They Made It in America: A Celebration of the Achievements of Great Italian-Americans Book

Diversity made America what it is, and They Made It in America celebrates the remarkable Italian Americans, both immigrants and those born on American soil, who carved out their niche and helped make America great. In more than seventy biographical sketches, They Made It in America looks at a diversity of Italian Americans, including entrepreneurs Amadeo Peter Giannini (founder of Bank of America) and Lee Iacocca, visionary architect Paolo Soleri, painter Frank Stella, directors Martin Scorsese, Frank Capra, and Francis Ford Coppola, politicians John A. Volpe, Mario Cuomo, and Fiorello La Guardia, singers Tony Martin, Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli, and Cesare Siepi, actors Danny DeVito, Mario Lanza, and Sylvester Stallone, and sports legends Joe DiMaggio, Tommy Lasorda, and Vince Lombardi, as well as dozens of other important figures. Here are the inspiring stories of those whose Italian heritage and upbringing helped them triumph in this land of opportunity. But perhaps the most fascinating achievements described in They Made It in America are those of lesser-known Italian Americans such as Hank Luisetti (invented the one-handed layup in basketball); Luigi Palma Cesnola (first director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City); Andy Varipapa (one of the world's best bowlers and two-time winner of the All-Star Individual Math Game Championship); Pietro di Donati (writer of the critical]y acclaimed best-seller Christ in Concrete); and Michael Angelo Musmanno (international lawyer). And the stories behind each prove that fact is more wonderful than fiction, and that the American dream is alive and well.