He Led A Mafia Family For 35 Years, Then Wrote A Tell-All Book About It — And Somehow Lived To Tell The Tale

Joseph Bonanno was a major American Mafia boss and one of the original leaders of the Five Families of New York. He became boss of the Bonanno crime family in the 1930s while still in his 20s, making him one of the youngest Mafia bosses ever. He played a key role in shaping the national Mafia structure, including helping form The Commission, which governed relations between families. Later in life, he became notable for breaking Mafia code by publishing his autobiography A Man of Honor in 1983,