TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - Joseph Bonanno, the notorious gangster known as "Joe Bananas" who ran one of the most powerful Mafia groups in the 1950s and '60s, has died. He was 97.
Bonanno, who retired to Arizona in 1968 and had suffered from a variety of health problems in recent years, died Saturday of heart failure, said his attorney, Alfred "Skip" Donau.
At the height of his power, Bonanno directed one of the five original crime families in New York City. The public knew him as "Joe Bananas" — a nickname he detested.
By his own admission, he was a member of "the Commission," which acted as an organized crime board of directors in New York and other major U.S. cities. He denied engaging in such "unmanly" activities as narcotics trafficking or prostitution, though authorities said otherwise.
Bonanno fell from grace during the 1960s, reputedly for trying to become the boss of bosses in what came to be known as "the Banana War." The battle among the crime families resulted in his eventual exile to Tucson.
His crime family still bears his name, though he maintained in his 1983 autobiography that "I'm not a Father anymore and there is no Bonanno Family anymore."
