Anna Genovese

Genovese was born Giovaninna "Anna" Petillo,{{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=William Howard |editor1-last=Block |editor1-first=Lawrence |title=Gangsters, Swindlers, Killers, and Thieves: The Lives and Crimes of Fifty American Villains |date=2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=USA |isbn=9780195169522 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/gangstersswindle00lawr/page/97 97–98] |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tMlbrI2sFn8C&dq=%22Anna+Genovese%22&pg=PA97 |accessdate=5 November 2019 |chapter=Vito Genovese |url=https://archive.org/details/gangstersswindle00lawr/page/97 }} the eldest child of Italian-Catholic immigrants, Aniello Vincenzo Petillo from Risigliano, Naples, and Concetta Cassini Genovese, a cousin of Vito's. His brother Carmine lived with the Petillos after immigrating in 1910. Her siblings were Nicolas, Peitra, Ferdinand, and Mario Petillo. She has been erroneously listed as a sibling to mobster David Petillo; they were cousins. In the spring of 1924, at age 19, Genovese married her first husband, Gerard "Gerry" Vernotico. According to Kate Harmon, Genovese's great niece, to whom the Mob Queens researchers spoke and have on record at 10:55 in [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1-chapter-1-who-is-anna-genovese/id1474675655?i=1000447208711 Chapter 1] of their podcast, Anna's marriage "was not looked upon kindly" by her family as Vernotico was considered a man of little means; a census record notes that he was a carpenter, though in reality he was a baker in New York City's Little Italy. In 1927, Genovese and Vernotico had a daughter, Marie, and moved a few blocks north of Anna's West Houston Street home to a tenement apartment next to an elevated train on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village. In a 1930 census, she is listed as a housewife, and Gerard as a carpenter, though grand-niece Harmon states that Gerard was in fact a baker at a bakery in Little Italy and "had nothing." Court records show that at the same time, Anna had been working evenings in one of the clubs in the Washington Square Park neighborhood, near or in Greenwich Village.

It is thought that Vito Genovese, a fourth cousin of Anna's,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yzF9dN_8PDQC&dq=anna+genovese+fourth+cousins+with+vito+genovese&pg=PA79|title=Lucky Luciano: The Rise and Fall of a Mob Boss|first=William|last=Donati|date=January 10, 2014|publisher=McFarland|via=Google Books|isbn=9780786493432}} was responsible for or involved with the murder of Gerard Vernotico in March 1932. Two weeks later, Anna and Vito, whose first wife had also just died, were married. Anna was six months pregnant. The couple's first luxury apartment was located at 43 Fifth Avenue,{{Cite web|url=https://infamousnewyork.com/tag/anna-genovese/|title=Anna Genovese|website=Infamous New York}}{{better source needed|date=October 2019}} a decadent Beaux Arts building, completed in 1905, with limestone pillars, a marble lobby, and wrought-iron balconies. The building would later be a place of residence for Marlon Brando.

Two years into their marriage, Vito killed gangster Ferdinand "The Shadow" Boccia.{{Cite web |last=Johnson |first=Malcolm |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8258922/1950who_is_vito_genovese_profile/|title=Vito Genovese called No 1 Boss of crime, rackets|date=November 16, 1950|page=49 |work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |location=St. Louis, Missouri |via=newspapers.com}} A year later, in 1935, Vito bought Deep Cut, a 1928 mansion on a {{convert|40|acres|adj=on}} property in Middletown Township, New Jersey.{{cite web |title=History of Deep Cut Gardens |url=https://www.monmouthcountyparks.com/page.aspx?ID=2560 |website=Monmouth County Park System |publisher=Monmouth County Board of Recreation Commissioners |accessdate=12 November 2019 |location=Lincroft, New Jersey}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.nj.com/inside-jersey/2012/04/the_gangsters_garden.html|title=The Gangster's Garden|first=Valerie|last=Sudol|date=April 23, 2012|website=NJ.com}} Around the same time, New York Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey started cracking down on organized crime, which bode poorly for Vito once Boccia's body was pulled from the Hudson River in 1937, as one of the hit men he hired for the job admitted to police that the commission had come from Vito.

