On this day in 1962 we saw the death of the Olive Oil King, mob boss Joe Profaci, who was the boss of the Profaci Crime Family for over 3 decades. The family is better know as the Colombo Crime Family today. Joe was said to be a flamboyant man who smoked big cigars and drove big black Cadillacs. Despite pressure from Tommy Lucchese and Carlo Gambino to step down from his position as boss in the early 60’s, Profaci refused and stood his ground claiming if they tried to push him out there would be a wider gang war. Profaci kept in power until Liver Cancer finally got the better of him, and Joseph Magliocco stepped into his shoes for the next year before he was forced out to make way for Joe Colombo in 1963.

On this day in 1962, the American underworld lost one of its most enduring and influential figures when Joseph Profaci, better known as the Olive Oil King, died of liver cancer at the age of 64. A Sicilian-born immigrant who had risen to become one of the most powerful mob bosses in the United States, Profaci had spent more than three decades at the helm of what is today known as the Colombo Crime Family, one of New York's legendary Five Families.

Born in Villabate, Sicily in 1897, Profaci arrived in America in 1921 and wasted little time in carving out a criminal empire. He built a legitimate front through his olive oil and tomato paste importing business, which earned him his famous nickname and helped conceal the true extent of his criminal wealth. He was a founding member of the Commission when Lucky Luciano reorganised American organised crime in 1931, cementing his place at the very top table of the mob world alongside figures such as Carlo Gambino, Tommy Lucchese, and the Genovese family leadership.

Profaci was a man who enjoyed the spoils of power. He was known for his flamboyant lifestyle, favouring fat cigars and sleek black Cadillacs, projecting an image of authority and old-world Sicilian prestige. He was also deeply religious, a noted contradiction given his violent criminal life, and reportedly donated generously to the Catholic Church. However, beneath the polished exterior lay a ruthless and stubborn operator who ruled his family with an iron fist and demanded tribute from his own members, a practice that bred deep resentment and eventually sparked the bloody Gallo-Profaci War in the early 1960s.

As his health deteriorated, both Carlo Gambino and Tommy Lucchese applied pressure on Profaci to relinquish his position, sensing vulnerability. Profaci refused outright, warning that any forced removal would trigger a far wider conflict across the New York families. It was a typically defiant stand, and one that ultimately proved unnecessary to resolve — liver cancer made the final decision for everyone in June 1962.

His underboss Joseph Magliocco stepped into the role following Profaci's death, though his tenure proved brief and troubled, lasting little more than a year before Joe Colombo took control and lent the family the name it carries to this day. Profaci's long reign remains a defining chapter in the history of New York organised crime, a testament to how iron will and political cunning could sustain a man at the top of a ruthless world for over thirty years.