Real Name: Unknown Christian name; Morales was his mother's surname
Ethnicity: His mother was Latino-American, and his father was of an unknown background (perhaps Italian-Irish-American). He resembles his father.
Birth Place: Detroit, Michigan
Current Residence: The Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California
Height: Approximately 6'
Weight: Unknown
Age: 20-22
Living Relatives: Aunt Cleo and Uncle Bradford; another aunt that he has never met; possibly some cousins; possibly his father.
Personal Quote: "The real reason you'd be killing me is because you need someone to blame for your problems. And that's not so noble. . . . If you kill me, then you're still like the hypocrites you're trying to get away from."
Background: Baby Face Morales never had an easy life as a child. Born illegitimately to a promiscuous woman of Latino descent, he was raised by his stern and judgmental aunt and uncle after his mother's death. They saw him as the result of his mother's sinful behavior and treated him as if he himself was also a sin. He grew up feeling nothing but hatred and cruelty, and was always being beaten when he let his temper get away from him. Cleo and Bradford never tried to help him control his anger, seeing him as inherently evil, and their actions only fueled the rage burning in his heart.
As he got older, he hated both of his parents, blaming them for the situation he was in. He hated his mother for fooling around with men so much. He hated his father for having either fallen prey to the woman's charms or else manipulating her into falling for his. He hated that his father had then left and that his mother had died, leaving him to the mercy of Cleo and Bradford when they obviously did not want him. The whole mess disgusted him and he became bitter against romance, saying that it was a fairy story told to make children get excited about life.
He took to roaming the streets of Detroit most of the time, only returning home to eat and sleep. He quickly learned how to fight from some of the other delinquents. He still could not defend himself against Bradford, but his notoriety on the streets eventually took on an almost legendary status. He was known for getting into serious scrapes over matters both big and small, and usually would come out the victor. This only angered his guardians further and, according to them, it only proved that nothing could be done for him because it was simply in his nature to be bad.
One of the only positive experiences he had as a child happened when he was ten years old, when he happened to meet a student from a local prestigeous academy. They were opposites, yet understood each other in many ways, and seemed to be two sides of the same coin. The memory of the meeting stayed with Baby Face for years afterward, and he often wondered what had happened to the other boy, who had been six years his senior and who had been the first person to really treat him as a human being.
Following this meeting, he was in and out of a reform school that he was finally put into by the state, but he hated and despised it with every part of his heart and soul, and as he said later, he never grasped whatever it was that they were trying to drill into him. When he went home, he was still as bitter and angry as ever, or more likely, more so. Perhaps another part of this fury was due to the fact that his aunt and uncle lied about beating him and managed to convince the state that he was making it up to cover up the fact that he got hurt in fights all the time.
When he was thirteen or fourteen, he met up with a local criminal who was impressed by his skills and strength and took the boy under his wing, so to speak. He taught Baby Face the ropes of crime, specifically robbery and smuggling, and was the first to call him by the moniker that he later took as his alias and only known name---though at first he despised it. The criminal came to think of Baby Face as a son and took great pride in his "progress", and the teenager began spending longer and longer periods of time with his adopted father. When Cleo and Bradford found out, they immediately disowned him, but Baby Face was perfectly happy to leave them and stay where he knew he was wanted, even if it was only because he was useful. Soon after this, the two of them relocated to Chicago.
He was sixteen when he first killed someone. The criminal he was now living with was in quite a bit of hot water with a rival gang, and they stormed the house one night to kill him off. Baby Face, who was upstairs asleep, awoke to the sound of gunfire and screams. He got out one of the guns from a secret compartment in a wall in the den, then ran to the balcony overlooking the ground floor and began firing at the assassins. He took out two of them, and his surrogate father killed the third, but the man was too badly injured from the fight and died in Baby Face's arms several moments later.
This incident made the boy even more bitter than he already was, and as he began to become more infamous due to his increasing crimes, his temper became worse as well. He would strike out at people, lackeys and enemies and bystanders alike, but he did not always mean to kill the ones he would attack. Sometimes, without thinking that far ahead, he would become incensed and begin beating up someone who was being troublesome to him---then find that he had lashed out at them far more than he had intended. At other times, however, he truly did mean to kill. Whenever possible, he did not fatally shoot bystanders who were in the way of his escapes, but while firing on the run he was not always able to aim in such a way that would result in an injury that could be recovered from.
