Anthony Tarracino, known to one and all as Capt. Tony, spent two years as mayor of Key West, Fla., and 60 years as one of the most colorful characters in an island city full of them.
During his 92 years, he was a bootlegger, gambler, gunrunner, saloonkeeper, fishing boat captain, ladies’ man and peerless raconteur. He died Nov. 1 of heart and lung ailments in Key West.
Tarracino survived on his wits and cunning long before his arrival in raffish Key West in 1948 with $18 in his pocket. He spent more than three decades as a charter boat captain and for 28 years owned a dank, musty bar that once doubled as the city morgue.
Capt. Tony’s Saloon, an unprepossessing spot on Greene Street, still bears Tarracino’s name almost 20 years after he sold it. It was the original site of Sloppy Joe’s Saloon, which was the favorite watering hole of Ernest Hemingway when he lived in Key West in the 1930s.
A huge tree grows in the center of the tavern and disappears through the roof. License plates, business cards and countless women’s bras are stapled to the ceiling and walls. In the 1970s, the tropical troubadour Jimmy Buffett performed at Capt. Tony’s for tips and beers. Until a few months ago, Tarracino was a regular presence at Capt. Tony’s, where he greeted visitors, told stories and signed T-shirts and posters displaying his grizzled likeness.
His most famous slogan, which became part of his successful run for mayor in 1989, was: “All you need in this life is a tremendous sex drive and a great ego. Brains don’t mean (a word we can’t print in the newspaper).”
Tarracino ran for mayor of Key West in 1985 but lost by 52 votes to a banker named Tom Sawyer. Locals joked that the race was between someone named for a fictional character and someone who was a fictional character.
Four years later, when Tarracino ran again, some people objected to his frequent use of a certain four-letter word. He was unapologetic, saying, “I just hope everybody in Key West who uses that word votes for me. If they do, I’ll win in a landslide.” He won by 32 votes out of more than 6,000 cast.
His goal as mayor was to limit Key West’s growth and to keep its reputation as a refuge for eccentrics and renegades who had found their way to the southernmost point of the continental United States.
“Key West is an insane asylum,” he told the Chicago Tribune then. “We’re just too lazy to put up the walls or fences. I want to retain that mystique.”
