The world of professional wrestling has enjoyed more than its share of colorful personalities over the years.
One of the most colorful was the legendary “Captain” Lou Albano.
The charismatic wrestler-turned-manager, recognizable by his penchant for loud, open Hawaiian shirts that exposed his bulbous belly, trademark rubber bands adorning his wily goatee and pierced cheeks, and a gift of gab that had no bounds, passed away in 2009 at the age of 76, but is fondly remembered by a wrestling audience that for years considered him one of the most hated men in the profession.
But Albano was more than a wrestler or a manager. He was a pop culture icon whose role as rock star Cyndi Lauper’s father in her “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” video kicked off the “Rock ‘N Wrestling Connection” that helped make the then-World Wrestling Federation a household name in the 1980s.
The good captain was, as he regularly quipped, “Often imitated, never duplicated.”
Albano, who was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1996, had been a mainstay in that organization for decades, joining Vincent James McMahon’s World Wide Wrestling Federation in 1960, and staying the course with Vincent Kennedy McMahon when he took over for his ailing father in the early ‘80s, creating the WWF juggernaut.
Captain Lou Albano was “often imitated but never duplicated.” Provided/WWE
‘The Sicilians’
Albano had made his mark on the business years earlier, joining the pro ranks in 1952 after attending the University of Tennessee on a football scholarship and serving a stint in the U.S. Army.
He wanted to be a boxer, but legendary trainer and manager Lou Duva, a distant cousin of Albano, sent him to wrestling matchmaker Willie Gilzenberg, who was promoting in New Jersey, and Albano was advised to get into wrestling because he was deemed too short for the sweet science.
Along with Tony Altomare, another Army veteran of Italian decent, the two rose to prominence as a tag team called The Sicilians, replete with tuxedo jackets, fedoras, velvet gloves, big cigars and machine guns. Their gimmick, a pair of stereotypical Italian mobsters, got over with the audience so well that some legitimate “wise guys” in the Chicago crime syndicate sent word to the two that it would be in their best interest to tone down their act.
“Lou’s always been a part of pop culture,” said Philip Varriale, who co-authored the 2008 book “Captain Lou Albano: Often Imitated and Never Duplicated.”
“Even back with Tony Altomare as The Sicilians, that was a kind of groundbreaking gimmick. They took something that was very popular on television, ‘The Untouchables,’ and they did The Sicilians fighting against The G-Men (Billy Goelz and Johnny Gilbert) in Chicago in 1961. It was the height of ‘The Untouchables’ going against the mobsters. It was cutting edge back then.”
Albano, who made his Madison Square Garden debut in 1960, teamed with Altomare to win the prestigious Midwest tag-team title in Chicago in June 1961. Six years later they would rise to the top of the WWWF tag-team ranks by winning the U.S. tag-team belts from Bruno Sammartino and Spiros Arion.
Managing ranks
Albano took on a new role after the breakup of the team — that of a wild-eyed, over-the-top manager who would groom the company’s most ruthless heels in attempt to dethrone legendary champion Sammartino. That goal was achieved in 1971 when his villainous “Russian” protégé, Ivan Koloff, scored an improbable victory to end Sammartino’s seven-year reign in a match at Madison Square Garden.
Koloff would be the only world heavyweight champion Albano ever managed. He would lead Don Muraco, Greg Valentine and Pat Patterson to the Intercontinental championship, but never again tasted a world title.
The rotund Albano’s forte, however, was serving as the mouthpiece for some of the greatest tag teams in WWE history. He guided 15 different duos to tag-team gold. Among those teams were The Valiant Brothers, The Wild Samoans, Mr. Fuji and Mr. Saito, Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo, The Executioners, The Moondogs and The British Bulldogs.
Managing was Albano’s true calling. Being around wrestling for 17 years had given him the knowledge to become a great manager. He was a New Yorker who understood the psychology and politics of the business as well as the market.
“He made a great transition to manager in the ‘70s and with so many people in the New York area, that was a golden era for the WWF,” said Varriale. “He was there every year and every month bringing in new challengers. He literally talked people into Madison Square Garden or the Boston Garden or Capital Centre in Maryland. He was a very, very important part of the success for the WWE in the ‘70s.”
Ironically it was Sammartino, a fellow Italian, who influenced Albano to get into the managing side of the business.
His bad-guy antics earned him the reputation of being one of the most hated men in wrestling circles, but outside the ring was a different story.
“Basically a regular guy who, like everybody else, is trying to make a dollar and enjoy life,” was how Louis Vincent Albano described himself. He was a religious man who always carried rosary beads in his pocket.
“He became a very mellow, soft-spoken person over the years,” recalled Varriale. “He loved his family and was very much into his grandchildren.”
Gridiron standout
Many might have been surprised to learn that Albano was an impressive physical specimen in his younger days. He was a star football player in high school and earned a scholarship to the University of Tennessee, but was expelled for disciplinary reasons.
“He never took education seriously,” said Varriale. “He was kicked out of school. He was just a wild, fight-picking kind of guy. But he was a great football player. He was a legendary football player at Stepinac High School in Westchester County. He was very muscular and very much into working out.”