Standing accused of the Boccia murder and other crimes, such as racketeering, Vito decided to flee the U.S., leaving the bulk of his business up to Anna. She was left to help formulate a source of revenue for the crime family at a time when most in the nation were struggling severely, as it was mid-Great Depression.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

While raising three children (her biological daughter with Gerard, Marie; Nancy, Vito's daughter with the late Donata Ragone; and Phillip, her son with Vito), Anna also ran nightclubs and gay and drag bars in Lower Manhattan, whose profits she siphoned to the crime syndicate and Vito, exiled in Italy, who donated to Benito Mussolini's fascist party and supplied cocaine for Mussolini's son.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

Anna's first club, Club Caravan, opened in 1939 at 578 West Broadway. Singers and other kinds of performers provided the entertainment, individuals like drag king Malvina Schwartz, also known as Buddy "Bubbles" Kent,{{cite web|url=https://www.advocate.com/books/2017/4/07/red-scares-lesbian-informant|website=advocate.com|title=The Red Scare's Lesbian Informant|date=7 April 2017 |accessdate=19 November 2019}} whose 1983 Lesbian Herstory Archives oral history chronicles her time spent there.

Anna later testified against her own club when she appeared in Freehold, New Jersey's Superior Court in 1953.{{Cite news |last=Desmond |first=James |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22959460/anna_genovese_new_york_daily_news_19/|title=Village Joints Probe Seeks Mrs. Genovese |date=March 19, 1953|page=89 |work=Daily News |location=New York, New York |via=newspapers.com}} She also named Club Savannah and Moroccan Village, run by other mobsters, but the latter as one of her husband's hang-outs.

While Vito was in hiding abroad, Anna became hostess of Club 82, a gay bar located at 82 E. 4th St., between Second Avenue and the Bowery in Manhattan,{{Cite news |last=Kilgallen |first=Dorothy |work=Shamokin News-Dispatch |location =Shamokin, Pennsylvania |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8339179/1953anna_genovese_in_gossip_column_for/|title=Voice of Broadway|date=November 12, 1958|page=6, clip column 2, 3rd para |via=newspapers.com}} which started in October 1950. There, Anna cultivated a vibrant gay scene. The club's tagline was "Who's No Lady," and its drag revues featured both male and female impersonators. Kitt Russell, dubbed "America's top femme mimic" by Walter Winchell,{{Cite news |last=Anderson |first=Wayne |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hidden-history-tobi-marsh_b_1592620|title=Hidden History: Tobi Marsh & Club 82|date=June 14, 2012|work=HuffPost}} hosted many of the shows, and countless acts performed in them, such as female impersonators Sonne Teal,{{cite web|url=http://www.queermusicheritage.com/FEMALE/Club%2082/club%2082-gay%20scene.jpg|date=12 July 2016|title=Image: club 82-gay scene.jpg, (679 × 515 px)|website=queermusicheritage.com|accessdate=12 November 2019}} Kim Christy,{{Cite web|url=http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/photography/2011/02/12/kim-christys-lost-world|title=Kim Christy's Lost World|date=February 12, 2011|website=www.advocate.com}} and [http://sfbaytimes.com/public-performance-public-lives/ Mel Michaels].{{cite web|url=http://www.queermusicheritage.com/FEMALE/Club%2082/1969%20Program/club82-1969-19.jpg|title=Image: club82-1969-19.jpg, (1262 × 1658 px)|website=queermusicheritage.com|accessdate=12 November 2019}} Revues were long and elaborate,{{cite web|url=http://www.queermusicheritage.com/FEMALE/Club%2082/Program/Image10.jpg|title=Image: Image10.jpg, (904 × 1240 px)|website=queermusicheritage.com|accessdate=12 November 2019}}{{cite web|url=http://www.queermusicheritage.com/FEMALE/Club%2082/Program/Image4.jpg|title=Image: Image4.jpg, (904 × 1241 px)|website=queermusicheritage.com|accessdate=12 November 2019}} replete with sets and costumes,{{cite web|url=http://www.queermusicheritage.com/FEMALE/Club%2082/fmm1970e.jpg|title=Image: fmm1970e.jpg, (728 × 938 px)|website=queermusicheritage.com|accessdate=12 November 2019}}{{cite web|url=http://www.queermusicheritage.com/FEMALE/Club%2082/82%20club%20bunny.jpg|title=Image: 82 club bunny.jpg, (398 × 551 px)|website=queermusicheritage.com|accessdate=12 November 2019}} and with titles like Sincapades of 1954,{{cite web|url=http://www.queermusicheritage.com/FEMALE/Club%2082/sincapades1.jpg|title=Image: sincapades1.jpg, (878 × 1186 px)|website=queermusicheritage.com|accessdate=12 November 2019}} A Vacation in Color,{{cite web|url=http://www.queermusicheritage.com/FEMALE/Club%2082/82%20club%20program%201953.jpg|title=Image: 82 club program 1953.jpg, (630 × 974 px)|website=queermusicheritage.com|accessdate=12 November 2019}} Fun-Fair for '57,{{Cite web|url=https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/st74cq69w|title=The Unique Club 82 Presents... Fun-Fair For '57 (1957) - Digital Transgender Archive|website=www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net}} and Time Out for Fun.{{cite web|url=http://www.queermusicheritage.com/FEMALE/Club%2082/82-ac.jpg|title=Image: 82-ac.jpg, (438 × 319 px)|website=queermusicheritage.com|accessdate=12 November 2019}} According to Anna's eldest grandson, Frank, at 4:38 in Chapter 12 of Mob Queens, Anna supported show biz acts in their nascence, such as Barbra Streisand.{{Cite web|url=https://player.fm/series/mob-queens/ep-12-chapter-12-the-godmother|title=12. Chapter 12: The Godmother Mob Queens podcast|first=Player|last=FM|website=player.fm|date=14 November 2023 }}

