The Untouchables

1959-1963: The FBI-approved and heavily glorified story of Eliot Ness and his G-men associates as they go after mobsters. Columnist Walter Winchell, who had a friend in FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, narrated this ABC series starring Robert Stack as Eliot Ness. Stack won an Emmy in 1960 for best actor for the series, which focused on Ness’s war with Al Capone’s organization in Prohibition-era Chicago. The first episode was the only one to actually include Capone’s character; after that, the G-men were going after Frank “the Enforcer” Nitti, who takes over Capone’s gang. The series was heavily criticized for its depiction of Italian-Americans; those critics included crooner Frank Sinatra and Anthony “Tough Tony” Anastasio, who was then president of the International Longshoremen’s Association and, in fact, a mobster and the brother of the late Albert Anastasia, boss of the Gambino crime family until his assassination two years before the show’s premiere.