The Docile Don

Stretching across decades and generations, this first-ever biography of Mob boss Angelo Bruno—portrayed by Harvey Keitel in The Irishman—the man behind the notorious Philadelphia crime family, tells the full story of its prosperous rise to its violent fall.

On the evening of March 21, 1980, Angelo Bruno, the formidable Mob boss who controlled the rackets in Philadelphia for more than twenty years, was shot in the back of the head outside his South Philly home. Bruno’s murder triggered decades of internecine violence over control of the Philadelphia family, destabilized an organization that had once dominated the American underworld, and signaled the end of an era.

Old-school to his bones, Bruno was part of a generation that accepted the Mafia as more than a criminal enterprise. It was a way of life rooted in the Italian immigrant experience. Known as the Docile Don—a nickname that belied the lengths to which he would sometimes go to send a message—Bruno’s goal was to make money, not headlines. And he made a lot of it.

Loan-sharking, gambling, real estate holdings, and hidden interests in casinos in Havana and London were all part of his financial portfolio. He was second only to Meyer Lansky when it came to creating gambling empires. But Bruno, neighborhood nice guy, also made a lot of enemies. His death came as he was maneuvering to grab a piece of the gambling boom coming to the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

George Anastasia, award-winning author of Blood and Honor, The Goodfella Tapes, and The Last Gangster, brings his riveting and thoroughly exhaustive Philadelphia Saga full circle—spanning generations from 1911 to the present, from its inception to its inglorious end—in this first-ever biography of the Philadelphia Mob boss whose reach, power, and control made him a legend.