From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Wojtowicz (1945 - January 2, 2006) was an American bank robber whose story inspired the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon.

John Wojtowicz, who was bisexual, married his first wife, Carmen Bifulco, in 1967. They had two children, and separated in 1969. Wojtowicz met pre-operative transsexual Ernest Aron in 1971 at an Italian bazaar in New York City. Wojtowicz and Aron were married on December 4, 1971 in Greenwich Village in a Roman Catholic ceremony.

Perhaps because of stress over his inability to afford sex reassignment surgery, Aron attempted suicide several times. Wojtowicz set on the path that made him famous after failing to procure funds for Aron's birthday on August 19, 1972. On August 20, 1972 Aron attempted suicide again. The following day, Wojtowicz went to the psychiatric ward to try to get Aron released but was told he would not be released until he was cured of his Gender Identity Problem. Wojtowicz assumed this meant either curing his homosexuality or receiving a sex change operation.

On August 22, 1972, Wojtowicz, along with Sal Naturile and another man, attempted to rob a branch of the Chase Manhattan bank on the corner of East Third Street and Avenue P in Gravesend, Brooklyn. Wojtowicz and Naturile held seven Chase Manhattan bank employees hostage for 14 hours. Wojtowicz, a former bank teller, had some knowledge of bank operations. However, he apparently based his plan on scenes from the movie The Godfather, which he had seen earlier that day.

The robbers became media celebrities in the hours they held their hostages. Wojtowicz was arrested, but Naturile was killed by the FBI during the final moments of the incident.

According to Wojtowicz, he was offered a deal for pleading guilty which the court did not honour and was sentenced to 20 years of which he served seven. However, he made $7,500 selling the movie rights to the story, and helped finance Aron's sex reassignment surgery with these funds. Thus, Ernest Aron became Elizabeth Debbie Eden. In 1987, Time Magazine reported that Eden, 41, died of AIDS-related pneumonia in Rochester.

Wojtowicz's story was used as the basis for the film Dog Day Afternoon. The movie was released in 1975, and starred Al Pacino as Wojtowicz (called "Sonny Wortzik" in the film), and John Cazale, Pacino's co-star in The Godfather, as Naturile. Aron, known as "Leon" in the film, was portrayed by actor Chris Sarandon.

In 1975 John Wojtowicz wrote a letter to the New York Times out of concern that people would believe the movie version of the events which he said was only 30% accurate. Wojtowicz's main objection was the portrayal of his wife Carmen Bifulco as a plain overweight woman, which she was not, whose behaviour led to his relationship with transsexual Ernest Aron when in fact he had left her two years before he met Aron. Other concerns he had that were fictionalised in the movie were that he never spoke to his mother and that the police refused to let him speak to his wife Carmen. He did however praise Al Pacino and Chris Sarandon's characterisations of himself and "wife" Ernest Aron as accurate.

Wojtowicz was also the subject of two documentaries, The Third Memory in 2000 and Based on A True Story in 2005. In 2001, the New York Times reported that he was living on welfare in Brooklyn.^[1] He died of cancer on January 2, 2006.^[2][3]

1. ^ "Films That Keep Asking, Is It Fact or Fiction?", New York Times, 19 January 2001, Section E; Part 2; Pg. 43
2. ^ "'DOG DAY'S' JOURNEY INTO LEGEND. Robber, lover gone, but the flick is back," New York Daily News, April 23, 2006, p.30
3. ^ Tampa Writers website

• "The Boys in the Bank" by P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore for Life - September 22, 1972. Volume 73, Number 12.

• Official site of Based on a True Story
• Based on a True Story at the Internet Movie Database
• The Third Memory at the Internet Movie Database
• Wojtowicz's comments on Dog Day Afternoon
• [1]
• [2]
• John Wojtowicz's obituary with his photo