Born June 20, 1915
Bensonhurst,
Brooklyn. Assassinated December 16, 1985 in
Manhattan by
John Gotti and associates.
Castellano is best known as the last
godfather of the Gambino crime family before John Gotti took control in 1985. As godfather, "Big Paul" Castellano garnered resentment among many
rank and file mobsters by living in a remote, lavish mansion on
Staten Island and by exacting exceptionally large tributes from his men. Castellano's thirst for profits also motivated him to tacitly allow more
drug trafficking in the Gambino outfit, despite a prior agreement among the
five families of
La Cosa Nostra that, due to the temptation to inform under the threat of increasingly harsh
prison sentences, any
gangster caught dealing drugs would be executed by their own mob family.
Although he was a
meatcutter by trade, "Big Paul" had
racketeering in his blood, and began by helping his father's illegal lottery business at an early age. Castellano's first stint behind bars was a three month sentence at the
Hartford County Jail for armed robbery when he was 19 years old. Soon after, he married a relative of his cousin, future godfather
Carlo Gambino, adding yet another familial link to the somewhat
inbred mix of relationships between the Castellanos and the Gambinos.
Don Carlo was an undisputed genius at running the Gambino family, so his death in 1976 left some big shoes to fill. The normal line of succession was broken because respected Gambino
underboss Aniello "Neil" Dellacroce was incarcerated at the time, so the dying godfather named Castellano as the new
boss of bosses.
Neil Dellacroce and Castellano came to a peaceful agreement that would allow Castellano to control the Gambino family.
Castellano was a rather
aloof and inaccessible leader, acting more like a banker than a
mafia godfather. As the head of a large, successful, and legitimate meatcutting enterprise, he saw the Gambino family as just another business to run, which irritated his underlings to no end.
His problems with
impotence from
diabetes contributed to his
divorce from
Nina Manno and an affair with his
Colombian housekeeper,
Gloria Olarte. Olarte unwittingly allowed the
FBI to bug the Castellano mansion, which was built to resemble the
White House. Big Paul's dalliances further fueled the animosity of the Gambino soldiers, but Dellacroce urged them to toe the line and respect Castellano regardless.
Dellacroce was the glue that held Castellano's leadership together, so when Dellacroce died from
brain cancer on December 2, 1985, Castellano quickly lost any support he previously had. Even though Castellano was one of the key defendants in the FBI's
Commission Case filed earlier that year and was urged by his attorney to keep a low profile, Gambino family soldiers took it personally when Castellano didn't show up to pay his respects at Dellacroce's funeral. Dellacroce's top solider, John Gotti, took that
snub as the final insult and decided to execute Castellano and his
dim-witted underboss
Tommy Bilotti and assume control of the family.