The venue would later come under investigation with a potential loss of its liquor license, allegedly orchestrated by vindictive Vito to spite Anna. In testifying against her own clubs, Anna stated that the Club 82 was gang-owned. Her testimony ostensibly served to shift the blame from solely herself to her husband Vito's associates who had presided over, and allegedly monitored her activities running the club, while Vito was in exile in Italy.

The State Liquor Authority had previously revoked Club 82's liquor license on account of "disorderly conduct," which was code at the time for infractions involving things like serving alcohol to gay people, or people suspected of being gay.{{Cite web|url=https://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/history-of-gay-rights|title=Gay Rights|website=HISTORY|date=20 June 2024 }}{{Cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/before-stonewall-biggest-threat-was-entrapment/590536/|title=The Forgotten History of Gay Entrapment|first=George|last=Chauncey|date=June 25, 2019|website=The Atlantic}}

Anna left the club in the late 1960s in order to focus more on her family, but the venue lasted into the 1970s.

Anna was a co-owner and proprietor, with gangster Steven Franse,{{Cite news|url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-mafia-muscled-in-and-controlled-the-stonewall-inn|title=How the Mafia Muscled in and Controlled the Stonewall Inn|first=Ronald K.|last=Fried|date=June 30, 2019|via=www.thedailybeast.com|newspaper=The Daily Beast |access-date=1 October 2019}} of the 181 Club,{{Cite journal |last=Ryan |first=Hugh |url=https://hazlitt.net/longreads/three-lives-malvina-schwartz|title=The Three Lives of Malvina Schwartz|date=October 12, 2016|journal=Hazlitt |publisher=Penguin Random House}} known as "The East Side's Gayest Spot"{{Cite web|url=https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/announcing-the-club-181/4gHHIDC3OTiS9g|title=Announcing the Club 181|website=Google Arts & Culture}} and "the homosexual Copacabana".{{Cite news|url=https://nypost.com/2014/05/03/why-nycs-gay-bars-thrived-because-of-the-mob/|title=How NYC's gay bars thrived because of the mob|first=Michael|last=Kane|date=May 3, 2014 |work=New York Post |location=New York, New York}} According to Franse's Supreme Court appellate testimony, his niece, Emily, was a part-time bookkeeper there.{{cite book|title=New York Supreme Court|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=32w2kjcj2xIC&pg=PA234|page=234|accessdate=12 November 2019}} It was a gay cabaret venue {{Cite web|url=https://secretsofmanhattan.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/club-82-at-82-east-4th-street/|title=Club 82 at 82 East 4th Street|first=Steve|last=Madeja|date=June 6, 2017 |website=Secrets of Manhattan - Your Guide to Gotham's Hidden History |access-date=18 October 2019}}{{better source needed|date=October 2019}} and drag queens such as Buddy "Bubbles" Kent, who had worked at Anna's Caravan Club, also worked at the 181.{{Cite web|url=http://www.advocate.com/books/2017/4/07/red-scares-lesbian-informant|title=The Red Scare's Lesbian Informant|date=April 7, 2017|website=www.advocate.com}} It would eventually lose its liquor license and be labeled "a hangout for perverts of both sexes" in reference to its gay performers and clientele.

