Eliot Ness was well known because of the popular 1960s television series, The Untouchables,, which was based on an account of his life as an FBI agent. The autobiography on which the series was based was published several months after Ness died in Coudersport, Pennsylvania on May 7, 1957, from an untimely heart attack. Desilu Productions produced a two-part dramatization of the book for television in 1959, a move which ultimately led the successful but controversial series to an early demise, much like the man who told the story. Veteran actor, Robert Stack, starred as Ness.

Eliot Ness was born in Chicago, on April 19, 1903, to Norwegian immigrant, Peter Ness, and his wife, Emma King, daughter of a British engineer and Norwegian mother. Ness was the youngest of five children, with three sisters and a brother, his closest sibling in age, who was 13 years older than Ness. After his graduation from the...