Interview with the real Georgia and Toni

Lars Jacobson interviews the real Georgia and Toni as they reflect on the events of the podcast and provide updates on their current lives.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Teleforce Productions and I Heart Radio presents Wheel Woman Confessions
of a Getaway Driver. Hi. I'm Lars Jacobson, a writer
who was fortunate enough to stumble upon George's incredible story, and,
like everyone else who hears it, I was immediately hooked.
A model turned getaway driver for the mob, turned first
female stunt driver in Hollywood. It was almost too incredible

(00:23):
to believe. But then I met Georgia herself and realized
as incredible as her story was, she was even more impressive.
It was a case of truth being more amazing than fiction,
and I knew I had to help share her story
with the world. So today we're joined with the real
Georgia and her daughter Tony to reflect on the events
of her past and catch us up on what they've

(00:43):
been doing now. Hi, Georgia, thanks so much for being here.

(01:29):
I suppose the first question I'd like to ask is,
now that so much time has passed, how do you
look back at your experience working for the Mafia. Well,
you know, I really don't have any regrets. I think
what I've learned from that experience has helped me all
through my life. I can pick a con person from

(01:52):
a mile away. It's helped me in business, you know,
it's it's I look back at it and it almost
doesn't seem real that all of that happened. But I
I had street smarts and you can't buy that and
you can't learn that in school, and that is what's

(02:12):
taking me through where I am today. Well, the mafia
was traditionally a really misogynistic and male dominated world, and
it was a world that you kind of treaded on
both sides of the fence. You know, you were married
to the mob, but you also worked with the mob,
and you were treated like a possession by your husband
and abused, but you're also respected and treated almost like

(02:33):
an equal, you know, with other mafia members. So at
that time, how did you feel like women in the
mafia were treated and how did you navigate that world?
Well back then, maybe it's still pretty much true today,
but women were always barefoot, pregnant in the kitchen. That's
the way the Italians, the mob guys, that's the way

(02:55):
they treated their their girlfriends, their wives. I don't really
know what it was that drew them. I don't know.
Maybe it was my personality, my gutsiness, I don't know,
but I was treated differently until I got married, and
then I became the possession, you know, so I saw

(03:16):
the other side of it as well. Do you feel
like there were advantages to being a woman and working
for the mob? At the time, I was the perfect
person for them to use. I mean I was appearing
on covers of magazines. I looked like the girl next
door American apple pie, you know, who was going to
suspect me? So that's why I was perfect for them.
But as they saw what my talents were, that that

(03:40):
I could drive, they took advantage of that. From the
mafia world, you then transition to the world of the
automobile and the stunt world, both of which were also
traditionally heavily male dominated. Do you feel like your experience
with the mafia prepared you for that? Yes, I do.
You know, it was a tough business to break into,

(04:01):
and again it was you know, you look at me,
and you don't. You don't see that tough interior. They
only saw the exterior. But as my drivers got to
know me, they really respected what I was trying to
do for them and they handed over the reins and
that I was younger than most of them, but they
all called me mom. Interesting. So there was this sense

(04:25):
of respect and responsibility that they kind of placed upon you.
That's very interesting. So it's tough on him though, I
was very tough on him. But so you feel like
you were pretty consistently underestimated. But then once you proved yourself,
the men in your environment eventually realized that you could
be trusted and given heavy responsibility. Would they challenge you

(04:48):
in those roles or were not? No, not my my drivers.
Some of the directors did, and I pulled some things
that should never happen on the set. I had one
one director that was just such a chauvinus pig, and
he was like picking on me, picking on me, picking

(05:09):
at me. And then one one day I got through
the shot and I got on the radio and there's
forty people listening to what I'm saying, and I called
him an asshole, and there was this dead silence. Finally,
the A d got on the radio and said, Georgia,

(05:31):
have you had your coffee this morning? Did that set
him straight? Yeah? He uh, he didn't pick on me
for the rest of the shoot. At that time, really,
the misogyny was a fact of life. Yes, absolutely. Did
you take it in stride did was there a sense

(05:52):
of normalcy? It was just something that was normal, you know,
That's the way the world was, and you didn't really
think about it much. But I would see the inside
sometimes and I would uh, I'd get my point across
at some point, I would do that. Well. Sammy was
obviously a big focus of our series, and he was

(06:14):
a very important person in your life. He kind of
puts you on your path in many ways. So is
there anything you really like to add about Sammy about
your experience now in retrospect, looking back at the role
he played. Sammy always made me feel safe and protected,
and he really only let me see the good part

(06:35):
of that world, and I was really kind of shielded
to to the dark side until I was raped. That's
when I saw how evil and how scary that world
could be. But again it was for my benefit, you know,
just like the first time when he brought those two

