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An inside look at the historic televised reveal of Al Capone''s vault that would define Geraldo Rivera''s career and change television forever. In 1986, more people watched "The Mystery of Al Capone''s Vault" than the Superbowl. More people watched the two-hour live event than David Frost''s interview with Richard Nixon. Both events were high-wire, high-reward, high-disaster broadcasts. Geraldo Rivera had been fired from ABC after fifteen years and the live broadcast from Chicago of Al Capone''s vault was to be his comeback. On April 21, 1986, at nine fifteen Eastern, Geraldo gave the signal at the midpoint of the show to blow open the subterranean vault with dynamite and reveal to the world the great secrets of Al Capone. A medical examiner was on hand to examine the bodies. IRS agents were there to catalog Capone''s millions. The men in hardhats blasted through a wall of earth with the studio lights delving into the loamy darkness. Geraldo burst into the chamber. A single lone pathetic bottle of bootleg gin was all he had to show to thirty million viewers. It was the greatest catastrophe of modern television. Geraldo had staked the comeback of his career on this moment and in defeat turned to the viewing audience, "Seems like we struck out." Capone''s Vault consists of two narratives: One following Geraldo''s background and career and the other the history of Capone and the development of the show. These will merge on the night of the show with the disaster of the two-hour program and the results. "The Mystery of Al Capone''s Vault" was a simple bet that Geraldo Rivera would open a vault in the basement of a nineteenth-century hotel and show the world something from Al Capone, but it would instead reveal basic truths about television.
List of contents
Preface
Introduction: Al Capones Vault
PART I: THE SETUP
Prologue
Chapter One: The King of Chicago
Chapter Two: The Discovery
Chapter Three: Finding Geraldo
Chapter Four: At Sea
Chapter Five: Sonar and X-Rays
Chapter Six: Going After Capone
Chapter Seven: Television and "Docutainment"
Chapter Eight: Selling A Two-Hour Live Event
Chapter Nine: The Rise of Geraldo
Chapter Ten: Finding the Vault
Chapter Eleven: Sending Capone to Jail
Chapter Twelve: Earth Movers and Dynamite
Chapter Thirteen: Tommy Guns and Gangsters
Chapter Fourteen: Capone's Money
Chapter Fifteen: The High Probability of Failure
PART II: THE BROADCAST
Chapter Sixteen: Helicopters and Cameras
Chapter Seventeen: Safety Pins and Milk Crates
Chapter Eighteen: Pulling Down the Wall
Chapter Nineteen: A Bottle of Gin or Not
Chapter Twenty: Blowing Up the Vault
Chapter Twenty-One: Chicago Chicago.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Tequilla Drunk
Chapter Twenty-Four: Waiting for the Numbers
Chapter Twenty-Five: Job Offers
Epilogue: The Birth of Reality Television
Summation
Notes
Index
About the Author
About the author
William Elliott Hazelgrove is the national bestselling author of ten novels and fourteen narrative nonfiction titles, including
Dead Air: The Night That Orson Welles Terrified America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024),
Greed in the Gilded Age: The Brilliant Con of Cassie Chadwick (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024), and Al Capone and the 1933 World's Fair: The End of the Gangster Era in Chicago (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017). His books have received starred reviews in Publisher Weekly Kirkus, Booklist, Book of the Month Selections, ALA Editor's Choice Awards Junior Library Guild Selections, Literary Guild Selections, History Book Club Selections, and optioned for movies. He was the Ernest Hemingway Writer in Residence. He has written articles and reviews for USA Today, The Smithsonian Magazine, Daily Mail, and other publications, and has been featured on NPR's All Things Considered. The New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, CSPAN, and USA Today have all covered his books with features. More information can be found at www.williamhazelgrove.com.
