Giuseppe Zangara - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Zangara was played by Eddie Korbich in the original Off-Broadway production of Assassins by Stephen Sondheim. In later productions he was played by Paul Harrhy in London and by Jeffrey Kuhn in the show's original Broadway production. Appearing in several songs from the play, he has a major solo in the number, "How I Saved Roosevelt".

Zangara plays a significant role in the background provided for Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. The alternate history novel begins with the premise that Zangara succeeded in assassinating Franklin D. Roosevelt, using this historical event as its point of divergence.

In 1960, in a two-part story line on the TV show The Untouchables, actor Joe Mantell played the part of Giuseppe "Joe" Zangara. This episode focuses on Nitti's plan to kill Mayor Cermak, which fails, thanks to Eliot Ness. But Ness's successful prevention of Nitti's assassination plot is quickly undercut when Zangara does the deed. The shows were originally aired February 25 and March 3, 1960.

Max Allan Collins' 1983 novel, "True Detective," first in the Nathan Heller mystery series, features Zangara's attempted assassination of Roosevelt, positing it as an actual attempt on Chicago's mayor at the time, Anton Cermak. The novel won the 1984 Shamus Award for Best P.I. Hardcover from the Private Eye Writers of America.