(06:58):
guys outside and beat the hell out of him. I
was shocked at the at the blood. I was shocked
at at the violence, and yet he was doing it
for my honor. So there was two sides to that.
You know, do you feel like Sammy shielding you from
the violence and the danger of that world was seductive
and helped influence you and getting involved. I always, since

(07:22):
I was a little kid, I hoped that freight train
ran away from home. You know. I was always drawn
to the danger and the excitement. So yeah, I guess
that maybe had something to do with it. But you
feel if it wasn't for Sammy, you would have found
your way to danger one way or another. If it
wasn't the Mafia world, it would have been somewhere else.
Absolutely I would have I would have followed a posse

(07:45):
in any direction as long as there was danger and excitement.
Is there anything you'd like to add about Sammy for
the audience with them that they might not understand about
him from hearing the podcast or reading the articles about
his life. I think reading my book, you see a
whole different side of the mob than what TV portrays

(08:06):
or what people think. You see the good side. Sammy
would pay for somebody's rent, or turn on their electricity,
or bring food over to their house, and then you
saw the cops doing bad things. And I really at
that at that time in my life, I had a
really distorted view of who the good guys and bad
guys were right because within the community, they felt like

(08:27):
the support system was there within the organized crime and
they were being victimized more by the police. But the
organized crime was actually looking out for each other more
and the police were being bought off, you know, so
you know they were protecting the mob. Just following up
on that question, there's a lot of rumors and articles
written that the police might have been involved or at

(08:49):
least complicit in Sammy's murder. You know, looking back on it,
knowing what you know now and with so much time
being removed, what are your thoughts on his death? Who
do you think was really responsible? You know, that's still
an ongoing question. Nobody knows if the police were told
to stand back. You know, we we all kind of

(09:11):
knew who killed Sammy, but he was never prosecuted. So
I can't sit here and say it was him, you know,
so I call him Serpentino. Okay. So there were so
pretty within the community, there was knowledge and pretty much
everyone agreed who was responsible, but no one was talking

(09:32):
and no one was going to hold him responsible according
to the law. So the man you call Serpentino, was
he ever served justice, either by the law or by
the Street, not for Sammy's murder, but he did end
up in prison for twenty years in a different charge.
And when I did my first book signing, we opened

(09:54):
it in Rochester where all this stuff had happened. Nobody
knew it was in the book and it everybody was scared,
you know. And uh. I did a radio show the
day before and somebody called into the station but they
wouldn't put him through. So he said, you tell Georgia
Duranty she better have protection because she's going to need it.

(10:16):
And so they told me that. So I called the
police because I had the two book signings the next day,
and asked them, you know, if they would show their presence.
And I said, this is Georgia Duranny and the cup said, yeah,
we know who you are. I'm not going to get
any help here, right, But they did. They, you know,
if anything happened, they had to, you know, show their presence.

(10:37):
So anyway, at the end of the at the end
of the signing, I was cleaning up the area. People
had brought me flowers and all of a sudden, there's
his face right in my face and he says, where
do you get My brother was shot in the back.
He was shot in the face, and I had to
pull back and see who he was and I said,

(10:59):
I think it was documented that he was shot in
the back. He said, well, he was my brother. I
don't know. And then the police saw him and they
put the car pulled up. So he started to turn
away and walk away, and he turned back to him
and he says, your friend, sorry he had to die,
and he walked up. Wow, that's amazing. And that was

(11:20):
the last time you ever saw or heard from him. Incredible.
Oftentimes you referred to a side of your personality as
Georgia Black. What's your relationship with her? Now? I haven't
really seen her in a while, but she was not
a bad person. She was there too, you know, um

(11:41):
step in when Georgia White couldn't handle something. You know,
Georgia White was that sweet, innocent side and Georgia Black
just took charge and she was there for me many
many times. But she really hasn't had to be in
my life lately. My life is much different today. Only
the only time is when somebody is threatening my kids,

(12:05):
then you will see Georgia Black. Can you tell us
how your family life has evolved? Well, my son who was.

