People

This 40-page magazine style special edition comes packed with rare mafia photos and articles of the Mafia era in Tampa. Released in previous back issues of Cigar City Magazine, we included all of our historical mafia stories and photo's in just one special issue.

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During the investigation of Velasco’s murder, a “payoff list” was discovered that named elected officials, law enforcement officers and others who allegedly took money from Velasco in return for protection and favors. This list thrust Tampa’s crooked ways into the national spotlight.

However, in February 1949, a grand jury declared the payoff list to be a fraud, made up to tarnish the good names of public officials. The names on the list were never exposed to the public and the list was then locked away so that no one would ever see it…until now. READ MORE

Luisita Pacheco, the wife of Ferdie Pacheco, is herself a captivating woman. A professional Flamenco dancer born Karen Louise Maestas in Denver, Colorado, she moved to Seville, Spain at the age of 14 to pursue her dream.

To the layman, it would have appeared to be the worst premiere in the film career of the world’s biggest Hollywood star–Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

After all, he is accustomed to red carpeted affairs surrounded by dozens of paparazzi and hundreds of adoring fans screaming for him to show them his trademark pearly white smile as camera flashes pop all around him. On this night, however, Dwayne Johnson’s movie premiere was on the opposite end of that spectrum. A few hundred people stood around the pavilion at TradeWinds Island Resorts during the 2012 Tri-Fitness World Challenge in St. Petersburg, Florida. A projector sat atop a table and a small white movie screen was hung on a C-stand. The film was just as low budget as the theatre setup; it was cell phone footage that had been blown up a few sizes too large to fit the movie screen.

Yes, to the layman, this movie premiere appeared…well…lame. However, those who have known the world’s biggest star since he was considered Tampa’s version of Dennis the Menace as a young boy running around wrestling auditoriums in the 1970s, knew that this was one of his most meaningful films. READ MORE

So there was something ironic about me having coffee with author, TV personality and nationally-known journalist Joel Stein. Skin deep, Stein looks like a total “fun-boy,” as perfectly cropped hair, tailored clothes, dark-rimmed glasses that probably cost more than my car, straight and whitened teeth that do not come out, manicured nails and vocabulary so perfect that he doesn’t even dangle a participle, paint such a picture. If not for the fact that he has a wife and son, it would be hard to convince any overtly macho, closed-minded man that Stein is straight. However, while behind my macho exterior lies a little Nancy, behind Stein’s Nancy exterior lays a macho man. In fact, Stein may be the most macho man in America. READ MORE

There are few people in the entertainment world who would not classify Joe Mantegna as one of the most well-rounded actors of the past few decades. Yet, Mantegna is still not comfortable in his career. He still worries that it could all end tomorrow.

“That’s the scariest thing about being an actor,” said Mantegna, the star of the Criminal Minds. “I read an interview with Tom Hanks once in which he said that even as successful as he has been, when a job is done he gets a little nervous and wonders if anyone will want him for another film. The second a television show comes to an end or a movie wraps, you are technically an out of work actor until that phone rings with another offer. While it is scary, it is also what makes acting so exciting. You never know what the next offer will be and you never know if it will be your defining role. I enjoy that unknown element of acting.”

A perfect illustration of never knowing from where the next acting job will come is the story of how Mantegna was hired to narrate the documentary The Fuente Family: An American Dream.

“It all began on the set of Baby’s Day Out in 1993." READ MORE