Albano ballooned to well over 300 pounds in later years.
When he lost significant weight over the past couple of years, he was still solid, said Varriale. “It was impressive. He was always very physically strong. I guess that athlete in him stayed.”
Albano gained perhaps his greatest mainstream notoriety when he appeared in Lauper’s iconic music video for “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” in 1983, playing a scruffy, overbearing father in a white tank top who gets shoved against a wall by the singer. He later claimed to be the catalyst to Lauper’s success, and helped spawn the “Rock ‘N Wrestling” era in the WWF.
Lauper credited her on-screen father with taking her up the music charts. “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” was among the most heavily played in the early days of MTV.
Albano’s celebrity status grew as his image evolved, and he landed a number of acting jobs, including roles alongside Danny DeVito and Joe Piscopo in Brian DePalma’s “Wise Guys,” the wrestling-themed movie “Body Slam” and “Miami Vice.”
He even became a cartoon in 1989 when he was the voice of Mario “Jumpman” Mario for 17 episodes of the animated and live action Saturday morning cartoon “The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!”
Lou Albano was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1996. Provided/WWE
Master showman
Captain Lou was a true showman whose often rambling and sometimes incoherent interviews, with that distinctive loud, growling voice, always drew an audience.
Many of his off-color jokes and off-the-cuff expressions made little sense, but the manner in which they were delivered was entertaining and endearing.
Among his most well-known:
— “He’s got the brain of a dehydrated BB.”
— “He has a calcium deposit on the medulla oblongata of his brain, but he is a brilliant man. This man has a BA, an MA from Harvard and a PhD from Oxford. He’s a brilliant man I tell you.”
Varriale considered Albano an integral part of the WWF’s national expansion.
“What if Lou Albano wasn’t there? Would MTV have wanted to show the Wendi Richter-Moolah match? Vince didn’t broker the deal with Cyndi Lauper. That was Lou. Lou’s the one who had the connection with Cyndi. He took the angle to Vince. Lou was very important to the boom.”
His longevity and relevance also stand out.
“How many guys who started as far back as 1952 had the ability 50 years later to be an hysterical television character? He was able to transition to what Vince wanted wrestling to be in the ‘80s. He was old school, and a lot of those guys couldn’t do it. Lou was a unique character and a unique person. He was always interested in the cutting edge. In the late ‘70s he started piercing his ears. He was very interested in pop culture and what was going on with the youth.”
Albano, unlike some of the other managers in that market at the time who preferred to work exclusively on TV and the major venues, loved going to the smaller spot shows in the various towns.
“Lou would go to every show he could,” said Varriale. “He wanted his payoffs. He was a hustler and was willing to do a lot of different things. (Managers) Ernie Roth (The Grand Wizard) and Fred Blassie didn’t take bumps. Lou would go in there and blade and get bounced around.”
Looks can deceive
A short, burly man with scraggly hair and clothes looking like they had come out of a rummage sale, his appearance belied where he had come from.
“It was the antithesis of what he had,” said Varriale. “He had a large, beautiful family. To hear the stories of the wild Lou back then was crazy.”
The Albano home wasn’t exactly like Lou. His house was immaculate. He may have seemed an odd fit, but his pedigree would prove otherwise.
Albano was born in Rome and was baptized at The Vatican. His father was a general practitioner who delivered 6,000 babies during a long and successful medical career. His mother was a registered nurse and a concert pianist who played at Carnegie Hall and passed down her musical skills. “Lou was a wonderful piano player,” recalled Varriale. Albano’s three brothers and a sister all became respected educators.
He was married to the same woman for 55 years. “She was with him until the end,” said Varriale. “They were very close. He was a very devoted family man.”
“He had a great life,” added Varriale. “He had such a wonderful family. He loved them and they loved him. They put all their time and energy into being with him.”
True survivor
Albano, who made the transition from one of wrestling’s most reviled characters to one of its most beloved, was an unforgettable personality.
“If you ever saw Lou, you’d never forget him. His promos were just so crazy – the burping and the belching and the belly sticking out. You didn’t have to like wrestling to like this guy. He would crack you up. He was so quick-witted and obnoxious. He was a lunatic. It was nonsense gobbledygook, but he did it so well.”
Varriale said Albano was a true survivor.
“He worked with all the greats. He survived in an industry that’s not easy to survive in. He worked his way to the top and he stayed there. Even when he was done with the business, he found work and became very successful on TV and in Hollywood. For many wrestlers, that’s the hardest battle they have. Once their wrestling career is over, what do they do? Lou never had that problem.”
And he remained loyal to friends and wrestlers he had come up with.
Although his old partner Tony Altomare never again achieved the level of success he had as half of The Sicilians tag team, the two remained close friends until Altomare’s death in 2003 at the age of 74.
Altomare, incidentally, discovered a new career after wrestling, serving as the chief lifeguard for the city of Stamford, Conn., for almost 25 years and saving a number of lives.
“Once The Sicilians broke up, Lou’s career took off as a manager,” said Varriale. “Tony became more of a job guy who would help drive the ring around and do assorted tasks. But their friendship was always strong. They remained tight. That was a true friendship. The families still love one another.
