LAS VEGAS — It was on a school playground where she learned her last name carries weight, when another girl pointed a finger at her and ordered the other kids to follow her.
“Let’s go,” the girl said. “That’s a Capone.”
Diane Capone Pette is the granddaughter of Al Capone, one of the most infamous mobsters in American history who was nicknamed “Scarface” for a slash he got in a fight. His legacy in the public eye is marked by violence, prison time and crime. His reign starting in the 1920s over the Chicago Outfit has inspired dozens of shows and movies, including the 1983 film “Scarface” starring Al Pacino.
At home, Pette said Capone led a very different life.
“He was not one-dimensional. He was a man of many facets,” Pette told The Associated Press. “He seemed to have the capacity to be quite ruthless and aggressive,” and on the other hand, she said, “this was also a man who was incredibly loving and loyal to family and friends.”
A rare glimpse into that part of Capone’s life will be on display for the public in a new exhibit, “The First Public Enemy,” opening Wednesday at the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas. For the first time, the public can get an up-close look at Capone’s favorite personal weapon and a short home movie shot by the mob boss himself in 1929.
After Capone’s death in 1947 of natural causes, his belongings stayed in the family for decades. First with his wife and son, and then after their deaths, with his four granddaughters. Two including Pette are still alive.
Pette, 81, and her sisters auctioned some of their grandfather’s belongings a few years ago, afraid they might lose them to the wildfires common in California where they now live, or that the items would be lost or forgotten after their own deaths.
One of their most treasured hand-me-downs was Capone’s favorite weapon, a Colt 1911 .45-caliber pistol that was popular during World War I.
“He called her — we refer to it as a her — his sweetheart,” Pette said.
In family lore, the pistol has taken on its own identity as a faithful companion to Capone, credited with saving the mobster more than once.
“She saved him, and so she was very special to him and so very special to us,” Pette said.
Geoff Shumacher, historian and vice president of exhibits and programs at the museum, said the artifacts from the Capone family collection are one of a kind. Most of the items already sold by the family at auction went to personal collectors, he said, adding, “this a slice of life that you can get nowhere else except at the museum.”
In 1929, a few years before Capone was convicted of federal tax evasion and sent to prison for seven years, he filmed a short home movie at his Miami waterfront mansion.
Capone is behind the camera and never appears in the black-and-white silent film, but it showcases a day with friends by the pool and on a boat. Two of those friends are fellow mobsters Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello.
The Mob Museum has the only physical copy of the 12-minute and 20-second home movie, which was captured on 16mm film. A shorter version of the film will play at the museum.
In it, Luciano is on the high dive above the pool with a towel around his neck while Costello sits poolside, watching people take turns jumping into the water. Later, they get on a boat, and Capone’s footage captures Luciano and Costello sitting together, smiling.
After Capone was released from prison in 1939, he retired from mob life and spent his final years in the Miami mansion.
Pette was 3 when her grandfather died, but some of her earliest memories are with her “Papa.” Their January birthdays were days apart, and she can remember sitting on his lap while blowing out the candles together on their cake.
Her last and most vivid memory of him was just before his death. Capone was sick and in bed, and Pette’s father — Capone’s only son — placed her on the bed to say goodbye.
Pette kissed the mobster’s cheek. Capone said, “I love you, baby girl.”
“And that was the last thing he said to me,” Pette said.