On this day‬ in 1957, a few months before the hit on Albert Anastasia, the mob World would say their last goodbyes to Papa Johnny who died at the age of 75. Torrio actually died in a barbers chair but not in the same bloody fashion as Anastasia, instead it was a heart attack that finished off The Fox.

Johnny Torrio did survive an assassination attempt though back in 1925, after a retaliation attempt by the North Side Gang for the hit on Dean O’Banion. The hitmen were Hymie Weiss, Bugs Moran and Vincent Drucci.

Torrio was struck in the jaw, lungs, groin, legs, and abdomen. Weiss attempted to deliver a final shot into Torrio’s head, but had run out of ammunition. Instead, Weiss kicked Torrio repeatedly in the stomach and Moran hit Torrio with a billy club.

He was smart, talented and respected amongst other major crime bosses in the US and built the foundation for the Chicago Outfit with Al Capone as his protege.

On this day in 1957, the American underworld quietly lost one of its most brilliant and influential architects. Johnny Torrio, known throughout the criminal fraternity as "Papa Johnny" and "The Fox," died of a heart attack at the age of 75 whilst sitting in a barber's chair in Brooklyn. It was a peaceful, if ironic, end for a man who had survived one of the most savage assassination attempts in mob history and had spent decades operating in the shadows of organised crime with a calculated precision that few could match.

Torrio's significance to the American Mafia cannot be overstated. Long before the infamous Apalachin Meeting of 1957, it was Torrio who first conceived the idea of a nationally co-ordinated criminal organisation, one built on cooperation rather than constant bloody conflict. He mentored a young Al Capone, moulding him into the fearsome crime boss who would eventually take the reins of the Chicago Outfit, and he worked closely with Lucky Luciano in laying the groundwork for what would become the modern American Mob. In many respects, the structure that underpinned the Five Families of New York owed a considerable debt to Torrio's vision.

His path was not without extreme danger. In January 1925, the North Side Gang exacted their revenge for the murder of Dean O'Banion by sending a team of gunmen that included Hymie Weiss, Bugs Moran, and Vincent Drucci to finish Torrio off. He was shot in the jaw, lungs, groin, legs, and abdomen in a ferocious attack outside his Chicago home. Weiss attempted to deliver a fatal head shot but found his weapon empty. In a brutal conclusion to the assault, Weiss kicked Torrio repeatedly in the stomach whilst Moran struck him with a billy club, leaving him for dead. Torrio somehow survived, and rather than seeking revenge, made the remarkable decision to hand control of his operations to Capone and withdraw from Chicago entirely. It was a move that demonstrated the cool, strategic mind that had always set him apart.

He returned to prominence years later, offering counsel and guidance to the next generation of mob leadership, earning universal respect as an elder statesman of organised crime. His death on 16th April 1957, just months before the murder of Albert Anastasia shook the underworld once more, marked the end of an era. The Fox had built the blueprint that American organised crime would follow for decades to come, and his influence endures in every structure and tradition the Mafia still holds dear.