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New York Daily News
October 19, 2005
Not a mob sort of family
Lowdown by Lloyd Grove
What do convicted mobster Sam Cagnina, serving 47 years in prison for racketeering and conspiracy, and the Rev. Louis Sheldon, head of the conservative Traditional Values Coalition, have in common?
They both disapprove of the lifestyle of Cagnina's son, also named Sam, whose unusual relationship with another man and a woman - a threesome that has produced two children - is the subject of “Three of Hearts.”
The documentary, made over eight years by Susan Kaplan and David Friedson, opens today at the IFC Center and will play later on in L.A. and San Francisco.
Yesterday, the younger Cagnina, 46, told me: “When my dad was asked recently if he would like to see the movie, he completely freaked out. He yelled, ’I better not be in that f-g movie! If I’m in that f-g movie, you'll be in trouble.’’
“Even though he signed a release, he didn’t want to have his goomba friends see that his son has an alternate lifestyle.”
Sheldon, for his part, told me yesterday from Washington: “The danger is that there’s no socially redeeming value to all this gender confusion, unless they discuss reparative therapy. What you have here is a social disorder. Children need one parent from each sex. Otherwise, it creates moral anarchy.”
The movie follows Sam - a massage therapist who lives in Tribeca - as he maneuvers through his 13-year-long “marriage” to investment banker Samantha Singh and chiropractor Steven Margolin.
