- Nick Murway
- Freddy the Beard last Good Friday at Chris’s Billiards in Portage Park
Late last fall, a rumor began circulating through the pool world that Freddy “the Beard” Bentivegna, the great bank shooter and one of the last of the old hustlers, had passed away; or, rather, that he’d been killed in a terrible car accident on the south side en route to visit friends in the Cook County Jail. When Freddy himself logged into the message boards to announce that he was alive and well, he was accused of being a hacker. But the surest sign that the report was a fake was the part about how Freddy had crashed a 1973 Pinto wagon. Freddy the Beard would never have driven such a vehicle. Freddy was a class act. He drove a Cadillac.
The paid obit doesn’t say how or when. (I’ll update this post as I learn more.) [Update: Freddy died last Wednesday, June 18. He never really recovered his strength after he got out of the hospital.] Visitation is this afternoon and evening from 3 PM to 9 PM at Michael Coletta Sons Funeral Home (544 W. 31st) and the funeral mass is tomorrow morning at 10:30 AM at St. Jerome Croatian Church (2823 S. Princeton), followed by a private burial. He’s survived by Cat, his son Dino, son-in-law Jeven Adami, grandchildren Francesca and Andrew Adami, former wife Theresa, brother Frank Jr., sisters Katherine McAlesse and Sharon Bentivegna, and many nieces and nephews, cousins, and friends.