By 1940, Vito had been in exile from the United States for seven years. Finally, he was extradited back to the States and was placed in custody, standing accused of the 1934 murder of Ferdinand "The Shadow" Boccia. However, after two key witnesses were found dead, the authorities had no choice but to free Vito, under which circumstances he was reunited with Anna. He then instigated a move from Manhattan to Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, where they lived luxuriously, but summarily ending Anna's club career.{{failed verification|date=October 2019}}Blackwell, Jon. [https://books.google.com/books?id=97esfP2qQWEC&pg=PA134 Notorious New Jersey: 100 True Tales of Murders and Mobsters, Scandals and Scoundrels], p. Rutgers University Press, 2007. {{ISBN|9780813543994}}. Accessed January 29, 2020. "The mob leader resumed control of his rackets and settled himself again in New Jersey, this time from a plush homestead in the Shore town of Atlantic Highlands. There, Vito and Anna Genovese dined on gold and platinum plates and enjoyed what was hardly a conventional Mafia marriage."

Anna had walked out on Vito in 1950. She then asked, in court, for $200 per week in maintenance, which meant alimony without the divorce. However, she dropped the divorce suit in 1951.

In order to escape the domestic violence she said she was experiencing at the hands of Vito, Anna resumed her efforts to rid herself of him. On March 2, 1953, at the Freehold County Courthouse, Anna testified against Vito in court{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=25988311&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjE0MDEyMTg2NywiaWF0IjoxNTcxODU1NjA2LCJleHAiOjE1NzE5NDIwMDZ9.jUXByDfX773ZMKWSrYEtOS6J2nE3C7udXgO3pkBSyK4|title=1953-Anna Genovese testifies against husband Vito|work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |date=February 23, 1969|pages=131|via=newspapers.com}}—open court, an unheard-of move for any mob wife.{{cite book |last1=Capeci |first1=Jerry |title=The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia: A Fascinating Exploration of the Real People Who Inspired The Sopranos |date=2005 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=9781440625824 |page=18 |edition=2nd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o64XJkmUPr0C&dq=%22Anna+Genovese%22+father&pg=PA18 |accessdate=10 November 2019}} She asked the judge for $350/week{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8339647/1954vito_genovese_faces_divorce_and/|title=Higher court upholds ruling on Genovese |work=Asbury Park Press |location=Asbury Park, New Jersey |date=January 28, 1954|page=17|via=newspapers.com}} (approximately $160,000 per year, adjusted for inflation in 2019's money). Vito filed a counter-suit for divorce on the grounds of desertion. Both claims were ultimately dismissed in the New Jersey Superior Court appellate division.

Anna had testified that the family had been involved in narcotics trafficking, casinos, labor rackets, dog and horse-racing, and other criminal activities. She claimed that she managed gambling ventures which generated an income of $30,000 per week. She also stated that she was the only one with the combination to the family safe in New Jersey. She described her many trips to Italy, delivering large sums of money to Vito while he remained in exile. Additionally, Anna implicated other major mob figures like Frank Costello and Albert Anastasia; as Anna's life would have been endangered due to her betrayal of so many dangerous people (she stated in her testimony that she had "been afraid to tell about Genovese's crime career in the past because he threatened her with death"), it is surmised that she might have been promised law enforcement protections in exchange for her testimony. Vito possibly being aware of her predicament, he would have possibly, ironically, forgiven her. According to Anna Genovese, Vito Genovese ruled the Italian lottery in New York and New Jersey, bringing in over $1 million per year, owned four Greenwich Village night clubs, a dog track in Virginia, and other legitimate businesses.{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zyQiAAAAMAAJ&q=lottery|author=Fred J. Cook|title=The secret rulers: criminal syndicates and how they control the U.S. underworld|publisher=Duell, Sloan & Pearce|year=1966|author-link=Fred J. Cook}}

Amidst the revelations, it is believed that Anna also had the intention of publicly shaming Vito by insinuating that Frank Costello, his rival, had more power than he did, part of the proof being that she had faith Costello's branch would offer her protection once she left Vito. It is again surmised that Anna had immunity in testifying, as law enforcement and the courts would not have allowed her to walk free after admitting her role in the copious crimes committed.

In counter-testimony, Vito's witnesses attempted to discredit Anna's character. She was characterized as an "untrustworthy, hot-tempered" woman who slept with other women. As it was the height of the Red Scare and Lavender Scare in the United States, the characterization of Anna's behavior would serve to undermine her claims.

