Born in New York City in 1928, Vincent Gigante—also known by such nicknames as “the Chin” and “the Oddfather”—was an Italian-American mobster who became head of the Genovese crime family in the early 1980s (though he wasn’t officially named boss until the early ’90s). He was known to wander the streets of Greenwich Village in a bathrobe, an elaborate act to make him seem insane. In 2003, this bizarre gangster admitted to have faked his mental problems for decades to protect him while on trial. He died in 2005 at a medical center for federal prisoners.
