As much as the rum-runners who kept nominally “dry” towns quite wet during the Prohibitions became popular heroes, so were the people charged with capturing them. FBI’s frontman in the fight was the stoic, incorruptible Eliot Ness, who published a well-received memoir detailing his fight to bring down Al Capone and the booze smugglers from Chicago to Atlantic City. Quinn Martin, the producer of the TV series The Untouchables, thought the book would make for a very dramatic television series.

On this day, October 15, in 1959 The Untouchables TV series premiered on ABC-TV. Robert Stack, a last-minute replacement for Van Johnson, was cast in the lead role as Eliot Ness, and narration was done by the well-known radio voice Walter Winchell.

Although the show gathered criticism for its frequent portrayal of violence — both J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Director, and Mae Capone, Al Capone’s widow complained — the show ran a full three seasons, providing an uncompromising real glimpse into the lives of the outlaws and the G-Men out to get them.