Johnny Civello

**John "Johnny Boy" Civello** is the titular deuteragonist of Martin Scorsese's 1973 crime film, *Mean Streets*. He is the mentally unstable best friend of mobster, Charlie Cappa and the cousin of Charlie's lover, Teresa Ronchelli.

He was portrayed by Robert De Niro, who also played Travis Bickle in *Taxi Driver*, Jimmy Doyle in *New York, New York*, Jake LaMotta in *Raging Bull*, Rupert Pupkin in *The King of Comedy*, Jimmy Conway in *Goodfellas*, Max Cady in *Cape Fear*, Ace Rothstein in *Casino*, Frank Sheeran in *The Irishman* and William Hale in *Killers of the Flower Moon*.

## Biography

### Early life

John Civello was born in 1950 in Little Italy, New York City, where he lived with his mother after his parent's divorce. As a child, he met Charlie Cappa, where they played together and committed various petty crimes, which continued in their adulthood after the two became best friends. Since Charlie's family had ties to the Mafia, Johnny became associated with various mobsters while working as a factory worker. Due to Johnny's recklessness, he becomes in debt multiple times, mostly to Charlie's associate, Michael Longo.

### 1973

By 1973, Johnny has become more unstable, which causes conflict between him and Charlie, even causing Charlie's uncle, Giovanni to advise Charlie to stay away from Johnny from now on. Eventually, Johnny runs out of excuses for not paying his debts to Longo. Charlie, who is extremely religious, eventually starts considering Johnny's corruption, and thinks of sacrificing himself for Johnny's redemption.

Some time later, Johnny is encountered by Michael at a bar, where Michael has given up on believing Johnny excuses for not paying back his debts. Instead of paying back the debt, or giving another excuse, Johnny insults Michael, and eventually pulls a gun on him when Michael tries to attack him. After this, Charlie suggests the two leave town for a while. They also bring in Teresa alongside them.

On the way out of town, the trio notice a car following them. All of a sudden, Michael is revealed to be the one driving in the car, along with his crony, Jimmy Shorts, who pulls out a gun and shoots Johnny in the neck, who had attempted to jump into Michael's car in order to kill the two. Another shot hits Charlie's hand, causing him to crash into a fire hydrant. It is revealed that Charlie and Teresa had survived the incident, only with minor injuries.

The last seen of Johnny, is him walking slowly down a dark alleyway towards a police car, while covering his wound. It is left unknown what happened to Johnny, either he died, or recovered from his injuries and was arrested.

## Personality

Throughout the film, Johnny is shown to be careless and dangerous mobster, who treats nobody with respect. It is heavily implied throughout the film that Johnny has some sort of mental disability, causing his violent tendencies and reckless. Johnny is also very ignorant not caring for the consequences of his actions, such as when he never pays back his debts and not realizing the power that Michael Longo has. Despite this, the only person Johnny seems to care about is Charlie, as both of them stand up for each other and have been best friends since childhood. All together, Johnny is a reckless, ignorant, unstable and careless mobster, who has some good qualities, mostly involving his likeness to Charlie.

## Trivia

* Johnny Civello is one of Robert De Niro's first roles as well his first collaboration with director Martin Scorsese.
* There is a popular theory that Travis Bickle from *Taxi Driver* is actually Johnny Boy with a different identity. Throughout the years, Martin Scorsese has never acknowledged it.