly exaggerated. Briefly, he, Meyer Lansky, Albert Anastasia and Joseph "Socks" Lanza fed the paranoia of a military official who believed that the burning of the liner "Normandy" in New York Harbor was an act of sabotage by "Axis-friendly" Italian and German longshoremen (instead of an accident, which is what it was), and that Luciano could assure "labor peace" on the docks in return for favorable treatment.

do you think he could do lucky justice

Great news cant wait for it, Hopefully he does a good job.

yeah im pretty excited by it as well cant wait

Always excited by any movie or TV show on the mob but like Turnbull said,see how it comes out first!

If I ever finish APPLE CRUSHER, I would concentrate on that and the Government's wartime alliance with the Mafia. I mean, while America was laying the smackdown on Japan and Hitler, it was brought to its knees virtually by Lucky Luciano.

I mean DAMN.

I would be interested to see something made about Luciano's days in exile. All of the other movies ever made about him always seem to concentrate on his rise to power and then usually end on his exile.

I read somewhere that he operated a restaurant in Naples, and used to regale American sailors from the base there with stories of Mobdom.

Yes i could see something like that working Don Cardi and i think a lot of people would welcome that idea.

New York Post
August 12, 2007 -- THE life story of Lucky Luciano is finally coming to the big screen. Producer Bob DeBrino - who holds the movie option to "The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano," by the late Martin Gosch and former N.Y. Times reporter Richard Hammer - is pitching studios a film about the Sicilian-born mob boss who helped the U.S. win World War II from his prison cell by ensuring labor peace on the docks. The crime kingpin, who was freed and exiled in 1946, collaborated with the authors on the condition that the book not be published until a decade after his 1962 death. New interest in Luciano was sparked by Joe Isgro, a former music promoter who in 2000 was sentenced to 50 months in jail for extortion and loan- sharking. Isgro surfaced in Hollywood claiming he had the rights to the Luciano story. "Rights to what?" Hammer sputtered. "There are no rights." Luciano has no surviving relatives. Isgro created some confusion around Tinseltown, says DeBrino, but he's pressing on. Being Italian is not a prerequisite for the lead role - DeBrino's wish list includes George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp.

Who do you think would be better suited to playing Lucky? Im going with Johnny Depp

Good Choice

Yep great Choice

I remember that there used to be a series on television called the Gangster Chronicals about Luciano, Siegal, and Lansky as young men. Luciano was played by Michael Nouri. Joe Mazzaria was played by Richard Castellano [Peter Clamenza from GF 1].

"Luciaaaano!" I can hear Castellano saying his name.

Luciano, as you said, was played by Michael Nouri. Lansky, or Lasker as he was called in the show, was played by Brian Ben Ben. Bugsy Siegel was played by Joe Penny, and Johnathan Banks played a really great Dutch Schultz.

SC and I have been trying to find the COMPLETE series of that show for years now. It was a fantastic show and I remember it well.

Unfortunately they do NOT make the complete series and instead have compacted it into a two hour movie titled The Gangster Wars.

I love that series!

My brother has the whole thing on an old beta tape. I really have to try to make a decent copy.

There's a great reference to it in Robert Lacey's LITTLE MAN. Apparently, Meyer and Jimmy "Blue Eyes" had a private screening of it down in Florida for their geriatric friends.

TRY? did you say TRY?

PB, if he has the complete series on Beta, I'd be willing to pay you for a copy of it on DVD.

If they can transfer VHS to DVD, I don't see why you souldn't be able to get BETA transferred to DVD.

Have we heard anything about this?

Not that I know of....

I havent heard a thing about since i made this thread

I could see Matt Damon and Johnny Depp as Lucky Luciano, but not the others. ESPECIALLY George Clooney. I always wanted to see what happened after the '91 movie "Mobsters", what Luciano does after the final scene that the commission is formed. Christian Slater was great as Lucky, but I dunno how he'd do now, considering about 17 years have passed since "Mobsters" was made.

Matt Damon as Luciano?

I love Damon but he just doesn't look the part. Aesthetics matter in film bios.

RE: The Gangster Chronicles



TRY? did you say TRY?

PB, if he has the complete series on Beta, I'd be willing to pay you for a copy of it on DVD.

If they can transfer VHS to DVD, I don't see why

So? Did you ever find out for us?

That post was so long ago, I actually forgot, DC.

I'll call him tonight, I promise.

I also remember Andy Garcia playing Luciano in Hoodlum a film that starred Lawrence Fishburn.