'Little Johnny' Torrio, sometimes called 'The Brain', was born in Italy in 1882. He came to New York with his family at the age of two and was raised in the ghettoes of the Lower East Side. As a teenager, Johnny became an important member of the Five Points Gang, one of the cities largest and most powerful gangs. He was also the head of an affiliated gang, The James Street Gang. He was known by his peers as Terrible Johnny and lived up to his nickname on various occasions when rival gangs clashed with his own. He was looked upon as cold, cruel and calculated. He was short, hence the 'Little Johnny', but his natural flair as a bruiser managed to net him the job as a bouncer at one of the toughest bars in Manhattan at that time, Nigger Mike's on Pell Street.

In 1912, Torrio moved his attention to the bars and brothels in the dockyard areas of Brooklyn. Every now and then, he would offer employment to his fellow James Street Gang members - one of them being Alphonse Capone. Johnny also explored hijacking, extortion and other illegal activities. Each of his exploits fed his dream of organizing crime into a big business.

As early as 1909, Torrio was traveling to and from Chicago to do business for his uncle Big Jim Colosimo. Colosimo had some trouble with extortionists trying to take a vested interest in his profits. Torrio was asked to persuade them to go away. Several bloody corpses later, the word on the street was to leave Big Jim's whoring business alone.

In 1915 Colosimo gave Torrio a full time job running some of Chicago's seediest prostitution dens. Torrio renovated the cheap sleazy places and dressed his prostitutes as sweet little virgins and enticed much more business than before. The sleaze pits became a booming business. Torrio eventually ran all of Colosimo's businesses while Big Jim took a back seat and lived the high life on the profits Torrio's hard work produced.

With the vast potential that Prohibition introduced, Torrio tried to convince Colosimo to use his prostitution empire to grab as many of the new bootlegging rackets as possible. However, Colosimo was not interested - he was already incredibly wealthy and saw no reason to expand. Torrio enlisted the help of Al Capone and others to take over Colosimo's empire. Frankie Yale was hired out of New York to assassinate Colosimo. With Big Jim out of the way, Torrio set about moving into the booze rackets that the 18th Amendment promised.

Torrio set about uniting the numerous gangs in Chicago. His plan was to have each gang control a certain area with no interference from neighboring gangs. Each gang would pay a percentage of profits to Torrio for the sole rights to their own turf. So all the gangs were called together and Torrio told them of the plan. The alternative to agreement was gang warfare and Torrio was in a commanding position to win any war. Most of the gangs agreed to Torrio's plan - the alternative was none too rosy. However, there were some who agreed initially and then did whatever the hell they wanted anyway. One of these gangs was the North Siders led by Dion O'Banion. The war between the rival gangs lit up Chicago.

Torrio once again sent for Frank Yale and he came from New York with Albert Anselmi and John Scalise. The three of them shot O'Banion in his flower shop. But O'Banion was only the tip of the iceberg. The gang was taken over by Hymie Weiss and a plot was hatched to revenge the murder of O'Banion. Weiss and his boys ambushed Torrio twice and on both occasions he lucked out. On the first attempt, Torrio walked away from the scene with just two bullet holes in his gray Fedora hat. His chauffeur and dog were not so lucky - both were killed. The second attempt had a better result for Weiss and his gang. Torrio was ambushed outside his apartment block on January 24th, 1925. He was hit by shotgun blasts and four slugs. He was wounded in the stomach, arm and chest. Fighting with death for a week and a half, Torrio was guarded day and night by 30 body guards at the hospital.

It was after this close encounter with death that John Torrio passed the organization over to Al Capone. Torrio was 43 years old, a millionaire several times over, and he moved back to Brooklyn where he retired. In April, 1957, John Torrio suffered a fatal heart attack at his barbers in Brooklyn. He was 75 years old.