(12:27):
His name is Dustin. He got into drugs there for
a little while and he ended up getting a gal pregnant,
and since both of them were on drugs at the time,
that the baby ended up in a foster home and
I got her out. I adopted her. Her name is Angela.
She's fifteen now, and you know, I really thought I

(12:49):
was saving her, but it turned out she was saving me.
Do you feel like your experience raising Angela was in
a way an opportunity to make up for some of
the mistakes you made with Tony in the past. Absolutely.
I thought, well, I got a chance to do it
right this time. But you know, Tony had she had

(13:10):
resented me, I think for well, I know, but it
really wasn't until my book came out and she would
read the pages and she would cry through each page
as his mom. I thought, this is what was going on,
and then I realized she was seeing it through a
child's eyes. We had never talked about it, you know,

(13:31):
she didn't really understand what was really going on and
why I made the choices that I did, and until
my book had come out. Gosh, we got so close
after that, because then she she saw it for what
it was, you know, and her resentments went away. It's fantastic.
Can you talk a little bit about your experience working
with abused women in the military. Well, you know, I

(13:54):
didn't know this was going to happen. I mean, in
my book, I talked about how my husband put one
bullet in the chamber and gave it a whirl and
actually clicked it off twice, and he hung me out
of a building, but two story building by my ankles
because I wanted to leave. And when I wrote the book,
I started to understand how it all happened. Because you

(14:17):
never look at when you're in it. You never see
it for what it is. So when I was writing
my book and women who were reading it, they were
seeing themselves on the pages, and they were seeing how
it happens and why it happens. And I was getting
emails from I mean, it was blowing up my computer
and I was answering everybody and um, and I got

(14:40):
scared because I'm not a doctor, you know, I mean,
I can only share my experience. And I was hoping
that anything that I said to them may not work
in their situation. But it put me on a whole
different path, and I started speaking and abuse women shelters,
and I started speaking in prisons, and I found I
was helping so many people. And I had no idea

(15:02):
when I was writing this book all this was going
to happen. You also told me a story about how
you were surprised in being inducted into the Women's Hall
of Fame. I was hoping you could share that with
the audio. Oh yeah, Well, a good friend of mine
is Jimmy Hawkins. He played the Little Boy and It's
a Wonderful Life, and we went to it was near Rochester.
We went to Seneca Falls because they do a big

(15:22):
thing there every year for it is a Wonderful Life.
And that is also where the Women's Hall of Fame is.
So we walk in there and I did not realize
that this was going to happen, but they inducted me
into the Women's Hall of Fame, so a total surprise.
I thought you were just coming there for a visit.
I was shocked. I was really shocked. But that was

(15:43):
a real honor. Obviously, your life was filled with amazing adventures,
many of which we cover. I was just wondering, are
there any adventures that you'd like to tell us about?
That you have happened to you since your stunt driving career. Well,
I think the highlight really of my life was after
I had done that speech at the Cannon Air Force Base.

(16:07):
Um he was the commander, was so impressed that he
nominated me for It was called the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference.
And there's like four dred people being nominated. They choose forty.
It was all very secretive. I mean, the Iraq War

(16:27):
was you know, really heavy at the time, and we
we weren't told where we were going, and we had
to start out at the Pentagon and uh, you know,
we went all through the war room and we were
we were showing things that no civilians ever see. And man,
I'll tell you, I've never been so impressed with our military.
I mean I saw every aspect of it. We did

(16:50):
the uh we went to the Air Force base in
England and they did all the planes that were actually
like fighting in the air and it was incredible. You know,
It's like, how in the world did I get from
being a getaway driver for the mob toa is something
like this. Then I come back and had breakfast with

(17:10):
the President. It was like unbelievable. Unbelievable. And I have
to say, of all the things that I've done in
my life, that was the highlight. Now we're joined by Tony. Welcome.

(17:33):
Thank you for joining us. Oh, of course, thank you
so much for having me Tony. So back then, obviously
you were a small child through a lot of these experiences.
What do you remember of those times, you know, living
in New York, moving to Los Angeles? Well, I think
before we came to California. My most vivid memories are
with my grandparents, and those are just like the biggest

(17:55):
memories that I have is just spending time with them
and then kind of wondering where was mom? You know
during this whole thing. They told me that she was
off on you know, on location for modeling or the
so that, and you know that was kind of normal,
you know, it was normal, but uh, I also had
that kind of absentee mom type thing, like where is she?
It wasn't until many years later that I figured out

(18:17):
that I was told what was really going on. So,
once you learned the truth and that your mother had
been working for the mafia, obviously she had tried to
protect you from those facts up until then, you know,
looking back, at those times, do you realize, you know,
do you see things differently? Oh? Absolutely, yeah. I was,
you know, obviously a young child, so you know, I

(18:39):
didn't really know from my perspective, it was, I know,
once we got out to California, and I didn't realize
that we were running from the mob, running from the CIA,
running from the crazy ex husband. I just thought, and
the stalker, Oh don't forget him, yeah, and the stalker.
But I was oblivious to all this. I was seven
years old, you know. I just thought that we moved

(19:02):
a lot. I think we moved I don't know how
twelve times in a year or something like that. Seven
times in one year, okay, yeah, like one time it
was from one block side of the block to the other.
I mean, you know, and I just I had no
idea why. But later to find out we were just
trying to be incognito. When was the first time you

