Lupertazzi crime family

[Grouchy Sinatra]

Great post, InCamelot.

I think that just like The Godfather, The Sopranos were based on several people, families, etc. No doubt the beef between the Lupertazzis and Sopranos, dating back to John Sack, was based on the Luccheses and their Jersey crew. And like the Luccheses, the Lupertazzis were mad about Tony withholding earnings.

David Chase himself said that the Sopranos were based more on the Boiardo crew than the DeCavalcante family, although season 1's story line is pretty close to the DeCavalcante situation in the 90s.

Tony's crew had way too much muscle and swagger to be the DeCavalcantes. An article came out around the time the show premiered where some cops said that Tony is based on Lucchesse captain Michael Taccetta.

The show's mostly about a mobster in therapy dealing with home family issues and the mob story line cherry picks from all kinds of real mobsters and mob stories.

[InCamelot]

Old thread, sorry to bump it since maybe these Sopranos topics are supposed to be in other sections.. but just a couple quick thoughts I thought it'd be good to have written down somewhere to share.

It would be pretty restricting creatively to pin yourself down on having to base something on just one family. That's saying "OK this is the family the Lupertazzi's are supposed to be, so we can only draw from stuff that happened to them".
Its not likely they'd want to do that.

However you can think of it as: in the writer's minds, when they were imagining the Lupertazzi's.."where did the Lupertazzi's likely fit in amongst the 5 families".

But I thought it'd be worth noting that if we started by only looking at the actual facts stated in the show:

- The Colombos are mentioned as "the Colombos" when Paulie talks to Sil and Bobby about going to war with Phil in Season 6B. So they can't be the Colombos.
- "This latest case on Joe Massino" is mentioned in Season 5 when Adriana talks to the FBI agent. That should be roughly 2004-2005. So can't be the Bonannos.
- "John Gotti" is mentioned I think at least in a couple occasions. When Tony plays golf with those wonderbread wop guys, and by Chris when complaining about something else (to be honest the complaining is so much more of the show than the mob plot stuff, which is why its brilliant). So I think unless we're thinking Gotti went away then they put in old Carmine Lupertazzi in there and he had enough influence to rename the family....Probably not the Gambinos.
- In episode 2 of season 1, the TV interview with the soldier-turned-rat (I think his name was Vincent Rizzo?), the TV labels him as "former solider of the Genovese family".....Again unless we wanna say Lupertazzi managed to get the media (and I guess fellow mobsters?) to start calling the Genovese family the Lupertazzi family in..1-2 years (when Carmine makes his first appearance)...its not likely to be the Genovese. Plus do we see anything "Westside"-ish about how the Lupertazzi's did things? Lol.
- The Lupertazzi's seem to be based heaviest in Brooklyn, Queens and Jersey. No mention of Harlem or the Bronx at all. So how likely are they to be the Genovese, really?

I know the Lucchese's have a strong Bronx/Harlem base in reality, but:

The only family not mentioned is the Lucchese's. Except that one time in Season 1 when Meadow lists all the five families, but I think that was in the context of what she thought were LCN's origins. Outside of that, there's no mention of their slightly closer to the present relation to reality.

Actually expounding on that to go into more speculative stuff...if you listen to the dialogue in the Sopranos:

- No mention of Tony Ducks.
- No mention of Vic and Gas.
- There IS mention of "Vito Genovese", "Carlo Gambio", "Joe Bonanno", "Albert Anastasia", "Joe Colombo", "Sammy Gravano", the Banana war.
- They seem to have a heavy hand in construction. Don't see as much about drug dealing. (more Luke's than Gambinos, then? Don't know.)
- No mention of Canada.
- No indication of zips that work for them (this one you can take it or leave it, hard to tell)
- You could argue the in-fighting started by Johnny Sack, Phil, the whole "destroy NJ" ordeal near the finale was an artistic expression of the Luke's experiences. They just shifted the names and the timeline. (Vic & Gas, whack Jersey, prudent UB maybe boss heavily into construction) When they're coming up with stuff its more about expressing the experience and what it feels like, less about simply "getting the facts straight". Facts are disputed every so often in history anyway, it seems (which is why I don't get the hate for The Irishman. Its not a documentary. But anyway..).

