Jake Guzik
1886–1956 (age 70)
mobster
Biography
Born in 1886 in what is now Poland, Jake Guzik immigrated to Chicago and became a trusted adviser in the city's organized crime circles. Known as "Greasy Thumb", he kept careful books for Al Capone's Outfit, famously more comfortable at the negotiating table than in the streets, and his ability to keep operations functioning earned him a place as the calm center of the organization.
Even as the Outfit shifted through Prohibition and beyond, Guzik remained a fixture of Chicago's Near West Side, cultivating friendships among neighbors and quietly supporting charitable drives. He spent his final years near Oak Woods Cemetery, where his legacy remains enshrined in the stories of those who observed his steady stewardship.