(19:22):
found out that your mom had born for the mafia?
Years later until she started writing her book, So she
never confessed you before then. It was really with the
book that you found out with everyone else. Absolutely, I
found out a lot of things. I have have to
reading that book. Did it improve your relationship with things
more understandable than Oh. Absolutely, I mean, you know, of course,

(19:43):
it made the pieces come together more specifically. Do you
remember significant figures from your mother's life back then? Do
you have any specific memories of Sammy or Frankie. Sammy, No,
I was that was kind of I was too young.
I didn't really wasn't really aware of him. He was
probably in my life, you know, but I obviously I
didn't know him. Frankie, on the other hand, I knew

(20:08):
that they had a relationship, and um, he was really
funny guy and I really liked him and anyway, so yeah, no,
Frankie has been in my life, you know as an adult. Yeah, Frankie, uh,
with all the things that he was involved with, ended
up getting hit by a motorcycle and died in the

(20:29):
middle of the night from a brain aneurism or whatever. Yeah,
and when was this? This is only about seven years ago. Yeah,
very sad. Can you speak a little bit about your
relationship with tom Um, your father. So I really don't
have any memories of him when I was baby, but
he started coming in my life when she was beginning

(20:52):
to make her journey to California. So what happened was
she ended up. I ended up staying with him and
his new wife, who had two kids from a previous marriage,
and I went to school with them and all I
felt like a visitor in the house. It was very awkward,
you know, But I stayed there for a few months

(21:13):
while she got situated in California. So after you moved
to Los Angeles, do you remember when your mother started
stunt driving? You know, I know she was in the
you know, in front of the camera all the time,
and I didn't realize that she was the reason why
she was going to do that was so that she
could be you know, have a livelihood, but not be seen. Right,

(21:34):
So she's behind the camera and she's stunt doubling and
all this stuff. So I you know, when she started
getting involved with that. I don't how old was I
maybe ten eleven, I don't know. I'm not sure. I
think you got your first inclination when um, I used
to car pool the kids. My day was Tuesday. The

(21:57):
kids couldn't wait for Tuesday because I take to school
In to one eighties and three sixties. Oh yeah, my
mom was the cool one, and yeah, I all my
buddies we would she would take us out to parties
and stuff and be hanging out the window. Definitely had
a very colorful past. That's incredible. M Can you tell
us a little bit about your life now, your family,

(22:20):
where you're living. Um, yeah, I'm living in seeing Me
Valley right now with my family. I'm married. Um, it's
a wonderful man. It's we've been together. We've been married
seventeen years. It's just amazing. It's amazing to be a
mom and to uh, you know, just you know, I
kind of I kind of look at it. I really do.
I draw on experiences from my mother, and like, I'm

(22:42):
definitely turning into her or my grandmother, that's for sure,
just the experience of I don't know, that warmth, the
warmth and that affection and the love that I have
for my kids, that which just was instilled by her
with to me and my grandparents because we were just
a very affectionate family. You know, I love you and

(23:04):
hugs and kisses and very touchy feely, you know. And
I'm going to carry that on with my kids. I mean,
I don't care if they're forty years old. They're getting hugs.
So that's just I'm really in a good place, beautiful family,
and uh, you know, I'm I'm I'm ready to be
a grandma because I feel like I'm like, okay, I

(23:26):
was now whatch But yeah, so I'm just enjoying life
and uh looking forward to so the future. Thank you
both so much for joining us. Are there any last
you know, comments, mentions, anything about your relationship that you'd
like to add? Um, Well, I mean, my relationship with

(23:48):
my mom is getting as the strongest has ever been,
and we're like, we're like buddies, you know, and I
admire her strength and and from you know, was like
she was in an emotional blackmail situation and how she
dealt with it and how she came through the other
side has given me strength also to you know, persevere

(24:10):
through life's challenges. That's great. I always leave this with
so many people that that email me asking for help,
and I believe that when you start believing in yourself,
you can do anything. That's it. Well, thank you so

(24:33):
much for both joining us. It was an amazing experience,
an amazing story about an amazing woman, and we'll look
forward to everyone enjoying it. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Wheal Woman is written by Lars Jacobson and Sabrina Jacquelin

(24:54):
and directed by Sabrina Jaculin. Produced by Lars Jacobson and
Sabrina Jacquelin, Executive produce by Georgia Duranty and Noel Brown.
For I Heart Radio, This episode features Georgia Duranty and
Tony Mugavero, with the interview conducted by Lars Jacobson, edited
by Chris Child, with sound design and theme music by
Chris Child's Adapted from the book The Company She Keeps

(25:17):
by Georgia Duranty. Wheelwoman Confessions of a Getaway Driver is
an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I
heeart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.