Known to many from his portrayal in the 1987 movie “The Untouchables,” Eliot Ness was born in Chicago on April 19, 1903. At the young age of 24, he joined the Bureau of Prohibition and began working on a team dedicated to investigating and bringing down mobster Al Capone.

The team would become known as “The Untouchables” after a Chicago Tribune reporter coined the phrase while writing a story about attempted bribes offered by Capone’s men to Eliot Ness. While Ness was not directly responsible for Capone’s imprisonment, he became a well-known figure in the fight against bootlegging and other criminal activity of the day.

Ness moved to Cleveland in the mid-1930’s, investigating 200 police officers and other local officials for the rampant corruption that had taken hold in the Ohio city. He also had a role in the dramatic drop in traffic fatalities after the city instituted his plan to update traffic laws and procedures.

While Ness’ legacy is often misrepresented due to exaggerations in the movie “The Untouchables,” he nonetheless played a vital role in combating criminal elements throughout his entire life. Many of his practices while investigating crimes were at the time revolutionary and are common practice today, including his use of ballistics tests, his push to install two-way radios in police cars and his overall view of drug and alcohol addictions as medical instead of societal problems.

Learn more:
Eliot Ness – Biography.com
The Untouchables – IMDb