Guido Calletti: Razor Slasher, Pimp, Thief and Gang Leader

Guido Calletti was born 3 Sep 1900 in Paddington, New South Wales, Australia 

Pimp, thief and gang leader who became one of Sydney's most notorious gunmen and razor slashers. He was 'short, thickset, foul-mouthed' and was in trouble with the law from the age of 10. By 25 he led the Darlinghurst Push, a gang of street brawlers and stand-over men. He appeared in court 56 times, mostly for violent assault and robbery. He had an ongoing 

 Love affair with Nellie Cameron whom he married in 1934.

Prostitute famously nicknamed 'The Kiss of Death Girl' who was associated with the razor gang wars of the 1920s and 1930s. She was described as 'a redhead with a ripe figure and provocative china blue eyes'. She committed suicide in her flat in Darlinghurst in 1953.

Guido had serval wives:

Lillian Gladys Hare

1903–1971

Children:

Arthur Caletti

1923–1923

George James Caletti

1925–1968

Dulice & Guido were never married, they lived together for a while and had a on and off affair.

Dulcie May Markham

1914–1976

Dulice was a very intreging women and very beautiful.

Prostitute and associate of gangland figures in Sydney during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. During her lifetime, she amassed 100 convictions in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia for prostitution, vagrancy, consorting, assaulting police and the public, keeping a brothel and drunkenness and drunk driving. She was nicknamed The Angel of Death, The Black Widow and Pretty Dulcie.

Mary told Sergeant Bart that she was prepared to go to her people in Orange and keep off the streets. 'You know where you'll go, don't you?' said Mr. MacDougal, S.M., addressing the young lady. 'As sure as the sun rises you'll end up with the Chinamen. Right down to the very depths, among the filth. Now you clear out to Orange, it's a nice, clean place.'

Mary was remanded for a week in order to allow her to clear out.

Markham moved to Bondi in the 1950s but did not really leave her past behind. In 1955 a male visitor, presumed to have been a client, threw her off the first floor of a block of flats.    Having suffered broken ribs, a punctured lung and other internal injuries, Markham refused to report the incident as a crime.     ‘There’s nothing to it, dear,’ she told one reporter.     ‘I simply rolled down a flight of stairs. I’m a very sick girl, but don’t worry about me, honey, I’ll come good.’    Markham never fully recovered from her injuries and became known locally as the ‘limping blonde’.

Dulcie Markham is pictured here arriving at the Supreme Court of Victoria where she appeared as a witness to the fatal shooting of her lover Gavan Walsh. Markham had also been shot 

The now no longer pretty Dulcie Markham told a magistrate she had sold ‘the last of her jewels and furs to survive’.

She had several husbands:

Martin Patrick Rooney

1913–1980

James Arthur Williams

1905–1945

Leonard David Lewis

1919–1952

Frank Clynch Bowen

1908–1940

Frederick Erik James Anderson

1915–1985

Dulice died in her bed when her cigarette caught her bed on fire. Here's her death Transcript.

 Guido died of gunshot wounds to the abdomen at St Vincent's Hospital in 1939.

Guido Calletti (Caletti), about 35, who was a figure in the underworld, was fatally shot through the abdomen in a House in Brougham Street, King's Cross, last night.

The police believe that the killing of Calletti was the outcome of an underworld feud. 

FOR FUNERAL

SOBBING CROWD LAMENTS

GUNMAN'S DEATH

SYDNEY, Tuesday

Before Guido Calletti, criminal and underworld habitue, was buried in the Rookwood cemetery today, 5000 people filed past his body in a funeral parlour in Darlinghurst. A collection from his friends in the underworld paid for the funeral and for the highly polished maple casket with silver trimmings. The crowd in the street was so dense that additional police had to be sent for to prevent traffic being held up.

After two bullets which killed Calletti in a revolver duel in Darlinghurst on Sunday night were taken from his abdomen, his body was removed to the funeral parlour. The dead man's head, with rosary beads bound round the forehead, was visible in the coffin, and during the day a continuous stream of men and women passed, many sobbing, while crowds outside struggled to gain admittance to the room where the body lay. One man, bending over Calletti's head, sobbed so bitterly that he had to be restrained. "He was my mate, and they shot him," he shouted. The father, mother and three brothers of the dead man were there two hours before the body was taken to the cemetery. His mother, a pathetic figure, told her friends that her son Guido attended his grandmother's funeral just four hours before he was murdered in a gun duel staged, according to the police, to avenge the shooting of another member of the underworld. The coffin was covered and the funeral parlour littered with 240 wreaths. One floral tribute from Calletti's wife in Queensland was in the shape of a cross four feet in height. Before the floral car, the hearse and 14 following cars moved off, extra police had to be sent to move the crowds. Detectives hope to make an early arrest in connection with the murder.

- Examiner (Launceston, Tasmania), Wednesday, 9 August 1939

What a story

Here are some videos on the Razor Gangs and Guido's associates he ran with, including some women of the time that ran the prostitutes. 

Click on the video Sit Back & Enjoy