Eliot Ness

Eliot Ness was born on April 19, 1903 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

As a US Treasury agent he was charged with the task of bringing notorious Chicago crime boss Al Capone to justice in 1929. To that end he assembled a select team of nine agents nicknamed "The Untouchables", famous for the reputation that--unlike many law enforcement officers of the era--they could not be bought off or scared off. Contrary to popular belief, however, they were not directly involved in bringing up Capone on the income-tax evasion charges that finally sent him to prison. However, their war against Capone did cause a great deal of damage to his organization, and they had built up a formidable case against Capone involving various violations of the Volsted Act (Prohibiton), which were held in abeyance in the event that Capone managed to beat the tax evasion charges. He didn't.

Initially, Ness and The Untouchables were not given credit for helping to bring down Al Capone. It wasn't until 1932, when Capone had exhausted all of his appeals on the Tax conviction, that the public learned about Ness. After Capone was officially sent away, Special Prosecutor George E. Q. Johnson gave an interview for the radio, newsreels, and papers mentioning those involved. He mentioned Ness's "special squad" of incorruptible agents. The media picked up on the story and it was several newspapers, most prominently in Cleveland and Baltimore, who coined the moniker "The Untouchables". It was from that point that Ness gained notoriety.

He was the Director of the Division of Social Protection of the Federal Security Agency in Washington, D.C., when one night in 1942 he and his second wife Evaline went out partying; they were involved in an automobile accident, and instead of staying at the scene Ness fled and later tried to cover up his involvement in it. The resulting bad publicity forced him to resign his position. He moved to Canton, Ohio. Evaline left him and moved to New York, and he eventually divorced her.

Ran as an independent candidate for mayor of Cleveland, Ohio (1947).

According to the documentary "The Untouchables: The Real Story" for the Smithsonian Channel, when Eliot Ness collaborated on the novel "The Untouchables" with writer Oscar Fraley, the body of the book, which was used as the basis for the 1950s and 1990s TV series and the 1987 film, was mostly a fictionalized account created by Fraley. For years, Eliot Ness was actually reluctant to sell his life story to the media because he didn't want to appear as though he was a glory hound. However, he gave in after meeting Fraley. Ness wrote a 21 page outline which he gave to Fraley to use as the basis for the book. Fraley then expanded in into a 200-plus page novel which he filled in Ness's details by pulling info from other lawmen involved in the case to get Al Capone. Ness never actually read the final draft that was submitted to the publisher and did not get to see the false stories Fraley inserted into the book. According to the historians who examined Ness's original draft, he never claimed to be "the man who got Capone". Ness did credit others, including IRS Investigator Frank J. Wilson, with ultimately putting Capone behind bars.

Parodied in the Bugs Bunny cartoon The Unmentionables (1963).

He was a writer, known for The Untouchables (1987), The Untouchables (1959) and The Untouchables (1993). He was married to Betty Anderson Seaver, Evaline McAndrew and Edna Staley.

Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 443-444. New York: Oxford University Press (2002).