SUITS YOU SIR: Gill with ‘wife’ Cynthia Bruno

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It’s the most challenging role of her career, transforming herself into a portly, butch transsexual, cutting her hair short, taping down her ample breasts, gaining weight and wearing padding. But it’s a role that LGBTQ activists believe should only go to a genuinely transgender actor, rather than the twice-married, mother-of-one sex symbol. Yet lost in this battle of the sexes is the extraordinary story of the real-life mobster whom Johansson is set to portray: Dante “Tex” Gill, a woman undergoing gender reassignment who rose to control a criminal empire in the male-dominated underworld of 1970s Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hounded by the police and hated by the Mafia – who targeted her businesses with a deadly bombing campaign – Gill was finally brought down by the same crime fighter who nailed Al Capone: the US taxman.

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There was always a pronoun problem, not knowing whether to call Tex ‘him’ or ‘her’. Barry Paris

Born Lois Jean Gill, she insisted that mobsters and police called her “Mr Gill” as she dressed in hand-cut men’s suits and ties, ruling a string of brothels with an iron fist, while undergoing a sex-change. She took over a string of Pittsburgh massage parlours that were flimsy covers for brothels after vice kingpin George Lee was gunned down as he left his favourite Italian restaurant in 1977. But the Mafia fought to wrest control of Gill’s lucrative parlours with such cheesy names as Maya, Gemini and Spartacus. A package bomb disguised as a Christmas gift sent in 1977 to the Gemini destroyed it, killing hooker Joann Scott. Gill’s employee Anthony Pugh was murdered in his flat that same year.

An arson attack three years later destroyed Gill’s Taurean Models parlour, killing three men. The Pittsburgh Press branded Gill the “Dubious Man of the Year” – and also named her the “Dubious Woman of the Year”. “There was always a pronoun problem, not knowing whether to call Tex ‘him’ or ‘her’,” confesses her cousin Barry Paris, in Pittsburgh. “Tex’s father Walt was one of nine brothers and sisters. She had 42 first cousins – and was the most intimidating of them all from an early age. “She scared the hell out of us when my cousins and I took riding lessons from her as kids.”

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BORN in 1931, Gill seemed happier among horses than humans and in the late-1950s worked as a blacksmith at a Pittsburgh stables where locals learned to ride. An accomplished horsewoman, she answered to the name of Lois in her youth but wore her hair cropped beneath a Stetson. An avowed lesbian living as a man, she fell in love with Cynthia Bruno of Dallas, Texas, “marrying” her in Hawaii. They lived together in Pittsburgh but the relationship did not last. Gill ran a baby furniture shop and a frozen foods store – with prostitutes on the side – before turning full-time to crime.

She became involved with massage parlours in a bid to raise money to care for her sick mother Agnes, who died of cancer in 1973. “She got involved early on with the proverbial ‘wrong crowd’,” says Paris. “But she was personally gentle and non-violent and she made a nice corrupt life for herself in a nice corrupt American society.” With the help of allies in the underground gay community her empire grew quickly. Raking in millions each year she began gender reassignment, travelled the world, dined at top restaurants and owned rare pets.

She could lavish favoured prostitutes with mink stoles and diamond rings. But she would also demand that staff take lie-detector tests if she suspected them of stealing. “She was a very good businesswoman but just had a different lifestyle,” her lawyer Carl Janavitz told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “She was very tough. A lot of fun. She drank a lot. She partied a lot. She could recite poetry endlessly – Irish poetry.” When police raided the Spartacus in 1978 Gill threw a birthday cake at a cop. She extended her criminal empire with an anabolic steroids ring that helped fuel football team the Pittsburgh Steelers to a series of Super Bowl championships. But she was finally brought down by the US Treasury department, which in 1984 charged her with tax evasion.