1 GV Crowd gathering outside church.

0.6

2.
GV AND CU Police car stationed at end of road. (2 shots)
0.14

3.
CU PAN Mourners entering church.
0.21

4.
SV Coffin carried into church followed by relatives and mourners. (2 shots)
1.04

5.
GV PAN FROM Church to other mourners entering.
1.23

6.
CU AND GV Flowers outside church. (4 shots)
1.46



Initials VS 16.00



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: The American Mafia's first family stepped briefly into the public eye on Monday (18 October) for the funeral of underworld "Godfather" Carlo Gambino, in New York City.

SYNOPSIS: Hundreds of curious onlookers, mostly from the Italian neighbourhood where Gambino lived until his death last week from heart disease at the age of 74, crowded the streets in front of Our Lady of Grace Church. Plainclothes police kept a close watch on the mourners at the funeral.

The hearse carrying Gambino's 7,000-dollar (GBP4,200 sterling) bronze coffin was followed by 13 black limousines. The mourners, many of the men wearing dark glasses, stood quietly two abreast with their eyes averted from the stares of the crowd. Once the group was inside, the church doors were shut and press and others turned away., An hour later the mourners were ushered to the waiting limousines, and the procession left for Gambino's final resting place in a cemetery on the outskirts of New York City. The ceremony respected the pattern that Gambino followed in his business and personal life. It was as private as possible.

However, his death is expected to being changes in the tight system of control he had over the Mafia. A police official at the funeral believed there would be a two week truce before the expected struggle to succeed Gambino. Gambino controlled at least 1,000 men in his own "family" and held away over the four other families in New York. He was also prominent in a council running the affairs of all American Mafia families, and New York police fear a more violent era now with a younger man taking control.