Bada Bing! Carmine Persico is Dead.

Love them or hate them, respect them or loathe them, the true wiseguys from our parents' generation were memorable. Last week's murder of acting Gambino crime boss Frank Cali in Staten Island reminded us that the mob is still alive and (sorta) well, living in a murky world of extortion and loansharking.

But there was a mafia death a couple weeks ago that fell under the radar, caught between some Trumpian craziness, Women's Day (when did that become thing?) and the Manafort sentencing.

The wiseguy was Carmine Persico. He passed away at the age of 85, an impressive run for a long-time mafia member, even if most of the last 40+ years were spent in the clink. But it's a memorable life, if the world of organized crime and thuggery is of interest to you. So let's quickly recap the highlights of Mr. Persico's career.

In his early teens, he was the leader of a street gang in Brooklyn. He was arrested for fatally beating a kid in Prospect Park when he was 17, but avoided charges. He joined the Colombo crime family after that and worked his way up the ladder. He was implicated in the famed Park Sheraton Hotel barber shop murder in 1957, but was never formally linked to the slaying.

Persico's dirty deeds and mob slang became canon for the Godfather movies. He hung out with Mario Puzo and the cast as the movie was being filmed. The scene where Caan says "bada bing, all over your nice Ivy league suit" was an ad lib that was pulled from something Caan heard Persico say. And remember that murder scene from Godfather II where they try to whack Frankie Pants with a garrote? That was pulled from a hit Persico attempted in a Brooklyn bar that got interrupted by a cop.



Persico's run was fiercely, savagely successful, but it did not last. He took over the Colombo crime family in 1973 after another famous murder, the assassination of rival gangster Joey Gallo at Umberto's Clam House in Little Italy in 1972. But problems with the law came up immediately thereafter and he was imprisoned for most of the rest of his life for hijacking, loansharking, attempting to bribe a federal agent, racketeering and other fun stuff.

He spent most of the rest of his life in prison. Hopefully he knew to slice the garlic thin and not put too many onions in the sauce. Crazy, violent life led by Persico.