Emil Camarda
Emil Camarda was one of the top officials of the International Longshoremen's Association union who likely served as one of the models for the character Johnny Friendly played by Lee J. Cobb in On the Waterfront (1954). The ILA Vice President was an associate of Mafia don Vincent Mangano, the head of a syndicate that was one of the "Five Families" of New York that eventually evolved into the Gambino Family. The Mangano Family underboss was Albert Anastasia, brother of Camarda's fellow Brooklyn waterfront boss Anthony "Tough Tony" Anastassio. [Born Albert Anastassio, the "Lord High Executioner" of the Mafia changed the family name after one of his arrests and became head of Murder Inc.] Tough Tony, a vice president of the ILA who controlled part of the Brooklyn waterfront, also was a model for Johnny Friendly, as was ILA President Joe Ryan.
Camarda controlled multiple ILA unions in Brooklyn in an area from the Brooklyn Bridge to Twentieth Street. Some four thousand dockers labored in ILA locals controlled by Camarda, many of Italian descent. It is generally believed that he was directly responsible for the 1939 murder of progressive union activist Pietro "Pete" Panto, a situation that inspired Arthur Miller to write a screenplay about union corruption on the Brooklyn waterfront that Elia Kazan agreed to direct. That project eventually evolved into On the Waterfront (1954).
Camarda controlled multiple ILA unions in Brooklyn in an area from the Brooklyn Bridge to Twentieth Street. Some four thousand dockers labored in ILA locals controlled by Camarda, many of Italian descent. It is generally believed that he was directly responsible for the 1939 murder of progressive union activist Pietro "Pete" Panto, a situation that inspired Arthur Miller to write a screenplay about union corruption on the Brooklyn waterfront that Elia Kazan agreed to direct. That project eventually evolved into On the Waterfront (1954).