Sizing up a nickname

They got him (allegedly). By a nose.

In the wee small hours of Friday night, a joint task force of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa’s finest and the FBI descended on the Vagabond Motel on Harbor Boulevard in Costa Mesa. One person inside who was not at all happy to see them was believed to be the serial bank robber dubbed the “Big Nose Bandit.”

The nickname is selfexplanatory -- but more on that later.

As the clock struck 12:30 a.m. Friday, the man suspected of being the Big Nose Bandit saw his stay at the Vagabond and his alleged long-running, long-ranging crime spree end.

The task force had been on the Nose’s trail for months, since June, which is when his string of 23 bank robberies in Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties began.

Twenty-three bank jobs is not a record, but it’s a lot. Newport Beach was a popular destination for the Nose, who police say knocked over the Union Bank on Westcliff Drive in June and a Bank of America in Corona del Mar in July.

As far as covers go, the Nose’s was blown when a surveillance photo of him taken during a robbery at the US Bank inside the Newport Coast Pavilions market on Oct. 20 hit the news. An informant contacted the Newport Beach police and said the guy with the big honker in the little photo could be Amir Hossein Saadat, 28, also known as Mike Saadat.

And that brings us to that unfortunate nickname.

I have no idea what Saadat did or didn’t do, obviously, but I have seen his picture. To be honest, I think the nickname is a bum rap.

I have seen much bigger hooters. And I’m not talking about world-class nasal artwork like Durante or Streisand or De Bergerac. I’m talking about the everyday, garden-variety big schnoz that you might see on the person next to you in line or handing you the wine list.

I’m not sure Saadat’s honker would even stand out in that class. But what a bad break for someone allegedly trying to make an honest living as a bank robber.

In the crime biz, for whatever reason, bank robbers get all the cool nicknames: “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Baby Face” Nelson, Willie “The Actor” Sutton, Wilbur Underhill, the “Tri-State Terror.”

Of course, the all-time, hands-down, coolest-ever nicknames belonged to bank robbers Robert Leroy Parker and Henry Alonzo Longabaugh. Doesn’t ring a bell? Try this: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Parker, who robbed more banks and trains than either he or the authorities could remember, had a strict Mormon upbringing but obviously missed some critical lessons along the way. He left home as a teenager and hooked up with a legendary cattle rustler named Mike Cassidy in the 1880s.

Parker started introducing himself as Butch and eventually borrowed Cassidy’s last name. When Parker formed his Wild Bunch gang in 1896, Longabaugh, already known as the Sundance Kid, was the first man he signed up, followed closely by the Tall Texan, News Carver, Camilla Hanks, Laura Bullion, Flat-Nose Curry and Kid Curry, which was probably one Curry too many.

But here’s the point. Do you hear those nicknames? Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, the Tall Texan, Etta Place (Katherine Ross in the film) and Laura Bullion. Those are all good nicknames for a self-respecting bank robber.

Big Nose Bandit is not. When your nickname is the Sundance Kid, do you know who plays you in the movie? Robert Redford, that’s who.

When your nickname is the Big Nose Bandit, do you know who plays you in the movie? Roberto Benigni, that’s who.

By the way, before my e-mail box gets jammed, there were actually two gangs called the Wild Bunch. One was Butch Cassidy’s, but an earlier one -- also known as the Doolin-Dalton gang -- was founded by William “Bill” Doolin and William Marion “Bill” Dalton. Both gangs were seen as Robin Hoods of their time, and Butch Cassidy often boasted that not one person died in any of his gang’s jobs.

Dalton and Doolin could not make the same claim. Most of the Doolin-Dalton Wild Bunch was captured or sent to their just reward by U.S. Marshals in the Oklahoma Territory in 1895. The gang was out of the bank robbery (or any other robbery) business by 1896, which might explain why Butch Cassidy felt free to borrow the name.

So what did happen to Butch and Sundance? We know they weren’t arrested at the Vagabond Motel. But were they in fact gunned down by Bolivian soldiers in November 1908, as portrayed in George Roy Hill’s film?

The answer is definitely maybe.

Some people think one or both made it back to these United States and that the Sundance Kid may have died in quiet obscurity, which obscurity usually is, in 1936.

But this much we do know: If they had been named “Big Nose” Cassidy or the “Dumbo Ears Kid,” no one would have ever heard their names and it sure wouldn’t be Newman and Redford playing them in the film.

My mother said it, and I believe it: “Always be honest. But if you can’t, at least get a cool nickname.”

I gotta go.20051204icrhmkkf(LA)