Background
Born in Naples, Italy, Fratianno was brought to the US by his parents four months later. He began stealing from fruit stands as a child. Fratianno used the first name "Jimmy" because he believed "Aladena" sounded like "a broad's name". He earned his nickname "Weasel" from a witness who saw him outrun police in the Little Italy section of Cleveland. The police then attached the nickname to his criminal record. As a youth, Fratianno boxed under the name "Kid Weasel", but otherwise did not like the name and was never called "Weasel" in person.
As a young man, Fratianno became involved in the Cleveland's organized criminal syndicate as a gambler and robber. After a prison sentence for assault, he moved to Los Angeles, where he was introduced to Chicago Outfit mobster John Roselli. In 1947, Fratianno became a made man in the Los Angeles crime family under boss Jack Dragna. Fratianno worked with fellow Los Angeles Mafiosi Frank "Bomp" Bompensiero, Leo Moceri, Dominic Brooklier, and Louie Piscopo. In 1952, Dragna promoted Fratianno to caporegime.
Read more about this topic: Jimmy Fratianno
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)