William Gargan

Gargan was born on July 17, 1905, in Brooklyn, New York. His parents— Bill and Irene—had seven children, but only Gargan and his brother Ed survived infancy.

His father was a book maker, sometime saloon owner, and gambler. His mother had been a teacher. He graduated from St. Francis Xavier grade school and went to St. James High School in Brooklyn.

Gargan got his first silent movie job at age seven for Vitagraph Studios. He was paid three dollars and eighty-five cents, which is roughly one-hundred twenty dollars in 2023.

Both Gargan and Ed were big kids. By ten, Gargan was hanging out at his father’s bar in the Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Gargan later said that his mother was more straight-laced, a bit of a prude on the surface, but in reality, she ran with dad all her life and his.” Both parents had good senses of humor.

Gargan grew up going to Sea Gate in the summer and fighting on the side of the Irish kids from Bay Ridge against the Italian kids in empty lots. He played baseball and basketball for St. Francis Xavier grade school and St. James High. He shot pool and ditched school in the spring to scale the Ebbets Field fences to watch the Dodgers and their stars of the 1910s — Zack Wheat and Ivan Olson.

When he was fourteen and working as an ice brusher at the Prospect Park skating rink, Gargan met a girl named Mary Elizabeth Kenny. He was so taken by her that he used his broom to knock her down! Gargan recalled that “She climbed right back up, her eyes spitting fire and her mouth not doing badly either. I knew I was in love.”

Kenny lived in Manhattan but spent weekends in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. They hung out in Coney Island at Feltman’s, at Lundy’s in Sheepshead Bay, or the Loew’s Metropolitan and the Keith’s Prospect. They were later married in 1928.

Although Gargan never cared much for school, he loved the theater. By high school he was playing in school productions of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. However, a teacher who’d been out to get Gargan for his comedic behavior made life so miserable during Gargan's senior year that he dropped out.

Gargan became a message runner for a Broad Street brokerage firm, then an investigator for a clothing store, then a private detective with a Wall Street agency until he was fired for losing a tail. He sold Wesson Oil to grocers in Brooklyn, making great commissions, sneaking away to watch vaudeville shows until he was fired after finding himself sitting next to his boss when the lights came on.