Joseph "Joe Iron Man" Ardizzone (born Giuseppe Ernesto Ardizzone; ; November 19, 1884 – disappeared October 15, 1931, declared dead 1938) was an Italian-born early

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

mobster A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from '' mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...

, who became the first

Boss Boss may refer to: Occupations * Supervisor, often referred to as boss * Air boss, more formally, air officer, the person in charge of aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier * Crime boss, the head of a criminal organization * Fire boss, ...

of the

Los Angeles crime family The Los Angeles crime family, also known as the L.A. Mafia or the Southern California crime family, is an Italian-American organized crime syndicate based in Los Angeles as part of the larger Italian-American Mafia. Since its inception in the ea ...

. He was involved in a long-standing feud with the Matranga family. He once claimed to have killed 30 men.

Early life

Ardizzone was born on November 19, 1884 in Piana dei Greci (today Piana degli Albanesi), in the

Province of Palermo The Province of Palermo ( it, provincia di Palermo; Sicilian: ''pruvincia di Palermu'') was a province in the autonomous region of Sicily, a major island in Southern Italy. Its capital was the city of Palermo. On 4 August 2015, it was replaced ...

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, to Antonino Ardizzone. The Ardizzones were of

Arbëreshë Arbën/Arbër, from which derived Arbënesh/Arbëresh originally meant all Albanians, until the 18th century. Today it is used for different groups of Albanian origin, including: * Arbër (given name), an Albanian masculine given name * Arbëresh ...

origin, being related to several other families and they would maintain contact in America. Those families included the Cuccias and the Matrangas.

Early years in America

The Ardizzone family came to America at different times. Antonino came in the later 19th century, landing in

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

then taking the train to southern

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. He became a wealthy farmer and wine maker. His other children, including Stefano and Francesco also moved to the

Los Angeles area Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Cou ...

. Giuseppe was one of the last to arrive.

Matranga feud

International gunman sought in Mafia case, LA Times, 1917

For reasons uncertain Giuseppe, who Americanized his name to Joseph, became involved in a dispute with the Matrangas who lived in Los Angeles. They were distant cousins from Piana dei Greci. In what he later called an act of self-defense, Joseph shot and killed a Matranga ally named George Maisano in 1906. He then fled California and hid in different states. He eventually returned and was arrested, but the charges against him were dropped. In December 1914, he then married Elsa Marie Ellenberger who was the daughter of a German neighbor in the city of Sunland, California where they lived at that time. In court documents, she had also been referred to as Elsie A. Ardizzone. Shortly after that their home was burned down by arsonists. Starting in 1917, three of the rival Matrangas were killed: Sam Matranga was shot in front of his home (1837 Darwin Avenue); his brother Pietro Matranga was also shot in front of his home (1510 Biggy Street) a month later. Then a relative of the Matrangas, Joseph LaPaglia, was also killed. On October 12, 1918, Tony Matranga fired a rifle at Stephen Ardizzone which hit his truck; Matranga was tried on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon.

Later life

While it is uncertain when Ardizzone became a member of the Mafia, or even if his immediate family were members, he was in a leadership position in the early 1920s. Upon the resignation of

Rosario DeSimone Rosario DeSimone (; 11 December 1873 – 15 July 1946) was the head of an Italian crime family during the 1920s to 1940s that was the predecessor to the Los Angeles crime family of the American Mafia. Rosario was the father of the future Califo ...

for unknown reasons, he became the next chief of the

. During his time as boss

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...

was active and many, if not most, Mafiosi were involved in bootlegging. The Los Angeles Family was certainly active during this time period. In 1931, when the Castellammarese War between

Joseph Masseria Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria (; January 17, 1886April 15, 1931) was an early Italian-American Mafia boss in New York City. He was boss of what is now called the Genovese crime family, one of the New York City Mafia's Five Families, from 1922 ...

and

Salvatore Maranzano Salvatore Maranzano (; July 31, 1886 – September 10, 1931) was an Italian-American mobster from the town of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, and an early Cosa Nostra boss who led what later would become the Bonanno crime family in New York City. ...

was taking place, the Los Angeles crime family may have supported Maranzano.

Nick Gentile Nicola Gentile (; June 12, 1885 – November 6, 1966), also known as Nick Gentile, was a Sicilian mafioso and an organized crime figure in New York City during the 1920s and 1930s. He was also known for publishing his memoirs which, violating the ...

notes in his memoirs that during a conference Maranzano was backed by two men from California.

Joseph Bonanno Joseph Charles Bonanno (born Giuseppe Carlo Bonanno; ; January 18, 1905 – May 11, 2002), sometimes referred to as Joe Bananas, was an Italian-American crime boss of the Bonanno crime family, which he ran from 1931 to 1968. Bonanno was born i ...

(died 2002) and his son

Salvatore Bonanno Salvatore Vincent "Bill" Bonanno (November 5, 1932 – January 1, 2008) was an American mobster who served as consigliere of the Bonanno crime family, and son of crime boss Joseph Bonanno. Later in life, he became a writer and produced films f ...

(died 2008) wrote of several close associates in the Los Angeles area, such as Jimmy Costa (from

Castellammare del Golfo Castellammare del Golfo (; scn, Casteddammari; la, Emporium Segestanorum or ) is a town and municipality in the Trapani Province of Sicily. The name can be translated as "Sea Fortress on the Gulf", stemming from the medieval fortress in the h ...

), Nick Guastella,

Frank Bompensiero Frank "Bomp" Bompensiero (October 29, 1905 – February 10, 1977) was a Mafia hitman and longtime caporegime in the Los Angeles crime family. In 1956, with the death of boss Jack Dragna, Bompensiero was demoted to the rank of soldier by the new ...

and Tony Mirabile. It was also during this time that a faction developed that opposed Ardizzone. In early 1931 he was driving with his friend Jimmy Basile when gunmen drove by and shot at them. Basile was killed and Ardizzone wounded. Ardizzone managed to be taken to the house of Leon DeSimone, the physician son of former L.A. don

. He was treated and sent to a hospital. A second attempt was made on his life in the hospital, so his family came to act as bodyguards. Underworld sources indicated that he agreed to retire after these incidents. The opposing faction apparently did not believe Ardizzone, and on October 15, 1931, while on his way to a cousin's house in Etiwanda, driving a 1930 Ford Coupe SRW7653 and carrying a .41 caliber Colt revolver No.323 he "disappeared". An intense search followed, but his body was never found. After seven years, Ardizzone's wife had him declared legally dead.State of California, ''Final report of the Special Crime Study Commission on Organized Crime'' (Sacramento, 1953).

Notes

References

*California Assembly, Interim Committee on Judiciary. ''Organized Crime in California—Report of the Subcommittee on Rackets.'' Sacramento, 1959. *Gentile, Nick, with

Felice Chilanti Felice Chilanti (10 December 1914 in Ceneselli – 26 February 1982 in Rome) was an Italian anti-fascist and journalist. Biography He was born to a Rovigo peasant family soon before Italy entered World War I. Chilanti moved to Rome as a teenag ...

. ''Vita di Capomafia.'' Rome:

Editori Riuniti Editori Riuniti is an Italian publishing house based in Rome that publishes books and magazines on the history of socialism, socialist thought, physics and mathematics theory, and the history of Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Histor ...