Wednesday, August 22, 2012

A Botched Robbery That Went Hollywood

By EMILY S. RUEB

Temperatures were in the 90s on the afternoon of Aug. 22, 1972, when a young mop-haired gunman emerged from a Chase Manhattan Bank in Gravesend, Brooklyn, wearing a sweaty V-neck undershirt.

Upbraiding police officers for getting too close to the doorway, the man, John Stanley Wojtowicz, a Vietnam War veteran, held court in front of an audience of 150 police officers, federal agents, scores of journalists and more than 1,000 spectators clamoring for a view of the sidewalk cinema that would later inspire the film “Dog Day Afternoon.”

Inside the bank, on Avenue P and East Third Street, Mr. Wojtowicz's confederate, Salvatore Natuarale, 18, kept watch on the mostly female group of tellers and a branch manager while Mr. Wojtowicz, 27, was a nervous frontman emboldened by a cheering crowd and a live-broadcast audience.

Speaking to a WCBS reporter on the phone, he explained the situatio n:

“Well, we're holding up a bank and we were on our way out when a stupid cop car pulled up.”

It was a crime of passion for Mr. Wojtowicz, who intended to use the stolen money to pay for a $3,000 sex-change operation for the man he called his wife.

Mr. Wojtowicz was separated from his wife, Carmen, with whom he had two children, Sean and Dawn, but was involved with a tall, wispy man named Ernest Aron, whom he had married in a lavish ceremony with several bridesmaids.

In exchange for a hostage, Mr. Wojtowicz demanded to see Mr. Aron, who was brought to the scene wearing a robe from Kings County Hospital, where he had been admitted after a failed suicide attempt.

(Mr. Aron later became Elizabeth D. Eden, thanks in part to proceeds from selling film rights to Warner Brothers.)

Despite repeated entreaties by agents, friends, a Paulist priest and Mr. Wojtowicz's mother to end the standoff, it continued as darkness fell and floodlights brig htened the stage.

On the radio, the hostages listened to the Mets narrowly defeat the Houston Astros and discussed where a jet the gunmen demanded would take them; Moscow and Tel Aviv were suggested, but a destination was never chosen.

A camaraderie developed among the hostages, who later told reporters how kindly they had been treated.

“If they had been my houseguests on a Saturday night, it would have been hilarious,” a captive, Shirley Ball, said in a 1972 Life article, “The Boys in the Bank,” which provided the grist for the film, directed by Sidney Lumet.

Ms. Ball, 52, a part-time teller, was sent out to retrieve a pizza delivery. Insisting on paying for dinner, Mr. Wojtowicz threw $2,000 out the door, sending federal agents scurrying to pick up the bills scattered on the sidewalk.

The gunmen refused to eat the pie because they “thought it was doped with knockout drops,” Ms. Ball told The New York Times.

About 4 a.m. the next day, a 14-passenger van carrying the two robbers, seven hostages and an F.B.I. agent serving as driver led two dozen police and F.B.I. cars with red lights flashing to a remote runway at Kennedy International Airport, where a jet was waiting. They did not know where they were going, but they were getting hungry.

Richard J. Baker, an F.B.I. agent who had been assisting with negotiations, met them on the tarmac.

“Will there be food on the plane?” asked the agent behind the wheel.

“Yes,” Mr. Baker replied.

And with that, the code words had been spoken. The driver, armed with a .38-caliber gun, spun round and shot Mr. Natuarale, who was sitting two rows back, killing him. The mop-haired gunman was overpowered and the hostages were safe.

When the Warner Brothers film was released in 1975, Mr. Wojtowicz was serving a 20-year sentence at a federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pa.

In a letter to The New York Times, which was never pu blished, he wrote that the movie was “in essence a piece of garbage” and made him feel “exploited.”

“I feel sorry for the actress for having to play such a horrible role,” he said about the actress Susan Peretz, who portrayed his heterosexual wife, known as Angie in the film, adding she was “an ugly and greasy looking women with a big mouth.” The actress playing his mother “overdid her role, especially the overprotective Mother type baloney in it.”

Al Pacino, who played the role of Mr. Wojtowicz, however, deserved “the Academy Award for Best Male Actor for his unbelievable performance.” Although Mr. Pacino did not win, his nomination was one of six the film received, including for best picture.

Mr. Wojtowicz served seven years in federal prison and additional time for violating parole. He was released in 1986 and died two decades later in New York City.



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