{{no sources section|date=February 2025}}

Dorothy Kilgallen, the most syndicated newspaper columnist at the time of the trial, began reporting on the case, recording live with "If I were Mrs. Vito Genovese, I'd be awful careful crossing streets." It turned out that Kilgallen was close with gangster Frank Costello, a rival of Vito Genovese. According to Kilgallen's biographer, Mark Shaw, the friendship was marked by Costello gifting Kilgallen with a diamond cross, which Kilgallen's hairdresser corroborated. It is speculated that Costello gifted Kilgallen so she would, as a favor to him, "warn" Anna—through her newspaper column and other outlets she presided over—that she needed to stop spilling mob business publicly—whether in court or otherwise—or face consequences. That, or switch allegiances from the Genovese crime family to the Costello syndicate.

According to drag king Malvina Schwartz's Lesbian Herstory Archives interview, Anna was "definitely into the girls." Additional insight had been given by Henry "Adrian" Oranco, a drag queen who worked under Anna's supervision at Club 82. He has stated that Anna was romantically involved with a drag king named Duke, whose given name was Jackie. As a token of love, Jackie, Anna's "girlfriend," as Oranco calls her in Chapter 9 of Mob Queens, received a Cadillac.{{Cite web|url=https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=64417889|title=9. Chapter 9: The Queen's Not Dead from Mob Queens|website=www.stitcher.com}}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}{{time needed|date=October 2019}}{{better source needed|date=October 2019}} In Chapter 6 of the Mob Queens podcast, Anna's granddaughter, Mia, confirms that the two were romantically involved, Mia having met Jackie the day that Anna died.{{Cite web|url=https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=63922642|title=6. Chapter 6: Kismet from Mob Queens|website=www.stitcher.com}}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}{{better source needed|date=November 2019}}{{time needed|date=November 2019}} Also confirmed by Mia was Anna's romantic involvement with a woman named Gwen Saunders, a cashier at one of Anna's clubs.

At the end of her life, Anna worked at the upper-crust Warwick Hotel in guest relations. According to Anna's granddaughter, Mia, Cary Grant was living at the hotel at the time and he and Anna became good friends. Mia speaks to this point at 5:23 in Chapter 12 of Mob Queens.

Thirteen years later, in January 1982, Anna had, in the words of Mia in Mob Queens Chapter 12, "a very significant stroke."{{Cite web |last=Apoyan |first=Jackie |date=2021-12-01 |title=Anna Genovese's life examined in Mob Queens podcast, HBO series |url=https://themobmuseum.org/blog/anna-genoveses-life-examined-in-mob-queens-podcast-hbo-series/ |access-date=2024-05-31 |website=The Mob Museum |language=en-US}} She was hospitalized at St. Vincent's, where she died surrounded by her lover, Jackie, daughter Marie, and granddaughter, Mia.recounted by Mia at 26:36, also in Chapter 12.

Anna was buried next to her ex-husband, Vito, in the Genovese Family vault in St. John Cemetery, Queens, New York.{{better source needed|date=November 2019}}{{time needed|date=November 2019}}

Genovese is the subject of the 12-episode podcast Mob Queens (2019), hosted by writers Jessica Bendinger and Michael Seligman, who had researched her life from 2014 to 2018 after discovering a stash of old letters in 2014.

In 2024, it was announced that HBO would create a limited series based on Anna's life and the Mob Queens podcast that chronicles it. Lena Dunham, Ruth Wilson, and Dennis Lehane will be involved in the project.{{Cite web |last=Otterson |first=Joe |date=2021-11-11 |title=Lena Dunham, Ruth Wilson, Dennis Lehane Team for 'Mob Queens' Limited Series at HBO |url=https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/lena-dunham-ruth-wilson-dennis-lehane-mob-queens-series-hbo-1235110234/ |access-date=2024-05-31 |website=Variety |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=White |first=Peter |date=2021-11-11 |title=Ruth Wilson To Star In 'Mob Queens' In The Works At HBO From Lena Dunham & Dennis Lehane |url=https://deadline.com/2021/11/ruth-wilson-mob-queens-hbo-lena-dunham-1234872340/ |access-date=2024-05-31 |website=Deadline |language=en-US}}

She is portrayed by Kathrine Narducci in the film Alto Knights.{{cite web | url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_alto_knights | title=The Alto Knights | Rotten Tomatoes | website=Rotten Tomatoes }}

{{reflist}}

[https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/stitcher/mob-queens Mob Queens podcast]

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Category:1905 births

Category:1982 deaths

Category:Genovese crime family

Category:People from Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey

Category:People from Greenwich Village