Following on his longer memoir of Joe Memoli, Larry Belling added a few remarks:
Another memory after I moved to New York and got a job in the box office of a theatre downtown:
After a show at the Astor Place Playhouse, I would occasionally grab a bite at the Italian restaurant next door. One night standing at the bar was a man who looked quite a lot like Joe Memoli. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I approached him and introduced myself.
When I mentioned Joe’s name, he literally spat. “That fucking prick!” he exclaimed. “Imagine getting sent up for something as stupid as counterfeiting!” He dismissed me with a look of contempt that I should admit to knowing him.
Later I asked the bartender who the guy was. “Larry Gallo” was the answer. He was a distant cousin of Joe’s, and brother to another Joe, Crazy Joe Gallo, who would be murdered ten years later at Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy.
Also I received a clipping from, I believe, Life Magazine with a picture of Memoli attempting to rob the San Francisco-Oakland helicopter office. I never found out if he went back to jail.
I’m surprised Memoli didn’t appear to get an obit in the Oakland Tribune.
