Georgia Durante Found Enchantment

AM:  Georgia, how did you end up keeping company with the mob?

GD: I grew up in an area where everybody was Italian in upstate New York. I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t Italian until I turned seventeen years old. All of these mob guys were familiar to me. It wasn’t until I was older that I saw their sinister side.

AM: How did you first get involved with them?

GD: When I was twelve years old my friend and I were sitting in a diner and these guys in their twenties come up and start hitting on us very crudely. This guy sitting in a booth all by himself was watching this all take place. He got up and grabbed the two guys, dragging them outside and proceeded to beat the hell out of them in the parking lot. He was a young punk back then working his way up the ladder. He eventually turned out to be the Godfather of upstate New York. From that day on, as I grew into a young woman he always watched out for me.

AM: Did he know you were a model?

GD: I was always in the newspaper and in magazines. He took a liking to me like a little sister kind of thing. You had to be eighteen to get into the bars at that time and I was getting in when I was sixteen. He knew how young and naive I was always there to protect that innocence. Then when I was seventeen I was raped by my brother-in-law while I was a virgin. Sammy found out about it, called me in and told me it was up to me, but if I gave the OK, he would have my brother-in-law "ELIMINATED".

AM: Yikes!

GD: That’s when I began to see the darker side of that world. Of course I wouldn’t have him killed. I ended up graduating from high school and got out of there, moving to New York City.

AM: How did that feel?

GD: Within the first 5 hours of my arrival in NYC the very first people I met were mob guys! (Laughing) They took me and my two roommates to an after hours place. I ended up falling in love with the owner of the club.

AM: You must have some stories from this experience.

GD: Just for fun, they had all three of us working behind the bar one night. We were doing it for kicks. Then this guy pulled out a gun and shot the guy next to him! It’s four o’clock in the morning and everybody scattered. Frankie threw me the car keys and told me to go get the car and bring it up front. They got his body down two flights of stairs and threw HIM in the back seat. I drove the car to Bellevue Hospital where we just left the body in front of the emergency room, beeped the horn and took off. All they could talk about was how Georgie Girl, that’s what they called me, can really drive a car!

AM: They weren’t concerned about the man you dropped off?

GD: They didn’t seem to care whether the guy lived or died. All they kept saying was, man, Georgie Girl, can you drive a car! He did live, but they ended up killing him a couple months later. I went back to Rochester for a weekend shortly after this incident and I ran into Sammy G. and he asked me to do him a favor. He said if anybody found out about it, they would find his body in the Genesee River. He said he couldn’t trust anybody. I asked him what he needed me to do and he told me it was just deliver a message when I returned to New York. He gave me a sealed envelope and had somebody pick me up at the airport in a black limousine and drive me into Brooklyn. They parked the limo 2 blocks from the restaurant I was going to. I couldn’t figure out why they did that. When we got to the restaurant we went into the back room where there were four guys waiting. I was introduced as Georgie Girl and one of the guys recognized my name. I assumed it was because of all the talk about my driving that night. I handed the guy with the beady eyes the envelope. He didn’t look happy when he read it. I nervously said something like, "Hey don’t kill the messenger". Then the guy that escorted me out told me, “The old man really likes you.” I was only 17 at the time. I said, “Which old man? They were all old." Turns out it was Carlo Gambino. They must have thought if Sammy can trust me with this and they knew I could drive, I must be all right.

AM: I wonder what was so trustworthy about you?

GD: Here I was appearing on magazine covers so who was going to suspect me, right? I looked like the girl next door, American as apple pie. So they started using me to pick up and deliver packages. To me this was all very exciting. At that time in my life I would have joined a posse going in any direction, as long as there was excitement and danger. They were paying me good money to do it! What I didn’t know was there was millions of dollars in those packages and I was actually delivering them to JFK Airport, turning over the money to the CIA who was then laundering the money in foreign countries for the mob.

AM: It doesn’t intimidate you to talk about this now?

Hardback cover 

GD: When my book first came out people were asking me if I was afraid of the mob. I thought it has been forty years, almost everyone involved is either dead or in prison. I wasn’t afraid of the mob. If anything I was afraid of the CIA. Then 9/11 happened and it became known that the CIA needs to get in bed with the bad guys to make things happen. I always said, The mob may have pulled the trigger, but the CIA loaded the gun.

AM: Is the mob as powerful today?

GD: No.

AM: Is the mob history now or just less vital?

GD: It’s less vital because they don’t know who to trust anymore. They always used to be very quiet and in the background. That’s how they did things. John Gotti messed that up by being so out there and being on TV. He brought attention to the mob so it’s lost a lot of the power they once had, but I wouldn’t underestimate them too much.

AM: What brought you to California?

GD: I came out to California because there was a contract out on my life because I knew too much. I had a seven year old daughter and we lived in the car. I had seven dollars to my name so I stole food in grocery stores for her. Really the story is, “Look at what I’ve accomplished, from living in the car to what I have now.” I did this on my own. I refuse to be a victim. I have always been a survivor. I have taken the negatives in my life and turned them into positives. My book is giving hope to many people and has been a vehicle for them to make positive changes in their lives.

