Tony Durpetti dead: Gene & Georgetti steakhouse owner was 80

When he was seven, Tony Durpetti earned tips as a self-appointed doorman at the Gene & Georgetti steakhouse in Chicago. That is, until one of the owners, Gene Michelotti, inevitably came out dressed in a white shirt, tie and an apron, and ran the boy off.

How could the frustrated proprietor have realized he was chasing away his future son-in-law?

Mr. Durpetti, decades later, married Michelotti's daughter, Marion, and took over the restaurant he was booted from time and again as a kid.

At his wedding, Mr. Durpetti, mic in hand, laughed at the twist of fate.

"I hope I don't offend anyone, but I still have my father-in-law's foot imprint on my ass from when I was 7 years old," he said. A mural in the restaurant commemorates the adversarial beginning of their relationship.

Mr. Durpetti died last Thursday from complications due to pulmonary fibrosis and Parkinson's disease. He was 80.

Mr. Durpetti honored one of his father-in-law's last wishes before he died in 1989: that he come into the family restaurant business. He eventually transitioned out of a successful career in radio ad sales and bought the restaurant from his mother-in-law in 1992.

"He just absolutely fell in love with the people at the restaurant and the customers," said Mr. Durpetti's daughter, Michelle Durpetti.

Gene & Georgetti is the city's oldest steakhouse. Opened in 1941, it became a favorite destination of celebrities like Gene Autry, Rudy Vallee, Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra.

Mr. Durpetti grew the business, which continued to attract everyone from CTA workers, politicians and CEOs to tourists, conventioneers and celebrities.

Mr. Durpetti loved to share anecdotes about the who's who who frequented his restaurant.

There was the time songstress Mariah Carey gingerly made her way up the narrow stairs to a second floor dining room in seven-inch heels. She was trailed by nervous body guards. There was the time Richard Kiel, the 7-foot-3 actor who played "Jaws" in the James Bond movie "The Spy Who Loved Me," playfully put Mr. Durpetti in a headlock. He loved joking with one of his regulars, actor Dennis Farina, an old classmate, about how strict the priests were at St. Michael Central High School in Old Town.

Johnny Depp, Paul Newman, Tom Hanks, John Malkovich, Will Ferrell and Russell Crowe were among the glitterati and who ducked into the time capsule of an eatery at 500 N. Franklin St. as the L rumbled past overhead.

"My father-in-law was a genius who built a unique American institution. Every day I thank God that I haven't screwed it up yet," Mr. Durpetti liked to say.

Tony Durpetti was born Feb. 1, 1944, in a wooden, two-flat apartment just 200 feet west of the restaurant. His mother Mary worked as a Chicago Public Schools cook. His father, Aldo, was a truck driver for the city. In second grade, his family moved a few blocks south and Mr. Durpetti never returned to his old renegade post at the restaurant door.

He briefly attended college but was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1965 and he served at a Hercules Missile site in Germany.

In 1967, he returned to the U.S., and while visiting his brother in Elmwood Park, he noticed a pretty brunette named Marion at the house across the street and asked her out. It wasn't until they were in a steady relationship that Mr. Durpetti realized it was his girlfriend's dad who used to kick him in the rear outside Gene & Georgetti.

The couple married in 1969 as Mr. Durpetti began his career in radio ad sales, which culminated in his founding of Durpetti & Associates, which grew to 12 offices nationwide.

He never regretted changing careers. For decades Mr. Durpetti went into the restaurant six days a week carrying out administrative duties in his third floor office that looked out on the L tracks until 5 p.m., when he'd go downstairs, check on things in the kitchen, have a Beefeater martini, and head home to have dinner with his wife and daughter in the western suburbs.

This routine was interrupted occasionally when he'd break the day up by spending time on his 74-foot boat in Burnham Harbor.

"He named the boat 'Andiamo' — which in Italian translates to 'Let's go,'" said his daughter. "It was his mindset for everything: Let's not dwell. Let's move to the next thing, the next dream. He had an absolutely insatiable tenacity for life and everything he did he put his heart and soul into it 1000%."

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Durpetti is survived by his wife, Marion.

Visitation will be held Thursday from 8 to 9 a.m. at Belmont Funeral Home, 7120 W. Belmont Ave. A mass will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Assumption Catholic Church, 323 W. Illinois St.