Hollywood (Jan - Oct 1934)

HE'S A RIGHT GUY" Think Of Gangdom and racketeering . . . and you immediately put the finger on Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, George Raft. They've played so many sinister roles that one just naturally places them in the same category with Mister Capone and his cohorts. It remains, however, for a fairhaired lad, just turned twenty, whom no one would ever even associate with the more seamy side of life, to know the underworld habitues by their first names; to know the habits and weaknesses and whimsies of every big-shot racketeer in New York. Tom Brown is that lad, and he numbers among his acquaintances nearly every racketeer and gangster in the eastern metropolis. Not so long ago, he picked up a Los Angeles morning paper and nearly missed dunking his doughnut in the coffee when he read that two old-time friends had been killed the previous evening in a Vermont Avenue Italian restaurant. Another gang murder, a double-header, the newspapers described the event. Two weeks later, he learned that another friend had been put on the spot and rubbed out in the east. • "I've known most of the mob intimately since I was a kid," he explains. "I lived in 45th Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue, in a theatrical rooming house, and along this thoroughfare everybody who amounted to anything in the theatre, in sports or in the underworld would gather daily. Most of them congregated either in a drug store, called Sam and Abe's, or along the back wall of the Hudson Theatre. "Some of my earliest memories are of them buying me sodas or candy or giving me nickels and dimes. I amused them and they liked to have me about. It was the most natural thing in the World, then, for me to meet everybody, both big shots and small-time grafters, and to call them by their first names. "By the time I was ten or twelve there wasn't a mobsman in New York who didn't accept me as one of them. I knew everybody . . . everybody knew me. I was welcome wherever I went because they knew they could trust me. I never blabbed. They called me 'a right guy,' knowing that their secrets were safe with me. Consequently, I've been 'a right guy' to them ever since. "Racketeers, especially the big ones, and the theatre are closely allied in New York. The stage holds a fascination for them and they're continually associating with the theatre crowd Many of the more wealthy members of the mob finance shows, both for the purpose of making more money and for some avenue in which to account for their tremendous earnings along less legitimate lines. There are very few stage people who don't know many of the more prominent racketeers. I possibly am more familiar with them than many, due to having grown up in their midst. • "I never condemn a man for what he is . . . it's none of my business," Tom continued seriously. "As long as he treats me okay, I accept him for his face value. That's why, I suppose, I have always gotten along so well with the mob. I'm not inquisitive; what they do does not concern me. So long as I pay attention to my own business, I think I'm justified in making my own friends. "Years ago, one of the big shots told me if ever I became involved in trouble, or was held up or robbed, to get in touch with him immediately. Some jewelry of my mother's was stolen one night and I went to him at once. The following lenwe inm to pnKe Keventy-lwo Tom Brown's amazing adventures in gangland! HOLLYWOOD