Sue Bruno, 94, widow of mob boss Angelo Bruno dies
wazzzy
The late mob boss Angelo Bruno and his wife, Sue, had a lifelong love
affair, flirting with each other until the day he died.
On the morning of March 21, 1980, before the crime boss was shotgunned
to death in a car in front of their South Philadelphia home, his wife
told him: "You look so, so handsome in that blue business suit," Jean
Bruno Puppo recalled her mother telling her.
"I'm so glad I said that," Sue Bruno confided to her daughter. "It was
the last time I saw him."
Yesterday was the last time that members of the Bruno family saw Sue
Bruno, described by attorney and family friend Carmen Nasuti as a
"very, very strong personality and strong matriarch."
Early yesterday, Sue Bruno died of natural causes. She was 94.
Born Assunta "Sue" Maranca, in Lanciana, in the Italian province of
Abruzzo, she was 5 when she and her family came to America in 1918 and
settled in South Philadelphia.
The Maranca and Bruno families operated corner grocery stores about a
block apart. Angelo Bruno became best friends - and later bootleggers
- with Sue's older brother, Ralph Maranca, said Puppo, 66.
But Angelo secretly had his eyes on Sue. At 18, she married the 21-
year-old charmer inside St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church on Christian
Street near 10th. They had two children, Michael and Jean.
"She was gorgeous," as well as an excellent cook who was devoted to
family, said her daughter.
Sue became particularly close to her son's two daughters, Maria and
Sue, who was named after her.
In the early years of their marriage, Puppo recalled, her father was a
numbers writer and banker, working out of their four-room house at
1905 S. Broad St., now a "real" bank. "She painted the windowpanes
black, so people couldn't see in," she recalled.
"No matter how old she got, she would make herself up," said Puppo,
recalling her mother's "perfect ruby-red lips." Her song to her
daughter was: "Stay young and make yourself beautiful."
Sue would fix her 5-year-old daughter's hair in plaits on one side and
curls on the other, then the two would "dress like each other," said
Puppo.
"Whenever she would get angry, she would go to the hairdresser and to
an expensive dress shop and run up the bill," her daughter recalled.
Often she had her clothes made, her shoes and outfits beaded.
"My mother was very sexy, a head-turner," she said.
During Puppo's childhood, her father would invite friends over, play
the piano or any string instrument, and they would sing songs such as
"Baby, you done me wrong."
"She used to love to dance with him," she added. "She made his
favorite dish, pasta potato, with potatoes, marinara sauce, macaroni
and red wine, not sweet."
By then, Sue had become the quintessential South Philadelphia
housewife, exchanging dishes with neighbors, and inviting a young
Jerry Blavat - before he became a top DJ, "the Geater with the Heater"
- to try one of her meatballs.
"She'd insist I had to eat, even if I wasn't hungry. She'd give me
them right out of the frying pan," he said. "After eating one or two
meatballs, she'd say, 'See, I told you you were hungry.' "
"They were almost like my second family," said Blavat, whose mother,
Lucille, became close friends with Sue, since they both came from
Abruzzo.
"Ange treated her like a princess," Blavat said of Angelo Bruno.
Attorney Nasuti said, "She was a very intelligent lady who enjoyed the
arts - music, Italian opera, great opera singers. As long as she was
able, she was very independent, almost stubborn. She wasn't school-
educated, but very smart, worldly smart."
Sue Bruno told Puppo: "Whoever shares the pillow shares the crown."
After Joe Valachi mentioned Angelo Bruno during his 1963 congressional
testimony about the existence of the Mafia - the first mobster to do
so - Angelo and Sue fled the area, Puppo said. Bruno came back first,
before his reluctant wife.
In 1970, Bruno was jailed for nearly three years for refusing to
answer questions before the New Jersey State Commission on
Investigation.
Sue marched her two adult children, Michael, then 39, and Jean, then
30 and pregnant with her third child, to the Yardville State
Correctional Facility every week to see him.
"There were times she was sad and lonely, and she was afraid to answer
the door," said Puppo. But Sue kept two diaries, one a draft for the
other.
The day her husband was killed, she was horrified that police left him
slack-jawed in the car for hours.
She was heart-broken, but quickly became incensed when a would-be
suitor showed up, pledging his undying love. Sue called Puppo to have
her husband get him to leave.
By then, Sue did not want to live in a house of memories on Snyder
Avenue near 9th. She moved to a mansion in Ventnor, N.J., where her
son, Michael, visited frequently. As her health deteriorated and she
developed dementia, caregivers tended to her, said Nasuti.
After Michael died in 2000, his wife, Zaria, took care of Sue in their
home in Girard Estate, he added. In recent weeks, Sue received hospice
care.
Besides her daughter and two granddaughters, Bruno is survived by four
other grandchildren, Marieangela, Jeanangela, Marcangelo and
Sueangela.
Services: Viewing from 7 to 9 p.m. tomorrow at Pennsylvania Burial,
1327 S. Broad St.
A Funeral Mass will be celebrated Friday at 10 a.m. at St. Monica
Roman Catholic Church, 17th and Ritner streets, followed by interment
at Holy Cross Cemetery, in Yeadon, Delaware County. *
By KITTY CAPARELLA
Wed, Jul. 18, 2007