Joe Gallo catapulted to mob fame while sitting before a panel of U.S. senators and their charismatic general counsel, Robert Kennedy.
An Italian-American dressed in black and sunglasses, Gallo gleamed as a rebel for the TV-watching public in 1959.
He made wisecracks, dropped an ash tray and generally played to the cameras, which broadcast Gallo's testimony, or lack thereof, on the lucrative mob stronghold of jukebox vending.
"Gangsters were fascinating stuff ... and they were really being bad boys," writer Tom Folsom said of Gallo and his brothers, Lawrence and Albert, who also testified. "That kind of national attention was really kind of their breakthrough moment."
But that's just what took place in front of the cameras.
Behind the lens, Gallo painted, killed people, studied philosophy and launched a revolution against the Profacis, the New York crime family that employed him.
The character-driven saga is fit for the 1960s and perfect for Folsom's brand of made-for-Hollywood storytelling, complete with a true "to the mattresses" scene later adopted by "The Godfather" author Mario Puzo.
"It's really this kind of world that they've created. That's the kind of thing you see in the movies," Folsom said of Gallo and his brothers. "They definitely blurred fantasy and fiction."
Folsom, a University of Georgia graduate and New York resident, chronicles the Gallo story in his latest book, "The Mad Ones: Crazy Joe Gallo and the Revolution at the Edge of the Underworld," which Weinstein Books published and optioned for movie and television.
He learned quite a bit about Gallo, nicknamed "Crazy Joe," during lengthy interviews with Leroy "Nicky" Barnes.
Barnes was a high-powered heroin dealer in Harlem, N.Y., who led his own Mafia-like operation during the 1960s and 1970s. He later testified as a federal witness and entered protective custody.
Folsom co-wrote Barnes' story, "Mr. Untouchable: My Crimes and Punishments," with him in 2007, learning all about Barnes' prison time with Gallo, who plotted their takeover of New York's drug underworld.
"Joe predicted one day the Mafia would have to start aligning with the black heroin dealers," Folsom said. "He wanted to take over the Mafia. He thought that Nicky Barnes would be a really strong ally of that. ... They were preparing for the revolution."
The time and place is as much a part of the Gallo story as the man himself. He and his brothers grew up in the rough Red Hook neighborhood on Brooklyn's industrial waterfront, learning quickly it's better to take as a mobster than be taken by one.
But they did not settle for their otherwise small-time scores.
Inspired by the spirit of the 1960s and its countercultures, Gallo portrayed himself as an outsider, mixed with various members of high and low society and even mingled among Greenwich Village's intellectuals and artists. (After Gallo's death, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan wrote a romantic tribute to "Joey.")
"This guy had this real thirst for knowledge. He wanted to learn," Folsom said of Gallo. Yet, he also killed. "These were the two forces that were pulling him apart. ... They essentially destroyed him."
True mobsters shunned attention of any kind, Folsom explained. But the Gallos, led by Joe, invited it.
Folsom said even during their war with the Profacis, FBI agents tasked with surveillance were granted unusual access.
"This is like the boys in the mailroom taking over IBM. They're completely in over their heads. They get 20 mattresses, right on the Red Hook waterfront in their grandmother's tenement," Folsom said, describing the mobsters at war.
During their years-long camp-outs together, they enjoyed family gatherings and even invited the FBI to share meals. Since the agents could neither arrest nor evict them, the lawmen accepted.
"(Their attitude was) if we're both going to be here, we might as well enjoy our jobs. When the Gallos' father would cook these big pots of spaghetti, the cops would hang out, and they'd all have dinner together," Folsom said. "It's one of the more unique aspects of the story that you don't get from a lot of other cops-and-robbers tales."
As a result, the FBI sensed what the gang was like behind the scenes and recorded a lot of what transpired in detailed reports Folsom researched for his book.
Additionally, the writer interviewed former FBI agents and Barnes. He also scoured news accounts highlighting Gallo's actions, right up until his shooting death weeks after the release of "The Godfather" in 1972, a movie that incorporated several aspects of Gallo's story.
"Rather than duck for cover, he flaunted himself out in the public. Some people actually think - I think - he was courting death. ... Joey thought he could fight the system," Folsom said. "The moral of the book is, you can't fight the system. It doesn't mean you can't fight against the system, but the paradox is the system will always win
