JOE VALACHI--The first major Mafia turncoat, this drug-dealing soldier in the family of Vito Genovese introduced the term ‘la cosa nostra’ (meaning ‘this thing of ours’) to the English lexicon. He turned informant after learning that his boss had decided he had to go, and signaled his decision with an infamous “kiss of death” in the federal pen in Atlanta, Georgia.
Attorney General Robert Kennedy called his testimony “the biggest intelligence breakthrough yet in combating organized crime.” His evidence never directly convicted a single mobster, but his 1963 televised appearance at a Senate committee investigating organized crime lifted the veil on the Mafia in America.
He tried but failed to hang himself in his cell and ultimately died of a heart attack in 1971, at the age of 67
. Genovese Soldier: The subject of Hollywood Mafia movies on rats. George Barone. ... Goodfellas, the Godfather, Donnie Brasco, The Sopranos-
