The 10 Most Badass Real-Life Alcatraz Inmates

In J.J. Abrams' latest sci-fi mystery, Alcatraz, which premieres tonight at 8 p.m. on Fox, the infamous prison island's inmates and guards mysteriously disappear on the eve of its closure in 1963, only to re-appear, completely unaged, in 2012, and start tearing San Francisco up. When a man believed to be long dead leaves a fingerprint at the scene of a murder, plucky homicide detective Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones) and Alcatraz historian Dr. Diego Soto (Jorge Garcia) investigate; helping (or perhaps hindering) their efforts is shady federal agent Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill), who hides government secrets and is tasked with capturing the disappeared men.

The bad guys, nefarious though they may be, are fictional. With the prison on our brains, we revisit the notoriously violent and quirky criminals who made "The Rock" legendary: The 10 Most Badass Real-Life Alcatraz Inmates.

Written by Shanté Cosme (@ShanteCosme)

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At just 21-years-old, Texan James Lucas was sentenced to 30 years for bank robbery and car theft. When he was transferred to Alacatraz a year later, Lucas was said to have immediately arose the suspicions of guards, frequently conspiring with other prisoners, and organizing a work strike a mere year after his arrival.

But his most notorious crime occurred June, 23, 1936, when Lucas was immortalized for his attempt to murder Al Capone while the two were waiting for a haircut. Armed with only a pair of scissors, he reportedly slashed the notorious gangster several times. Capone escaped with a few minor cuts on his chest and hands, Lucas left with a reputation as the dude who was ballsy enough to attempt to murder Capone for cutting him in line.

You know 127 Hours, the James Franco flick based on a true story where a man was forced to cut off his own arm after it was pinned under a rock? Imagine inflicting that kind of physical torture on yourself for no reason at all.

That's what Rufe Persful did. Well, almost. While doing time for robbery, Persful wordlessly grabbed an axe, chopped the fingers off his right hand, and then asked another inmate to chop off the other. Many attribute Persful's self-inflicted wound to a desperate ploy for transfer, and others say it was Alacatraz's silence policy that drove him to insanity.

The silence rule was later revoked, possibly due to Persful's hands-on approach to overturning it.

If Alcatraz was the school of the hard-knocks, Clarence Carnes was the island's only freshman. The youngest prisoner to ever do time on The Rock, Carnes was only 18 years old when he was sentenced to life for a combination of murder and kidnapping charges.

Shortly after his arrival, Carnes began dreaming up an escape attempt. With the help of six other inmates, he captured the cell block's guards. The bloody, two day affair—known as the "Battle of Alcatraz—claimed the lives of three prisoners and two guards.

Carnes' accomplices were sentenced to death for their involvement, while Carnes was sentenced to an additional 99 years in prison, bringing his total sentence to 203 years. Amazingly, Carnes was paroled when he was only 46. No, we cannot explain that math.

When your nickname among murders and rapists is "creepy," it makes a bold statement about about your (complete lack of) character.

And Karpis certainly earned his creepy title. He was an accomplished criminal by the age of 10, regularly hanging with the likes of pimps and gangsters, and quickly graduated to kidnapping, robbing banks, and killing anyone who stood in the way of his evil plans.

But Karpis' ballsiest move? Kidnapping a friend of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and asking for 200K in ransom. Not surprisingly, the FBI was put on the case, and Karpis was sentenced to life in prison. Unluckily for him, that prison was Alcatraz, where Karpis served 26 years, the longest sentence of any Alcatraz inmate ever.

In 1962, when Alcatraz was on the brink of closure, Karpis showed just how unflinchingly badass he really was, when Charles Manson asked him for music lessons. Guess creeps of a feather flock together.

It's no news that Al Capone is the bossiest boss. But Capone's gangster activity—everything from prostitution to gambling rings, raqueteering to mass murders—all faded into the background when he entered Alcatraz. He wasn't no longer the glamorized gangster he had been on the outside. He received no special treatment like he had in other prisons. The Rock's infamously stringent Warden James Johnston made sure of that. Capone was prisoner #85 on the island—no more, no less.

