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Watch out, everybody - Nucky Johnson is back.

The long-reigning king of Atlantic City is primed for a revival in the public consciousness, thanks to the planned HBO series "Boardwalk Empire," produced by Martin Scorcese.

Filming has just wrapped on the pilot - which stars reportedly Mr. Pink himself, Steve Buscemi, as Enoch "Nucky" Johnson - and on Tuesday Plexus Publishing will issue a new edition of the 2002 book "Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City," on which the series is based.

Author Nelson Johnson - no relation - a state Superior Court judge based in Atlantic City, said he always hoped that his book would be adapted for the screen.

"I always thought Nucky Johnson was larger than life," Johnson said Thursday. "Once people understood the story of his life, I thought somebody would find it worthy of some sort of characterization."

In his book, Johnson - we'll call him by his last name and Nucky by his nickname - calls Nucky a "decadent monarch," but another way to describe him might be as Atlantic City's "benevolent dictator."

"That's an apt characterization," Johnson said. "The town was run smoothly. People lived with the corruption. ... They thought, 'If this is the price of making a buck, we'll live with it.'"

From his seemingly innocuous post as Atlantic County treasurer - he was never elected to anything - Nucky ruled Atlantic City from 1910 until the early 1940s, cutting out the middleman by running both the city's political arm and its underworld from his ninth-floor digs at the Ritz Carlton hotel.

"He changed it from (what had been) a handshake agreement, an understanding, to absolute rule," Johnson said. The brothel and gambling hall owners reported directly to Nucky, and rumrunners would be assisted in unloading their booze by the extremely helpful members of the Atlantic City Fire Department.

"Most people understood what the resort was about," Johnson said. "Enforcing the law strictly would have really created a problem for Atlantic City to entertain its guests. ... So in order to give them what they wanted, the law had to be 'bent.'"

As one old-timer says in Johnson's book, "If the people who came to town had wanted Bible readings, we'd have given 'em that. But nobody ever asked for Bible readings. They wanted booze, broads and gambling, so that's what we gave 'em."

Turning Brooklyn into 1920s Atlantic City

The feds eventually took Nucky down the same way they did Al Capone - tax evasion charges - but until then, "he strode the Boardwalk in evening clothes complete with spats, patent leather shoes, a walking stick and a red carnation in his lapel," Johnson writes.

It might be hard at first to picture Steve Buscemi, he of the awkward screen persona, as the "tall ... broad-shouldered, ruggedly handsome" Nucky, but Johnson said the actor certainly has the chops.

"I think he's got the moxie and the personality to pull it off," Johnson said. "It takes somebody of a certain flamboyance, charming but at the same time roguish. He's played those characters before."

According to the obsessive-in-a-good-way Tom Hogan's fan site, boardwalkempire.blogspot.com, other cast members in the series reportedly include Kelly Macdonald, Michael Pitt, Stephen Graham and Dabney Coleman - Dabney Coleman! - as Nucky's predecessor, Louis "The Commodore" Kuehnle.

Most of the filming is taking place in and around New York City, including a large set built in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn and exterior scenes in Park Slope, Brooklyn and the Far Rockaway beachfront area of Queens. It was an understandable decision to film up north, Johnson said.

"The old Atlantic City no longer exists," he said. "They've done their best to find streetscapes (in New York) that were helpful as backdrops. They've also hired a film technology firm to re-create Atlantic City using 3-D digital images. It'll be fascinating to see how that turns out."

Tales of the Rolls Royce

The book has come a long way from when Johnson was first inspired to write it in the 1980s, when as the Atlantic City Planning Board attorney he wondered why there wasn't any one person in town who could exact leadership - only to find out that things were once very different.

In fact, he said there's still a treasure trove of material about Nucky that never made it into the book, which was conceived as a complete history of the city more than a biography.

"There's a great deal of stuff left out," he said. "The whole story of the investigation leading up to his indictment and conviction, that spans six years. To read the FBI reports, it's fascinating to see just how corrupt the system in Atlantic City was."

Still, there are plenty of choice anecdotes about the golden age of Nucky that did make the cut. Perhaps the story that best illustrates the decadence of Nucky Johnson's Atlantic City was recalled by his former driver, Joe Hamilton.

"There I am, driving along, talking to Mr. Johnson with a pretty little tart seated next to him," Hamilton is quoted as saying. "The next thing I knew, she's got her head in his lap and Mr. Johnson is grinning from ear to ear."

Take it from there, HBO.

E-mail Steven Lemongello:

SLemongello@pressofac.com

8 comments:

• Ghosdogg (253) posts 11:57 am

  HBO series features 'decadent monarch' of early 1900s Atlantic City.. Hey B4real! Have you been in a corner facing the wall all of your life? Let me give you the etymology of decadent: 1. Marked by decline or decay. 2. Characterized by or appealing to self-indulgence. LOL

• Ghosdogg (253) posts 11:40 am

  Stop the CIRCLE-JERK boys! A hoodlum is a hoodlum is a hoodlum! Nucky was just that, and "all" that the word implies, no more no less. HOODLUM(aka THUG)!!!! By the way The Commodore(kuehnle) was a "crook" to wasn't he...Hmmm. See-Ya At The Movie!!

• Wizenheimer (98) posts 8:46 am

  Even Nucky Johnson would throw up if he saw the bedbugs running this town now. There's crooks and then there are crooks who have the public's respect. The current regime is nothing but a cartoon compared to the days of good old Nucky.

• Chumley (193) posts 8:24 am

  Same as it ever was !

• B4real (433) posts 2:16 pm

  How sad that they can't even film the series in A.C. because the beautiful grand hotels, stores, restaurants, neighborhoods, piers, etc... have been destroyed and demolished to be replaced by vacant lots and boarded up buildings. Yes A.C. was corrupt back then but at least you got a beautiful, fun for everyone, safe city. Now you have a corrupt city hall that does Nothing for residents or visitors.

• Mr_Glock (283) posts 9:52 am

  ?it's fascinating to see just how corrupt the system in Atlantic City was." WAS??? That makes it sound like the problem has gone away!

• WHISTLEBLOWER (101) posts 9:46 am

  BUT LANGFRAUD DOES NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BEING BENEVOLENT, "CORRUPT" YES.I AM SURE THE FBI WILL GET LANGFRAUD ON MORE THAN TAX EVASION, RIGHT CASANDRA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• ItWasntMe (45) posts 8:05 am

  wow the early 1900's are back in AC with "Nucky" Langford. What a strange cooincidence

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