Paperback cover 

AM: You’re one of those amazing people. Very few people have what it takes to do that.

GD: It’s called survival.

AM: I don’t understand how you survived!

GD: Well I met this guy who said he wanted to help me. He turned out to be a stalker who tried to kill me and kidnaped my daughter. The story just goes on and on.

AM: All these stories are in the book?

GD: Yes, my husband was very abusive. When we were dating he was Prince Charming, but the minute we were married he became the Prince of Darkness. He hung me out of a two-story building by my ankles because I wanted to leave.

AM: That is so outrageous!

GD: He put a gun to my head with one bullet and pulled the trigger twice.

AM: What do you have that makes your coping skills so good?

GD: First of all it’s my belief in God. I have always known there has been an angel on my shoulder. Secondly, I had parents that loved and supported me and were always there for me. I had dinner on the table at 5:00. I had a wonderful upbringing and why I chose to go down these kinds of roads has nothing to do with them. It’s just my adventurous spirit.

AM: At least you have made the most of your life experiences and helped others.

GD: I’ve spoken to women in prisons where the first question I ask is how many women were sexually abused as a child or suffered from domestic abuse in some way and every single one of them raised their hand! It all has to do with self esteem. Since they have no self esteem they feel like they have to hang around people who are their equal, which are people who end up in jail. I had that same problem too. As much as I was appearing on the covers of magazines I had no self esteem. My husband kept putting me down by saying things like, who would want you? You’re no prize. It didn’t help either that I already had low self-esteem from the residual effects of the rape, so it didn’t take much to break me down. It took me a while to figure out who I was, so I understand these women totally.

AM: Are you born with a talent for driving?

GD: Yes, I do believe you are born with it. For me it was the excitement of being behind the wheel. When I started my driving team I had drivers come try out and most were stunt people who already had a good feel for a car or race car drivers, but I could tell in two minutes if they had it. It’s not good if you’re trying to hard and you’re having to work at it and concentrate so much. It’s got to come natural for you to get behind that wheel and know that you’re the boss.

AM: You never feared for your life did you?

GD: I always knew that something was out there for me, like happiness, if I could just get to it. (laughter)

AM: Do you know how many accidents you were in from driving professionally?

GD: Not many...two major ones, once when I flipped a Ferrari , and the funny part is it’s a $250,000.00 car and as I’m somersaulting to my death towards a 300 foot drop-off into the ocean, all I kept thinking about was, “Oh my God, I’m wrecking a $250,000.00 car!” (laughter) That’s how my book got started. I couldn’t understand why that car was more important than my life so I went to see a therapist and the therapist suggested that I get a journal and write whatever came to my mind. I would re-read the pages and I was able to figure out why I was doing some of the things I did.

AM: So it really was therapeutic to write the book.

GD: Oh yes, the whole thing was therapy. In the book I have Georgia White and Georgia Black, then when Georgia Black started writing it was like two different personalities. I just went with it and I discovered what had happened to me and why I do the things I do. I knew it was turning into a book when I started adding dialogue, but I didn’t think I could write. I have a high school education. Because I wrote it as therapy and I was discovering these things about myself, the men and women who are reading it are seeing themselves on the pages. They are discovering things about themselves they never knew. It’s helping so many people. One women wrote me and told me she was about to kill herself and she read the book and it stopped her. I thought this was God’s way of telling me this is what I was supposed to be doing so I started going all around the country speaking to abused women. Then my Angela came along and I realized, “Oh this is what God wants me to do.” He has a way of reminding you who is in the driver’s seat.

AM: Do people remember your life-size poster cutout as the Kodak Girl?

GD: At my book signing in Rochester, (The home of KODAK) the photographer who shot the poster had one in his basement and he brought it to stand behind me. Now remember this is from 1969. This girl gets to the front of the line and she says, “Oh I remember that!” I said, “Honey you weren’t even born when that picture was out. There’s no way you can remember that.” She said, “Oh no I remember that. My brother had an antique store and he had one in there!” (much laughter)

AM: What is left for you to do?

GD: I had to take an early retirement because of a stunt gone wrong and I had a couple of surgeries on my neck. But then Angela came along so I’ve always said God works in strange ways. She is really my life. I don’t think beyond her now, but before she came along I wanted to travel and visit all the people from all over the world who invited me to come to their homes, but that’s not going to happen. (laughter)

The backyard at 'The Enchanted Manor' 

AM: Can you tell me a bit about your home “The Enchanted Manor?”

GD: I have been remodeling this house for 28 years. I have not stopped. My neighbors say living by me is like living across from a construction site. It was 2800 square feet when I bought it and it’s now 5000. I always knew this house would be my bank. I knew if something happened and I couldn’t work I could sell IT and be comfortable, but I never anticipated doing what I’m doing now, which is Weddings, Vacation Rentals and Filming. It blossomed into a business.

AM: And this was completely unplanned on your part?

GD: I never set out to do this, it just evolved, but it’s the man upstairs looking out for me. He always has.