(ABC, 1959–1963)
Cast: Robert Stack (Eliot Ness), Jerry Paris (Martin Flaherty), Paul Picerni (Lee Hobson), Abel Fernandez (William Youngfellow), Steve London (Jack Rossman), Peter Leeds (Lamar Kane), Eddie Firestone (Eric Hanson), Nicholas Georgiade (Enrico Rossi), Walter Winchell (Narrator).
Basis: Chicago during its turbulent years (1920s–1930s) provides the setting for an elite team of federal agents (The Untouchables) and its leader (Eliot Ness) as they seek to end the rule of mobsters such as Al Capone.
Eliot Ness
Age: 26.
Place of Birth: Chicago.
Occupation: Prohibition agent turned leader of the Untouchables.
Office Phone Number: Superior 7-599.
Romantic Interest: Betty Anderson (played by Patricia Crowley).
Betty’s Phone Number: Superior 2-198 (she and Eliot married in November 1929).
Character: To battle the crime and corruption of the Chicago mob, the U.S. district attorney assigned Ness the daunting task. There are 300 federal agents in Chicago—“Some can be bought. But what if you have a special squad, small, operating on its own; every man thoroughly investigated, brought in from all parts of the country. Men who will spit on Capone’s graft; just a few he can’t buy.” Ness was then given full access to agents’ files and chose a team who were reliable, courageous, dedicated, and honest—“Six or seven of the most honest men.” On July 5, 1929, in office 208 of the Federal Building in Washington, D.C., Ness chose his team (see below) to become the Federal Special Squad, dubbed “The Untouchables” by a newspaper called the Chicago Bulletin with the headline “Untouchables Defy Capone.”
Many episodes relate the conflict between Ness and Capone. Capone (Neville Brand) had established an illegal bootlegging operation in Chicago with headquarters in a room above the Montmarte Café. It took Ness 18 months to nail Capone on an income tax evasion charge (he was sentenced to 11 years in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Cell 39, Block D; his prison number: 40886). Ness fought corruption for many years and completed the book version of The Untouchables shortly before his death in 1957.
The Untouchables Team
Martin Flaherty: A former Boston police officer with an outstanding police record of arrests. Commended for his relentless dedication to duty and risking his life to save a fellow officer.
William Youngfellow: A full-blooded Cherokee Indian, decorated for breaking up the Oklahoma alcohol trafficking ring. Relentless in his pursuit of justice; unable to be bribed by the local mob.
Jack Rossman: A former New York telephone lineman turned wire-tap specialist for the federal government.
Lamar Kane: An agent with the Richmond, Virginia, bureau of the justice department. A law school graduate, married, and the father of two children.
Eric Hanson: A former agent with the San Francisco bureau; previously worked as a guard on death row at San Quentin prison.
Enrico Rossi: A former barber who became an agent after testifying against the mobster Frank Nitti (Rossi became obsessed with bringing down the mob when he witnessed a hit that claimed the life of an innocent 17-year-old girl).
Lee Hobson: A Harvard graduate and a former district attorney before joining the Treasury Department.
Note: The pilot episode also featured agents Tom Kopka (Robert Osterloh) of the Sacramento Bureau, a former Pennsylvania State Trooper and World War I hero, and Joe Fuscelli (Keenan Wynn), a man who speaks the Sicilian and Neapolitan dialects, spent five years in prison for robbery, and knows every street and alley in the city—the best driving hands in Chicago.