You can argue "well they said there's 200 soliders and the Luke's no way had that many". So let's say you'd be right about that. Even if that isn't an accurate depiction of the Luke's in the early 2000s, that could simply be a writer not happening to know that fact OR even a writer changing it for the sake of whatever else he valued more in the scene OR Tony simply getting the numbers wrong, or exaggerating (he does that all the time).

Plus writer's dont necessarily have all the info we have on forums now. Anyway my point is more that "they probably imagined them fitting somewhere in around the Lucchese's", not "they were based on the Lucchese's" -- although its possible they seemed to be interested in expressing similar historical behaviour the Lucchese's ended up expressing.

I called the Lukes first off the bat. I win.

Seriously though, I think the above is a very, very good post. I cannot find fault with the reasoning. Well done mate. Sincerely.

Appreciate it. I'm basically new here, don't know much compared to most of you guys, so always end up reading more than contributing. Hopefully its interesting to some folks.

[InCamelot]

Great post, InCamelot.

I think that just like The Godfather, The Sopranos were based on several people, families, etc. No doubt the beef between the Lupertazzis and Sopranos, dating back to John Sack, was based on the Luccheses and their Jersey crew. And like the Luccheses, the Lupertazzis were mad about Tony withholding earnings.

David Chase himself said that the Sopranos were based more on the Boiardo crew than the DeCavalcante family, although season 1's story line is pretty close to the DeCavalcante situation in the 90s.

Tony's crew had way too much muscle and swagger to be the DeCavalcantes. An article came out around the time the show premiered where some cops said that Tony is based on Lucchesse captain Michael Taccetta.

The show's mostly about a mobster in therapy dealing with home family issues and the mob story line cherry picks from all kinds of real mobsters and mob stories.

Thanks. Oh yeah good point about Taccetta. Recently I tried to find that old news report of that crew all being acquitted on Youtube, but failed.

[stubbs]

Great post, InCamelot.

I think that just like The Godfather, The Sopranos were based on several people, families, etc. No doubt the beef between the Lupertazzis and Sopranos, dating back to John Sack, was based on the Luccheses and their Jersey crew. And like the Luccheses, the Lupertazzis were mad about Tony withholding earnings.

David Chase himself said that the Sopranos were based more on the Boiardo crew than the DeCavalcante family, although season 1's story line is pretty close to the DeCavalcante situation in the 90s.

Tony's crew had way too much muscle and swagger to be the DeCavalcantes. An article came out around the time the show premiered where some cops said that Tony is based on Lucchesse captain Michael Taccetta.

The show's mostly about a mobster in therapy dealing with home family issues and the mob story line cherry picks from all kinds of real mobsters and mob stories.

Thanks. Oh yeah good point about Taccetta. Recently I tried to find that old news report of that crew all being acquitted on Youtube, but failed.

This is a good clip, starts at 21:50 by Jackie Dinorscio (sp), one of the guys in the trial: https://youtu.be/LLXCv0xEI7s

[NJShore4Life]

Larry Dentico lived all the way down here at the Jersey Shore in Seaside Park while on Genovese ruling panel.

[Wiseguy]

Pogo, CC, Lupara, WG..... I do not see any prostrating?

I'm not sure what you mean.

When it comes to The Sopranos, I say what I've always said.

* The basic concept of a small, indigenous crime family based in New Jersey is obviously based on the DeCavalcantes.

* The Lupertazzi family never was supposed to be any particular real life NY family. Their effective purpose in the show was simply to represent "New York" more than anything else.

* Many of the characters and story lines throughout the series drew inspiration from real life mob families, crews, and members in the Northeast.