At this point in time, he happened to meet fellow gangster Ralph Adelardi, and they immediately became enemies. Adelardi had been a member of the mob that had rivalled Baby Face's mentor, and that alone was enough to make Baby Face hate him. The list of grievances between the two mobsters only grew as time went on, and Baby Face was not sorry at all to see the gang eventually get busted by the police.
Baby Face moved to New York City after this, which was where he met the femme fatale Vivalene, who proved herself useful enough to him that he allowed her to be a member of the small mob he was getting together. Soon after that, he also recruited Vince "Mugsy" Ruckyzer and a quiet friend of Vince's known as Harry. They gained quite a bit of notoriety in New York City before Baby Face decided that he wanted to try something new and moved everyone back to his hometown of Detroit.
It was here that Baby Face met the two most important people in his life---a police officer named Antonio Ferano, and a nightclub waitress named Ruby. He stumbled across Ruby one night as he was angrily driving through town after surviving a shootout with Adelardi (who had also come to Detroit, to build up a new gang), and then learned from her that her beau was furious at her and believed her to have been the one who called the police during a big heist earlier that night. When the angry boyfriend caught up with her, Baby Face found that he was none other than Ralph Adelardi himself. They had a final confrontation, which ended when Adelardi tried to knife Ruby and Baby Face shot him down to protect her as well as to have his revenge.
He met Antonio---better known as Tony---due to the fact that the police officer was the one assigned to catch him. When they were officially introduced during a robbery, Baby Face could not help but think that they had met somewhere before (and unbeknownst to him, Tony felt the same way). They engaged in a showdown that nearly became a Mexican standoff before Tony shot Baby Face in the arm and Baby Face shot the gun out of Tony's hand, and then they desperately wrestled on the floor, each impressed by the other's fighting skills. The episode ended with Tony cleverly managing to get the jewels away from Baby Face, but Baby Face succeeding in escaping.
Interestingly, it was Baby Face who warned Tony at least twice about the events going on around him that would conspire to lead to his downfall. Baby Face had seen something in Tony that he liked---intelligence and maturity---and he was willing to caution the police officer about the path that he was likely to travel upon. As he said, "Even I can be fair, sometimes." And he believed that Tony deserved a fighting chance to get out of the mess that he was falling into, since Baby Face could see better what was happening at the time than Tony could.
As Baby Face began spending more and more time with Ruby, seeming to enjoy talking with her, Vivalene grew very jealous. Eventually she plotted with the Syndicate to have him killed, but Ruby overheard and went to warn him. He confronted Vivalene and she admitted her involvement, upon which Baby Face slapped her and nearly killed her until Ruby ran over and pleaded for him not to. He finally relented, but told Vivalene that if he ever saw her again, he would kill her for certain. Much of his hatred for Vivalene stems from the fact that he thinks of his mother as being just like her, so when he sees Vivalene he always thinks of his mother.
After Tony joined the mob following a long and tragic series of events in his life, they remained in Detroit for a while longer before relocating again, this time to California. It was shortly after this when Baby Face first met Ruby's sister Jade, and later accompanied Ruby to her father's funeral, which very nearly became a complete disaster when it seemed that the mobster's identity would be revealed.
Where the gang was concerned, everything proceeded along quite smoothly until the fateful DeWitt burglary that resulted in Baby Face being arrested and sent to prison. He believed that it was because of Tony that it had happened. For a long time he was convinced that Tony had tried to sell all of them out to get in good with the Los Angeles police department and not get arrested himself. He had first suspected that during the heist itself, when the police had came without warning, and Baby Face had responded by completely snapping and attacking Tony, nearly killing him before Vince and Harry had been able to pull them away from each other. This, then, was the reason for Tony's ensuing paranoia around Baby Face and his desire to be rid of him, and it was the beginning of a bitter and cold rivalry between the two former allies.
After Baby Face's brief escape from prison was halted by the drummer Micky Dolenz's attempt at helping the police by impersonating him, the crime lord was furious. While he remained in prison, he plotted against both Micky and his former comrades, and then he had his chance at escape again. He took it, and has been on the loose since then. He tried unsuccessfully to kill Micky, and later engaged in a three-way gang war at a cabin in the mountains, fighting Tony and the others in addition to the Syndicate, which was angry over some documents that Baby Face was trying to blackmail them with. The disaster ended with Tony being shot and wounded by the Syndicate, Baby Face realizing that he actually did not like the idea of Tony being dead, and then losing his temper and attacking Micky when the drummer tried to keep a stash of diamonds away from him. They ended up struggling outside the cabin on a ledge overlooking the waterfall, and when Baby Face nearly fell off, Micky was going to try to help him back up when the ledge gave out and sent them both falling. Micky was able to pull himself back up, but Baby Face was not found and was presumed dead.
