The Real Donnie Brasco Pays A Visit To Philly
by Alex Lloyd Gross
Joe Pistone was an undercover FBI Agent in New York. He assumed the persona of Donnie Brasco, a jewel thief, to infiltrate the New York Mafia. He was the subject of the 1997 film Donnie Brasco, which is you ever saw the movie, you would think Pistone single handedley broke up the Mafia in just over two hours. Joe Pistone did a one man show at the Philadelphia City Winery this past weekend. He is on a short speaking tour,this is the first time the public can see and hear from him.
In it he dispelled a lot of Hollywood Myths. Although the movie was very successful it took a lot of liberties with the truth. “I never hit my wife, we never saw a Psychiatrist, and I never sawed anyone’s leg off with a hacksaw”, Pistone said. That’s the first thing he said when he took the stage. You could tell he was not happy about being portrayed as a domestic abuser.
“There really was a “Lefty” and there really was a “Sonny Black”, Pistone said. There really was a lion as well. “We got that as a cub and it grew,when it got too big, it was kept in a warehouse that someone had,” Pistone said.
Pistone took you through a timeline. This operation took six years. “Not everyone liked everyone and there were fights, disagreements, but you never ever touched a made guy”, Pistone said. He wound up getting beaten by a made guy early in his operation, before he met “Lefty”.
“This guy lefty was difficult to be around, he talked Mafia all the time, he smoked all the time and did not like air conditioning, try being in a car with his in Florida 110 degree heat windows rolled up and you’ll get the picture,” Pistone said.
The show ran about two hours, with a Q&A afterwards. “When I was approached about the book, I thought no one would care” and the same with the movie, Pistone said. During his six years,he wound up going to Florida and Milwaukee but those endeavors did not pay off for the mob. They paid off for Pistone as he went back to those places to testify in court. The mob put a $500,000 contract on him. In the audience , there were several FBI agents, who came to see Pistone and hear what he had to say. Pistone, now 86 years old is not too concerned about that contract.
He was such a good mobster that he was about to be made in December of 1987, The operation was culminated before that could happen. Lefty was sent for and was going to be killed, but the FBI intercepted the wiretap and saved his life when they picked him up, according to Pistone.
After the book came out he found himself back in Florida on an undercover job working under a different name. He was talking with a monster who said he read Piston’s book , That bad guy told Pistone that the book was a great way for bad guys to tell who an undercover cop was. That mobster then gifted Pistone a copy of his own book, signed by the mobster, urging him to be careful and not get tripped up by the feds..