[newera_212]

I always wanted to know. John mentioned it once when he was trying to do the sneak hit on Carmime. His brother in law was the boss of another of the 5 families? Was that the guy who hosted the sitdown in the garage between Tony and Butch?

[Grouchy Sinatra]

Great post, InCamelot.

I think that just like The Godfather, The Sopranos were based on several people, families, etc. No doubt the beef between the Lupertazzis and Sopranos, dating back to John Sack, was based on the Luccheses and their Jersey crew. And like the Luccheses, the Lupertazzis were mad about Tony withholding earnings.

David Chase himself said that the Sopranos were based more on the Boiardo crew than the DeCavalcante family, although season 1's story line is pretty close to the DeCavalcante situation in the 90s.

Tony's crew had way too much muscle and swagger to be the DeCavalcantes. An article came out around the time the show premiered where some cops said that Tony is based on Lucchesse captain Michael Taccetta.

The show's mostly about a mobster in therapy dealing with home family issues and the mob story line cherry picks from all kinds of real mobsters and mob stories.

Thanks. Oh yeah good point about Taccetta. Recently I tried to find that old news report of that crew all being acquitted on Youtube, but failed.

This is a good clip, starts at 21:50 by Jackie Dinorscio (sp), one of the guys in the trial: https://youtu.be/LLXCv0xEI7s

The movie Find Me Guilty, where Vin Diesel plays Dinorscio, is meh. Only highlight is Alex Rocco (Moe Green) being in it.

I remember that Mob Stories documentary from HBO. I think they have Joe Dogs Iannuzzi in there too, and the big ass dude who plays the mob boss they rescue from Rikers in Carlitos way, and who Sean Penn kills. Guess he was a Gambino leg breaker for a bit.

[InCamelot]

I always wanted to know. John mentioned it once when he was trying to do the sneak hit on Carmime. His brother in law was the boss of another of the 5 families? Was that the guy who hosted the sitdown in the garage between Tony and Butch?

No, his brother in-law's name was Andy from what I recall. And the guy who hosted the final sitdown was named George.

[InCamelot]

Pogo, CC, Lupara, WG..... I do not see any prostrating?

I'm not sure what you mean.

When it comes to The Sopranos, I say what I've always said.

* The basic concept of a small, indigenous crime family based in New Jersey is obviously based on the DeCavalcantes.

* The Lupertazzi family never was supposed to be any particular real life NY family. Their effective purpose in the show was simply to represent "New York" more than anything else.

* Many of the characters and story lines throughout the series drew inspiration from real life mob families, crews, and members in the Northeast.

I'd say its interesting that a lot of "Lucchese moments" were not mentioned in the show, whereas the other 4 families had direct references to.

Other than that, yes for sure. If push came to shove its way more advantageous to just draw from the best NY stuff rather than be tied down to one group.

[SonnyBlackstein]

His brother in law was the boss of another of the 5 families?

DiNapoli’s.

See... Lucchese!

[SonnyBlackstein]

Pogo, CC, Lupara, WG..... I do not see any prostrating?

I'm not sure what you mean.

Do ever fucking crack a smile dude?

[Wiseguy]

Do ever fucking crack a smile dude?

Occasionally.

[Grouchy Sinatra]

Also, writer Frank Renzulli said in a podcast interview that he based his Sopranos screenplays on Boston, where he's from. He tells a funny story about a couple of guys in Boston that he based Richie Aprile and Beansie Gaeta on.

I'm pretty sure this is the podcast.

https://www.tsspodcast.com/podcast/2018 ... 1sylp19e5f

[Wiseguy]

Also, writer Frank Renzulli said in a podcast interview that he based his Sopranos screenplays on Boston, where he's from. He tells a funny story about a couple of guys in Boston that he based Richie Aprile and Beansie Gaeta on.

I'm pretty sure this is the podcast.

https://www.tsspodcast.com/podcast/2018 ... 1sylp19e5f

Renzulli was one of the best writers of the show.