Season 2, Episode 2 of 1923 introduced Sal Maceo, a Texas-based mob boss who helps (maybe) Spencer Dutton get home to Montana.

Would the real-life Sal Maceo do such a thing?

The Maceo Family was very real in Galveston in the early 1920s. In fact, this crime boss was arguably as famous as Al Capone.

• In 1923, Sal Maceo is played by veteran TV actor Gilles Marini.
• He’s most famous for finishing second to Shawn Johnson during Season 8 of Dancing With the Stars.
• It’s not the first time Taylor Sheridan has cast a real-life character in a Yellowstone episode. In fact, it’s not even the only time in Ep. 2 he did it!

Who Is Sal Maceo?

Salvatore Maceo and his brother Rosario were heads of the Maceo Syndicate. Together they ran a criminal enterprise out of Galveston, Texas, which was — at the time — a very popular tourist destination.

Gambling, bootlegging, prostitution … the brothers and their men did it all.

Like the fictional Luca (played by Andy Dispensa) on 1923, the Maceos hail from Sicily. However, the brothers arrived in America about a decade-and-a-half before their cousin. Luca is the one that first reveals he’s part of a larger family.

During Ep. 1 of Season 2, he tells Spencer that his cousins will reward him for saving his life. The dialogue feels unimportant at the time, as Luca is threatening suicide. It turns out he is connected.

In real life, the Maceos controlled government and night life until the late 1930s or early 1940s. They opened a club called the Hollywood Dinner Club, which is where Spencer is sent upon arriving in Texas.

The also opened Maceo’s Grotto, which became the Balinese Room until it was destroyed by Hurricane Ike in 2008.

Despite being a leader of a criminal enterprise, Salvatore Maceo was a very public figure in Galveston culture. In the 1940s he’s help build the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, and slowly he’d pull away from Texas. He died of cancer at age 57 in 1951.

More Real Life Characters From 1923

Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan has inserted real life characters into his storylines on several occasions. For example, in 1883 Billy Bob Thornton played Marshall Jim Courtright for a single episode. The man himself lived until 1887.

Later Sheridan himself would play rancher Charles Goodnight, a character who could return for 1923.

More recently, another real-life character is U.S. Marshall Mamie Fossett, played by Jennifer Carpenter in 1923. Very little is know about the life and career of Fossett, but the actor confirmed she existed in Oklahoma at the time.

Finally, U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves in Lawmen: Bass Reeves was based on the real-life Bass Reeves. Bottom line is anytime a new U.S. Marshal is introduced, it’s likely the character is based on fact.