CHICAGO, IL, February 25, 2026 /24-7PressRelease/ -- What looked like live-TV history became a national punchline. Forty years after Geraldo Rivera's televised opening of "Capone's vault" was branded the biggest disaster in television, William Elliott Hazelgrove finally tells what really happened — and why the spectacle mattered far beyond the empty vault. Capone's Vault (Bloomsbury), releasing April 16, 2026, uses new documents, interviews with Geraldo Rivera and the original producers, unpublished photos, and eyewitness reporting to unpick the media circus, the myths about Al Capone, and the Chicago forces that made the stunt possible.

On April 21, 1986, at nine fifteen Eastern, Geraldo Rivera gave the signal at the midpoint of the show to blow open the subterranean vault with dynamite and reveal to the world the great secrets of Al Capone. A medical examiner was on hand to examine the bodies. IRS agents were there to catalog Capone's millions. The men in hardhats blasted through a wall of earth with the studio lights delving into the loamy darkness. Geraldo burst into the chamber. A single lone pathetic bottle of bootleg gin was all he had to show to thirty million viewers. It was the greatest catastrophe of modern television.

Now on the Fortieth Anniversary of the original broadcast, we will find out what was really in the basement of the Lexington Hotel in Capones Vault.

William Hazelgrove is the National Bestselling author of ten novels and twelve nonfiction titles. His books have received starred reviews in Publisher Weekly Kirkus, Booklist, Book of the Month Selections, ALA Editors Choice Awards Junior Library Guild Selections, Literary Guild Selections, History Book Club Selections, History Book Club Bestsellers, Distinguished Book Award. and optioned for the movies. He was the Ernest Hemingway Writer in Residence where he wrote in the attic of Ernest Hemingway's birthplace. He has written articles and reviews for USA Today, The Smithsonian Magazine, and other publications and has been featured on NPR All Things Considered. The New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, CSPAN, USA Today, World News Tonight have all covered his books with features. His book "Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson" is currently in development. He has two forthcoming titles: "Dead Air: The Night Orson Welles Terrified America" and "Hemingway's Attic: Hell and Glory in Cuba and the Writing of The Old Man and the Sea."

More information can be found at www.williamhazelgrove.com

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