Ruthann Seccio, ex-mistress of ex-mob boss Ralph Natale.
Former Philadelphia mob boss Ralph Natale – believed to be the first sitting La Cosa Nostra boss to testify against his own crime family – is finally releasing his tell-all memoir this month.
Ruthann Seccio, ex-mistress of ex-mob boss Ralph Natale. Slideshow icon SLIDESHOW
Philly Clout: Mob boss Natale in hot water with ex-mistress
Last Don Standing: The Secret Life of Mob Boss Ralph Natale is full of anecdotes about Natale’s violent tendencies “sprinkled throughout the book like locatelli cheese atop a plate of spaghetti,” according to a Philly Mag review by our colleague David Gambacorta.
While that sounds delicious to Clout, Natale’s ex-mistress Ruthann Seccio is none too happy that the married mobster, whom newspapers once dubbed “King Rat,” has kissed off their entire affair in a couple of sentences.
As in, we’re concerned that Seccio, 48, might actually be plotting to kill Natale, 81. He described her in the book as “the only regret I have.” Not so smart, Ralph!
Seccio, who still lives in South Philly, says she has been looking over her shoulder for hit men since 1999, when Natale flipped and “left me holding the bag.”
“For 17 years, I’ve been staying in my lane. If they would have done the book correctly, I would have stayed in my lane,” Seccio warned. “Now that you don’t think my life is worth it, I have to come back out. I’m coming at you, Ralph, with an 8-pack of TNT. If I got to, I will flip a car on I-95 just to be heard. My [expletive] life matters.”
Anyone get the sense that this might end badly?
Seccio said she carries a gun legally for her own protection and practices shooting at the range.
“I’m a great shot, believe me,” she said. “I just got another [gun]. I put a laser on it.”
Natale met Seccio – his “future goomah,” as he describes her in the book – in 1994, when she was sunbathing by the pool with his youngest daughter.
“I didn’t go looking for a bald man, my friend’s father, 34 years older than me,” Seccio said. “He came for me.”
Now, she said, she’s looking to “take down his book.”
Clout has a good idea where Natale is living these days – it’s within driving distance, we’re told – but our policy since Natale’s release from prison in 2011 has been not to disclose his whereabouts, for obvious reasons.
Last Don Standing is due out March 21. Seccio says, don’t bother buying it. “Why spend your money on bull-?” she asked.
But, coincidentally, Seccio says she has a helluva life story of her own if any writers are interested in collaborating.
Highlights include: getting “blown up by a stove when I was in kindergarten,” sitting in on “made” mob meetings, and hiding under her mattress with guns until being rescued by the Junior Black Mafia.
What else do you need?
Ralph Natale was all of 12 when he first felt a dark, primal urge inside him — the desire to kill another man. On that occasion, the guy on Natale’s bad side was his father, Michael, who ran numbers for the mob.
Michael had decided to punish his boy for missing a curfew by kicking him. “If I had something in my hands, I would have killed him. That’s when I knew what I was,” Natale, the former head of the Philly mob, recalls in the new book Last Don Standing: The Secret Life of Mob Boss Ralph Natale (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press).
Jarring admissions like that one are sprinkled throughout the book like locatelli cheese atop a plate of spaghetti. Co-authors Larry McShane, a veteran New York Daily News reporter, and Dan Pearson, executive producer of the Discovery Channel’s I Married a Mobster, offer a recap of Natale’s evolution from a tough South Philly kid to a cold-blooded killer who had a major hand in ensuring that crime families in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia all profited handsomely when casinos began sprouting in Atlantic City in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
The book also offers a dual portrait of the dramatic decline of the Philly mob, beginning with the 1980 murder of Natale’s longtime mentor, Angelo “The Docile Don” Bruno, at the hands of conniving underlings. The years that followed were marked by constant infighting, backstabbing and bloodshed that left the local La Cosa Nostra a mere shadow of its former self.
McShane and Pearson wrestle with a larger question of whether there can be any good guys in the world of organized crime. Natale often describes himself and some of the Mafia of his generation as honorable, stand-up men who lived by a code of loyalty and respect, while the generation that succeeded them is portrayed as greedy and recklessly violent. It’s hard to reconcile that with Natale’s reaction to overhearing an ex-con named George Feeney talking shit about Natale and Bruno: “I put three in Feeney’s face — boom, boom, boom! Right in his fucking dome. Done.”
Part of what makes Natale’s mob story unique is that he’s missing from it for long stretches. He spent 16 years behind bars on drug trafficking and arson charges, then took over the Philly mob after being released on parole in 1994. But his time on the throne was brief; he was scooped up on a parole violation four years later and soon indicted for financing a son-in-law’s meth operation. Natale had been the poster boy for omertà, the Mafia’s code of silence, but he opted to become a cooperating witness after learning that his underboss, Joey Merlino, had reneged on a promise to take care of his family after he returned to prison. (Natale has been in witness protection since his May 2011 release.)
Pearson is producing a biopic about Natale’s life, and there are plenty of interesting anecdotes to mine, including some concerning Natale’s quasi-friendship with infamous Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa and the mob’s role in allegedly getting Sonny Liston to throw both of his heavyweight bouts with Muhammad Ali. And then, of course, there’s the violence. “I never take pleasure in killing anybody,” Natale explains at one point in Last Don Standing. “I tell you, when it comes to that, I kill ’em so fast they don’t even know they’re dead. I shoot ’em. Right in the face.”
Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/news/2017/03/0 ... hlHdKfs.99
Dan Pearson is producing the pic.
Frank Grillo is attached to star in “Last Don Standing,” a biopic on Ralph Natale, the Philadelphia mob boss turned federal witness.
Frank Grillo
Growing up linked to the local mob scene, Natale came up in the ranks before becoming the boss of the Philly mob. He was involved with everything from the death of Bugsy Siegel and Jimmy Hoffa, to the influence of the mob in Atlantic City, to the fixed fight between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston.
Joe Carnahan Frank Grillo Production Company
Frank Grillo, Joe Carnahan to Launch Production Company (EXCLUSIVE)
When faced with a life in prison sentence for racketeering, he would later flip and become the only known boss to turn federal witness.
This year, Grillo starred in “The Purge: Anarchy,” the highest-grossing film in the “Purge” franchise, and reprised his role of Crossbones in “Captain America: Civil War.” He is currently filming Season 3 of his Audience TV series “Kingdom” and just wrapped production on the Netflix thriller “Wheelman.”
He is repped by CAA and Management 360. Deadline Hollywood first reported the news.
Frank Grillo is being lined up to play Philadelphia Mob Boss Ralph Natale in “The Last Don Standing,” a film adaptation of the novel by New York Daily news reporter Larry McShane and producer Dan Pearson.
Natale was one of the only La Costra Nostra bosses to flip and become a federal witness and the book covers numerous topics including the murder of Bugsy Siegel, Jimmy Hoffa’s final days, the mob’s takeover of Atlantic City and the fixed boxing matches between Sonny Liston and Muhammad Ali.
Natale was the son of a numbers runner in Philly but in time became part of the upper echelon of the crime syndicate as one of the main men of notorious mob boss Angelo ‘The Gentle Don’ Bruno.
