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| “ | You follow? | „ |
| ~ Doyle Lonnegan's famous catchphrase. |
| “ | The name's Lonnegan. Doyle Lonnegan. You're gonna remember that, Mr. Shaw or you're gonna get yourself another game. You follow? | „ |
| ~ Lonnegan threatening Gondorff a.k.a. Shaw after being insulted once too often during a poker game. |
Doyle Lonnegan is the main antagonist of the 1973 movie, The Sting. He is a vicious Irish-American crime boss operating in New York looking forward to building his crime empire further by any means necessary.
He was portrayed by the late Robert Shaw who also played Red Grant in From Russia with Love and Mr. Blue in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
Personality[]
As a mob boss, Doyle Lonnegan can be very intimidating, mean, strict, cruel, vicious, vindictive, and brutal. Beneath his businesslike exterior, Lonnegan can be impatient, threatening, temperamental, and easily offended/insulted when someone like Gondorff intentionally gets his name wrong or tries to cheat him out of some of his money.
Biography[]
After his courier, Mottola returns empty-handed from Joliet, Illinois to New York due to having been unexpectedly conned $11,000 earlier by grifter Johnny Hooker and his partners, Luther Coleman and Joe Erie, Doyle Lonnegan has his men murder both Mottola and eventually, Luther in retaliation. Knowing that Hooker is still alive but nowhere to be found, Lonnegan has his men search for him and kill him when they do as soon as possible, unaware that Hooker has now teamed up with Luther's old friend, Henry Gondorff in Chicago in order to find a way to get revenge on the former for Luther's murder by conning him.
One night, on the 20th Century Limited train, Lonnegan finds himself playing and eventually losing $15,000 in a game of poker with other players to Gondorff posing as a boorish yet obnoxious Chicago bookie named Shaw continuously yet deliberately insulting him; much to his fury, only to eventually find out from Hooker, posing as Shaw's disgruntled employee named Kelly that the latter actually cheated him, which infuriates him even more. Nevertheless, Lonnegan acts suspicious when "Kelly" starts supposedly ratting his employer out in order to be guaranteed the former's help in taking over Shaw's operation even after returning the former's now-empty wallet, which "Shaw" stole from him earlier before the game; thanks to his girlfriend, Billie. So, Lonnegan decides to give "Kelly" a lift home where his men are waiting to assassinate him, but he avoids their efforts.
Upset with his men's incompetence and failure to kill "Kelly" last night, Lonnegan decides to hire his top assassin, Loretta Salino to take care of him next time instead, still remaining unaware that "Kelly" is actually Hooker as well.
Later, Lonnegan meets "Kelly" at a drug store to discuss how to get back at "Shaw" for last night's con. Lonnegan is given a tip on a 7-to-1 long shot in a horse race by "Kelly" that pays off at a phony off-track betting parlor, unaware that it's all part of an elaborate, obsolete scam known as "the wire". Later, at a hotel, despite his recent stroke of luck, Lonnegan presses "Kelly" for details, which makes the latter reveal that he has a partner, "Les Harmon" (actually another con man named Kid Twist), in the Chicago Western Union office, who will help them topple "Shaw" by winning bets he books on horse races through past-posting. After a difficult meeting with "Harmon" the next day, Lonnegan is convinced after being provided the trifecta of another race and agrees to finance a $500,000 bet to break "Shaw" and get revenge.
After another failed attempt to kill "Kelly" on his men's part including Salino eventually shot dead by one of Gondorff's men hired to protect Hooker before she can kill him, Lonnegan receives directions from "Harmon" on the telephone to "Place it on Lucky Dan". So, Lonnegan bets $500,000 at "Shaw"'s parlor on the horse named Lucky Dan to win. As the race begins, "Harmon" arrives and expresses shock at Lonnegan's bet: when he said "place it", he meant that the horse would "place" (i.e., finish second). In a panic, Lonnegan rushes to the teller window and demands his money back, at which point FBI agents led by Polk and Hooker's long-time rival, corrupt Lt. William Snyder storm the parlor; thanks to "Kelly".
After "Shaw" shoots "Kelly" dead for his betrayal and Polk shoots "Shaw" back dead in defense, Snyder is ordered to get the ostensibly respectable Lonnegan away from the crime scene, leaving him completely broke.
With Lonnegan and Snyder safely away, Hooker and Gondorff rise ("bleeding" only from fake bullets) amid cheers and laughter: "Polk" is actually Hickey, a fellow con man who has been running a con on the con with his "FBI agents" to divert Snyder and ensure that Lonnegan abandons the money without ever realizing he was taken. As the con men strip the room of its contents, Hooker refuses his share of the money, claiming he would just lose it anyway, and walks away with Gondorff.
Trivia[]
- In the movie, although Doyle Lonnegan is seen limping, it is never revealed how he got the limp and why.