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Julie Lucas (Frank’s wife), Producer Mary-Jane Robinson, Director Marc Levin and writer Mark Jacobson with Frank Lucas, the American Gangster.

The historic Nicky Barnes/Frank Lucas conversation happened on Saturday evening Oct 6th in New York city at Blowback Productions. It was the first time the two heroin kingpins talked in 25 years.  Frank Lucas arrived in a wheelchair with his wife and entourage. Nicky Barnes called in from an undisclosed location.
 
They talked for about an hour. It wasn’t the guns blazing showdown we  expected(if history and Hollywood are to be believed these two guys were vicious rivals), though  there were a few tense moments - Nicky pushing Frank on if he put a hit on him and  Frank vehemently denying it. But for the most part it was two original gangsters reflecting on their lives, legacies and mythologies.  It was something! Their genuine affection for one another and that time in their lives was surprising and tender.

There was a twisted banality to their interaction.  Nicky showed real concern about Frank Lucas now being in a wheelchair and Mr. Untouchables’ final offering to the American Gangster in saying good bye was to give up his vitamin connect. Once they traded heroin now thirty years later, bothfeeling their own mortality slipping away, the conversation turns to hogs wart and Echinacea. When asked what his epitaph should say, Nicky said “I know what I want mine to say, ‘boy was he old, was he old’”! He has cheated many a conviction, death threats, hit’s and life in prison but the grim reaper comes knocking even for Mr. Untouchable.

Mary-Jane Robinson, Producer:  “To me it was really humanizing - both sad and strangely beautiful. These two once ‘great’ men, now old, in Frank’s case almost crumbling before our eyes and yet so filled with vigor and energy like a moth flying over and over into the window.  I felt oddly proud of Nicky, he talked rings around Lucas and was able to change the view of every man in that room. Hardened street men who knew or thought they knew who and what Nicky was - a rat - but after hearing him talk for an hour their hostile faces softened and soon they were nodding along to all of Mr. U’s philosophizing. Lucas’ entourage told me afterwards that he turned them from haters to believers. That’s some powerful preaching that he was doing….”

Marc Levin, Director:  “My take away headline was: MR UNTOUCHABLE AND AMERICAN GANGSTER ENDORSE GIULIANI FOR PREZ. I was amazed how both Barnes and Lucas went on about how Guiliani was a man of integrity although they hedged their support by saying if they had to put down money, they would bet that Hillary Clinton will win and be the next President.  Nicky recalled how Guiliani wrote a note to President Reagan on his behalf.  Frank chimed in about the former Mayor’s merits.  Some New York City firemen and police may hate Guiliani but two of the biggest drug dealers in the history of the city believe Rudi Guiliani is the man who should be the next President of the United States.”

Video/audio highlights to come…

Photos by Daniel Levin

Mary-Jane and Frank share a laugh: