Al Capone's Vaults: How Geraldo Rivera's Empty Reveal Won 30 Million

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On April 21, 1986, some 30 million people watched Geraldo Rivera break into a sealed chamber beneath Chicago's Lexington Hotel, once Al Capone's headquarters, and find dirt, debris, and a few empty bottles. This episode tells how The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults came to exist. A construction survey of the derelict hotel turned up walled-off chambers, and producers John Joslyn and Doug Llewelyn insisted the opening be broadcast live. ABC, CBS, and NBC passed. Tribune Entertainment sold it station by station and spent 900,000 dollars on four months of preparation.

The host needed it as badly as the producers did. Rivera had just been fired from ABC News after a public dispute with Roone Arledge over a spiked report. With two hours to fill and about ten minutes of real action, the show padded itself with Prohibition history while a medical examiner and IRS agents stood by on set. When the wall came down on nothing, Rivera thought his career was finished. The ratings said otherwise, and the episode explains why a famous flop became a template for hype.

• A medical examiner waited in case of human remains, and Internal Revenue Service agents were on hand to claim unpaid taxes from any hidden fortune.
• Rivera held up an empty bottle and suggested it once held bathtub gin, then admitted on air that it seemed they had struck out.
• Afterward he crossed the street, drank tequila, and shut himself in his hotel room behind a do not disturb sign, as he recounted in his 1991 autobiography.
• It became the highest rated syndicated special to that point, and West Coast viewers tuned in even though the empty vault had already been reported.
• The formula survived: Joslyn produced Return to the Titanic Live in 1987, and a 2019 vault opening in Darwin, Australia, revealed cobwebs, loan records, and two more locked safes.