In The Mafia with Trevor McDonald (ITV), our impassive and scrupulously courteous reporter pitched his questions to some very frank retired mobsters: between them they’d done a lot of bad things, and they were happy to admit it. Occasionally, one even offered up something in the way of remorse.
“I don’t sleep,” said Michael “Mikey Scars” DiLeonardo in Miami. “My conscience bothers me.” It soon became clear that he feels more guilty about betraying his friends than all those crimes he committed. It turned out these guys are used to talking: each of them ratted out their bosses and associates in exchange for lenient sentences. As a government informant, mob-enforcer John Alite was sentenced to just 10 years for, among other things, two murders.
You could tell he missed the life – he once owned 10 homes, including the country “estate” he showed Trevor round. The rather spare decor is down to the tastes of the current owners. “At the time there was a sunken Jacuzzi tub here,” said Alite, pointing to a corner of the bedroom. He also showed Trevor where he kept all his guns, for those times when rival mobsters came to kill him. But what he really thinks about when he sees the house isn’t the shoot-outs in the driveway; it’s his granny coming out of the kitchen door to greet him: “Those memories, they’re embreaded [sic] in your mind.”
When Michael Franzese met his future wife, he forgot to mention that he was a capo in the Colombo crime family. “He told me he was a businessman,” she said, which was sort of true. He was posing as a producer of terrible films while hauling in millions of dollars a week in criminal proceeds. According to his Wikipedia page, it was his wife who convinced him to leave the Mafia. His wife, and a 14-count indictment for racketeering, extortion and counterfeiting. Hilariously, he is now a motivational speaker (even more hilariously, John Alite is now an anti-bullying campaigner).
If nothing else, these interviews (this was the first of two parts) served to de-glamorise mob life, in particular the post-jail, post-betrayal side of it. These guys were all sad, friendless, fearful and, I think, terrifically bored. I keep thinking about Mikey Scars driving round Little Italy hiding his face from people he recognised. Those are the things that stay embreaded in your mind.
In Tom Felton Meets The Superfans (BBC3), Felton sought out the motivations of superfans, including his own, Tina. Your first question may well be, “Who the hell is Tom Felton?” He’s the guy who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films. You might not recognise him now he’s all grown up, but an awful lot of people do.
Felton made a good guide to the upsides and downsides of having fans. On the one hand, he is stopped for selfies everywhere he goes; he must have to factor it into his schedule. On the other hand, no superfan is going to turn down a chance to be interviewed by Draco Malfoy. Felton needed only to send a tweet (he has 1.1 million followers) – his subjects came to him.
That’s how he found Steve, who has a YouTube video, where he dresses up as Harry Potter and says, “I can wear Harry Potter clothing every day for three months without wearing the same thing twice.” I can’t even dress as me for a week without wearing the same thing twice.
Felton visited Steve at his house in Pittsburgh. “It’s never struck me as a great idea to go to an obsessive Potter fan’s basement,” he said. But Steve is reassuringly rational; he just happens to have a lot of Harry Potter stuff. “All my mugs from the wizarding world right there,” he said. “I drink out of all of them.” He was unfazed by Felton – he’s not interested in actors – but admitted he would freak out if JK Rowling turned up. She signed his arm once, and he turned it into a tattoo.
Felton’s meeting with his own superfan, a middle-aged woman from Swindon called Tina – was particularly poignant. He is unfailingly gracious with strangers. “It means a lot to me that it means this much to you,” he said to one overexcited fan. But the compromises of fame were more than evident. Unable to enjoy the abandon of a Comic-Con gathering in Tulsa (he kept getting accosted), Felton retreated to a green room reserved for slebs making personal appearances; a drab, purgatorial space populated by Corey Feldman, William Shatner, Dean Cain and Lou Ferrigno. You wouldn’t go in there if you didn’t have to.