Despite the smug smile in Capone's mug shot, Alcatraz got the best of this famous badass. After four and a half years, an attempt on his life, and numerous stints in solitude, Capone finally admitted his defeat to Johnston: "It looks like Alcatraz has got me licked."

Even Scarface had his limits.

George "Machine Gun" Kelly was a small-time prohibition bootlegger turned infamous gun-toting gangster, and he did it all for love, apparently. His wifey and partner-in-crime, Kathryn Thorne, was the influence for his increasingly wild crime sprees. She was said to have manipulated him into risky crimes, and even bought him the the weapon that earned him his nickname as a present. We believe they call that the power of the...uh, nevermind.

The adrenaline-obsessed lovers plotted the crime that would ultimately land them both in prison together—the kidnapping of oil tycoon Charles Urschel. Together they managed to pull the biggest ransom in U.S. history (at the time), $200,000.

But his most outrageous move? Kelly was said to have penned letters to Urschel while in Alcatraz, imploring his former victim to help plead his case. Not surprisingly, Urschel never answered.

Roy Gardner was one of the most charming criminals in Alcatraz history, a distinction that earned him his nickname—the "Smiling Bandit."

A misnomer it was not—Gardner managed to use his charisma and good looks to his advantage, successfully using his blue eyes to pull off countless mail truck and train robberies. Three times there were rewards on Gardner's curly-haired head, and just as many times the con man managed to scheme his way out of being captured, humiliating many a lawmaker before he finally landed at Alcatraz.

Among his wildest schemes were handcuffing together two officers who attempted to capture him, dressing himself in bandages to avoid being recognized, and escaping McNeil Island Prison. After his escape, Gardner sent a letter to a Seattle newspaper taunting lawmakers: "Come and get me, you sleepy dicks."

Apparently he was charming and cocky.

Hygienically scrupulous and trained as a professional boxer, Mickey Cohen was an unlikely criminal. But Cohen didn't let his hand-washing OCD keep him from running with Chicago's dirtiest mobsters at the head of one of Al Capone's gambling rackets.

Despite his filthy deeds, a relatively white collar crime—tax evasion—landed Cohen on the island of Alcatraz. But it's not mob ties, or even the fact that he started hustling at moonshine at 9 years of age that makes him such a badass. It's the way he went out, completely and utterly not giving a shit about his impending imprisonment.

When Mickey was picked up by police, he was unfazed enough to not let the whole going-to-jail thing ruin his appetite—the dude didn't even put down his sandwich! He was all like, "Fuck the police, I'm not going to let them get in the way of my enjoyment of this pastrami on rye."

When you get portrayed by Clint Eastwood, it's safe to say you've made it to the badass hall of fame. Frank Lee Morris earned the very awesome distinction thanks to his successful escape from Alcatraz—the first in the famously inescapable prison's history.

Morris was committed for a series of crimes he'd committed since the age of 13, including armed robbery and narcotics charges. He was hardly the hardest criminal at Alcatraz, but he may have been the smartest. Morris spent almost two years concocting the elaborate escape plan with accomplices John and Clarence Anglin; it included homemade papier-mâché dummies and rafts made of raincoats. The three made it out of the prison before anyone had detected them and were never seen or heard from again. Many assume they drowned, while others believe they managed to make it across the San Francisco bay and now live (or have died) in anonymity.

We're choosing to believe the latter—why else would the U.S. Marshall's office have kept the case open this long?

Harlem mobster "Bumpy" Johnson achieved notoriety at only 27 years old for his fearless dealing with Italian mafiosos, and his reputation as the unofficial boss of Harlem and the Bronx, but you probably know him best as the man who showed American Gangster Frank Lucas how to wheel and deal with the best of 'em.

Johnson landed himself in Alcatraz on charges of conspiracy to sell heroin, a charge he claimed he was framed for. After doing 12 years in the infamous prison, Johnson was released and returned to Harlem, where rumor has it he was met with an "impromptu parade."

Five years later, Bumpy went out like the gangster he was: He had a heart attack while eating chicken and grits in a Harlem restaurant. Admit it—that's a boss way to go.