In actuality, he had washed up on shore and had wandered around in a daze before being found by a rival mobster who decided to nurse him back to health at his crooked hospital for a price. When Baby Face was aware enough to refuse, he was kept under heavy sedation until one day when he managed to break free and run for it. He ended up in the city, where he was hit by a car and taken to the hospital, believed to be Micky due to the fact that Micky was missing and because Baby Face had wound up with Micky's identification card. The other three Monkees then brought Baby Face back with them, where he tried for a while to pretend that he was their comrade but could not keep up the ruse for long. Upon learning that Micky was impersonating him again, he set out to find him, and the other Monkees went with him.
This bizarre partnership continued for several hours, and eventually they were joined by Tony and his friends and Ruby before they all ended up at the Chanel mansion. Here, it was discovered that Micky had been hurt in an accident and honestly believed himself to be Baby Face. He and the crime lord had a confrontation, in which Micky was actually the first to draw his gun due to the hysteria and confusion that he had been feeling ever since the previous night. Baby Face had not intended to try to kill Micky again, nor was he particularly happy about the thought of being killed by him, but he took out his own gun with the intention to shoot if Micky tried to. The showdown was halted by Peter, who got in the way and pleaded with Micky and Baby Face to not gun each other down. Micky was able to fully accept his identity as Micky Dolenz, and Baby Face had every intention of leaving them and getting out of there before the police would come, but the Syndicate chose that moment to attack again, wanting the documents that Baby Face was still in possession of.
He finally relented after Mr. Fuselli joined them and said that the Syndicate would leave him alone if he cooperated. He hated to do it, but he realized that he had definitely gotten in over his head that time. He was not strong enough to go against the Syndicate, and that made him furious.
As everyone was departing from the Chanel manor, Baby Face and Tony found each other and had a short discussion. It had seemed almost like old times' sake, for them to have worked together again, and they mutually decided that it would be more profitable if they did. After all, they certainly had been having their share of bad luck since they had started being at odds with each other. Baby Face would not admit it, but he was pleased that things were going back to normal in that way. He did not want to fight Tony, and he had come to realize that Tony had not called the police at the DeWitts', as Baby Face had believed.
And so things went back to normal, at least for a while. There were more gang wars, including one in which Baby Face himself was nearly killed, and one in which an independent faction of the Syndicate attacked and Tony almost died as a result. During the latter experience, Baby Face finally came to realize something which he had denied for years---it was Tony whom he had met when they were both children.
Personality: Baby Face is bitter and selfish, with an infamous temper. But he is not completely dishonorable, as is shown partially by the fact that he does not attack women or children---unless they are extremely treacherous, such as Vivalene. He has a deep, philosophical side to his personality, which most people never see, and a calm, almost passive side that's even more rare. He has a certain fondness for Ruby, but he does not know if he loves her or not; it is hard for him to recognize such emotions. He has a deep connection with her, which confuses him, and he has another, yet different, connection with Tony. He knows that they are the two most important people in his life, and that they understand him better than anyone else does. He is willing to try to help them if they need it and he can, though he won't be pleased at all if the help requires him to pay someone with his ill-gotten gains. He also is known for his wild mood swings, and can change almost instantly from being quiet to being enraged, if something goes wrong. He swears like a sailor, another bad habit that he picked up in his youth, and he enjoys a good drink of whiskey or rum and other such liquors---perhaps too much.
Ruby's unconditional love for him has confused him on many occasions, due to his unhappy childhood when he was never treated kindly. He often wonders how she could ever care about him at all, but he tries not to question it and to just accept it. He likes being with her more than he will admit, and occasionally he has come to show affection towards her.
His relationship with Tony is very complicated. The way he sees it, they are not biologically related, they do not have a friendship, and they do not have romantic feelings for each other, but they are still close in some other, deep way. They have an understanding of each other, which has only grown since the time when they were at odds. Perhaps, though Baby Face will not admit to it, they have some sort of odd friendship.
He does not have much association with Vince or Harry outside of their work together on crimes, but he finds them to be capable and smart associates.
Baby Face now thinks of Micky and the other Monkees as annoyances.He no longer wants to kill Micky and has been forced to work with the Monkees on several occasions.