“Lou had that effect on people. Fred Blassie loved Lou until the day he died. Lou and Ernie Roth were very close. Lou was that kind of guy. Even The Iron Sheik loved Lou. And that says something. Nobody ever accused Lou of double-crossing or backstabbing them. He was a great guy to work with. He was just a lot of fun.”
Albano also was a major force in raising money to combat multiple sclerosis. His sister-in-law’s mother died from the disease in the early ‘80s, and Albano vowed to make it his cause, raising millions of dollars for the organization. He even served as a national spokesman for the group at one time.
“It was one of the proudest things in his life,” said Varriale. “It remained a big cause until the end. It was very personal for him.”
Albano’s health had deteriorated in recent years. But even long before that, it was hardly a secret that he didn’t take care of himself, was grossly overweight and had experienced a number of close calls due to years of heavy drinking and reckless living.
He suffered a massive heart attack in 2005 and had a pacemaker put in. Because of the pacemaker, he developed kidney problems and kidney stones. Although his body was breaking down, Albano continued to make a number of appearances at reunion events and fan conventions.
When the Good Captain passed away at 3:30 a.m. Oct. 14, 2009, at his home in Carmel, N.Y., he was surrounded by love.
Reach Mike Mooneyham at bymikemooneyham@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter at @ByMikeMooneyham and on Facebook at Facebook.com/MikeMooneyham. His latest book — “Final Bell” — is now available at https://evepostbooks.com and on Amazon.com
Did you know …
John L. Sullivan, aka Johnny Valiant. Provided photo
Some wrestlers find the right ring identity by partnering as the faux sibling of an established star. That was certainly true of John L. (Thomas) Sullivan who, after starting his career using the Sullivan name, paired up during the early 1970s with Handsome Jimmy Valiant as brother Luscious Johnny Valiant in the Indianapolis territory. The gimmick proved to be very successful. The heel Valiant Brothers worked many regions for nearly a decade and wore tag-title belts for various promotions. Eventually, a split took place. Jimmy cultivated a popular “Boogie Woogie Man” persona, while Johnny became a manager and part-time performer for the AWA and WWF. Later, as “Johnny V,” he turned to standup comedy following his mat tenure.
— Kenneth Mihalik, a retired educator living in Charleston, can be reached on Twitter @HoldBackTheNite
Blast from the Past
Scott Levy, aka Raven. Provided/WWE
Scott Levy hit the jackpot with the alter ego of Raven. Few characters were as outspoken and unorthodox. After early stints in WCW as Scotty Flamingo and the WWF as Johnny Polo, the dark Raven persona resonated successfully with the ECW audience during the mid-1990s. Levy, a true student of the game, was a promising talent for several years before getting his shot as Flamingo for the Atlanta-based promotion. Yet, a mid-card feud with Johnny B. Badd was the sole highlight of his run there. With the WWF as Polo, his considerable skills on the microphone enabled him to co-host some television in a unique pairing with Gorilla Monsoon. He also served as a heel manager.
When he debuted as Raven for Extreme Championship Wrestling, he would enjoy a nearly three-year run as the wild promotion's top rule-breaker and main-eventer. It began as a tag alliance with Stevie Richards, who later made his presence felt in solo bouts between Raven and title contenders such as The Sandman and Shane Douglas. Squaring off versus arch-foe Tommy Dreamer in a variety of stipulation matches was part of an ongoing program with plenty of outside interference. His catch phrase “Quoth the Raven” became a well-known staple during his promos. Raven’s long reign as seemingly unbeatable titleholder ended at the hands of veteran Terry Funk in April 1997. Once he agreed on a return to WCW, Raven, a native of Philadelphia – home to ECW – did the honors for several former mat rivals on the way out.
The very competitive, superstar-laden WCW still proved a tough nut to crack. Monday Nitro featured many top names. The storyline for Raven was to assemble a “flock” of associates who would serve as his protectors, including Billy Kidman, Scotty Riggs and others. But Raven would lose a memorable TV match to the fast-rising Bill Goldberg, and regaining momentum presented a difficult chore. He subsequently worked the mid-card, feuding with ex-ally Riggs and also Perry Saturn. Eventually, by 2000, he found himself back in the WWF, taking on many former ECW opponents, usually in the company’s “hardcore division.” But it was a far cry from the pivotal role he previously occupied while in the Northeast. After a few years, he opted to join Total Nonstop Action (TNA). It was a lengthy tenure and Raven was accorded the opportunity to participate in storylines designed to take advantage of his particular mystique.
Today, the 56-year-old former U.S. Marine remains a popular and active presence on social media, from podcasting to managing his website (TheRavenEffect.com) to offering his perspectives on wrestling and other topics on Twitter, among other ventures.
— Kenneth Mihalik
Photo of the Week
Jos LeDuc (real name Michel Pigeon) was a Canadian-born grappler with a lumberjack gimmick who enjoyed success in the ring during the 1970s and ‘80s. LeDuc died in 1999 at the age of 54. Provided/Eddie Cheslock
