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In the winter of 1926, the American popular jazz pianist Thomas Wright ‘Fats’ Waller was bundled into a car at gunpoint and driven away at high speed. What happened to him?

Answer: He was taken to a hotel where a private birthday party was taking place for the American gangster Al Capone. The infamous bootlegger had unilaterally decided to have Waller appear at the birthday celebrations. The party finished three days later, where an exhausted Waller was sent home, his pockets full of thousands of dollars lavished on him by Capone.

Source: Anything Goes by Lucy Moore

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