The remarkable true story of John Wojtowicz: The bank robber who changed Hollywood
As the classic saying goes, sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. Such is the reason why so many iconic movies are based on real-life events, from the world of the American mafia that inspired the making of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas to the strange supernatural phenomenon that prompted the making of William Friedkin’s Exorcist. Yet, no story may be more extraordinary than that of John Wojtowicz, the bank robber who inspired the making of 1975’s Dog Day Afternoon and changed the shape of Hollywood in the process.
Born in 1945, Wojtowicz was described as a normal, quiet child by his mother until he joined the military, with his time in the service having a detrimental effect on his mental health. Shortly afterwards, in 1971, he met Elizabeth Eden in New York City, with the pair tying the knot in a public ceremony that very same year, mere months before he would go on to rob a Chase Manhattan Bank in Brooklyn.
The idea to carry out such a heist was sparked when Wojtowicz and his two friends, Salvatore Naturile and Robert Westenberg, went to watch Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather in Times Square, with the trio carrying out their plan shortly afterwards. Just why exactly the gang carried out their attack is somewhat unclear, with the popular story going that Wojtowicz needed money to pay for his wife’s gender reassignment surgery, even though other sources claim they just wanted to enact a mafia-type hit on a bank.
Regardless, armed with a Godfather-inspired ransom note that read, “This is an offer you can’t refuse,” the group went into the bank and took seven bank employees hostage for fourteen hours. Once the police showed up, Wojtowicz extended his demands, “I want them to deliver my wife here from King’s County hospital. His name is Ernest Aron. It’s a guy. I’m gay,” whilst behaving a little erratically.
Asking for food for the hostages, when the pizza delivery man came to the door, Wojtowicz paid him with wads of cash that he also began tossing to the thousands of onlookers who had now gathered outside the bank. It was clear that, whilst there was certainly some thought behind this operation, Wojtowicz and his friends were far from professionals and were frequently seen shooting out the window aimlessly.
After much negotiation time, Naturile was killed by police, and Wojtowicz was later arrested at Kennedy Airport. Sentenced to serve 20 years for his crimes, Wojtowicz only served five, and despite leaving prison with no money at all, his tale had already been immortalised in the Sidney Lumet movie Dog Day Afternoon, starring Al Pacino and John Cazale, the very same actors who starred in The Godfather, the film that inspired the robber in the first place.
So proud of his attempted heist, Wojtowicz demanded that the 1975 movie, which told of his crimes, was screened for his inmates, and by the time he was released from prison, he was awarded $7,500 and 1% of the net profits of the Oscar-winning movie. These profits were given to his wife, Eden, to help pay for her transition, but tragically for Wojtowicz, she ended up marrying someone else before passing away in 1987 as a result of AIDs related pneumonia, with the former convict reading a eulogy at her funeral.
Passing away himself many years later in 2006, Wojtowicz saw out his life in typical eccentric fashion, even unsuccessfully applying for a bank job as a security guard. Indeed, his greatest legacy is his contribution to Hollywood cinema, assisting in the conjuring of one of the most celebrated movies of the 1970s, and a crucial touchstone in the careers of Al Pacino, Sidney Lumet and Carol Kane.
