Bugsy Siegel

Benjamin Siegel
Born	February 28, 1906 Brownsville, Brooklyn
Died	June 20, 1947 Beverly Hills
Cause of death	Murder
Occupation	Organized crime
Spouse	Esta Krakow
Parent	Max Siegel

Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (February 28, 1906 – June 20, 1947) was an American gangster, who was behind large-scale development of Las Vegas.

Early life

Benjamin Siegel was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn, to a poor Jewish family from Letychiv, Podolia Governorate of the Russian Empire (today's Ukraine). As a boy, Siegel joined a street gang on Lafayette Street on the Lower East Side and first committed mainly thefts, until, with another youth named Moe Sedway, he devised his own protection racket: pushcart merchants were forced to pay him five dollars or he would incinerate their merchandise on the spot. He was a relative of Samuel Seigel who lived in North Las Vegas, Nevada and was a Chicago Outfit mob associate who worked as Anthony Spilotro's personal chauffer and bodyguard.

During adolescence, Siegel befriended Meyer Lansky, who was forming a small crew whose criminal activities expanded to include gambling and car theft. Siegel reputedly also worked as the crew's hit man whom Lansky would sometimes hire out to other crime families.

In 1930 Lansky and Siegel built close ties to Charles "Lucky" Luciano and Frank Costello, both future bosses of the Genovese crime family. Siegel became a bootlegger and was also associated with Albert "Mad Hatter" Anastasia. Siegel was also heavily involved in bootlegging operations in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia. During the so-called Castellammarese War in 1930-1931, they fought the gang of Sal Maranzano; Siegel reputedly had a hand in Maranzano's murder and later in the formation of Murder, Inc. In 1932 he was arrested for gambling and bootlegging but got away with only a fine. Lansky and Siegel assisted with Luciano's brief alliance with Dutch Schultz and killed rival loan sharks Louis "Pretty" Amberg and Joseph Amberg in 1935.

California

In 1937, the East Coast mob sent Siegel to California to develop syndicate gambling rackets with Los Angeles mobster Jack Dragna. Once in LA, Siegel recruited gang boss Mickey Cohen as his lieutenant. Siegel used syndicate money to set up a national wire service to help the East Coast mob quicken their returns.

On January 28, 1929, Siegel married Esta Krakow, his childhood sweetheart and sister of hit man Whitey Krakow. Siegel eventually moved Esta and their two daughters to the West Coast. However, Siegel was the least faithful of husbands; four of his mistresses included actresses Ketti Gallian, Wendy Barrie, Marie "The Body" MacDonald, and Hollywood socialite Dorothy DiFrasso.

With the aid of DiFrasso and actor friend George Raft, Siegel gained entry into Hollywood's inner circle, allegedly using his contacts to extort the movie studios.

At this point in his career, Siegel started living in extravagant fashion; on his tax returns Siegel claimed to earn his living through legal gambling at the Santa Anita racetrack near Los Angeles.

Siegel soon started an affair with Virginia Hill. The Alabama-born Hill owned a mansion in Beverly Hills that she had bought from Metropolitan Opera baritone Lawrence Tibbett. Siegel became a frequent guest at the Hill mansion. There were rumors that the couple had secretly married in Mexico, where Hill helped Siegel establish drug dealing contacts. However, Siegel's relationship with Hill did not deter Siegel from his compulsive womanizing. In 1946, Hill went to Reno and divorced Siegel.

On November 22, 1939, Siegel, Whitey Krakow, and two other gang members killed Harry "Big Greenie" Greenberg. Greenberg had become a police informant and Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, boss of Murder, Inc., ordered his killing. Siegel was arrested and tried for the Greenberg murder. Whitey Krakow escaped prosecution because Siegel had previously murdered him. Siegel was acquitted on the Greenberg murder, but his reputation was in ruins. During the trial, the newspapers revealed Siegel's sordid past and started referring to him as "Bugsy". He hated the nickname, Bugsy (said to be based on the slang term "bugs", meaning "crazy", and used to describe his sometimes erratic behavior), and wouldn't allow anyone to call him that to his face.

Las Vegas

Siegel came to Las Vegas in 1941, backed by the Chicago Outfit to establish the Trans America race wire service. He travelled there often with Mickey Cohen. In 1945, Siegel became a minority owner of the El Cortez Hotel, along with Meyer Lansky in the City Of Las Vegas, Nevada proper. Impressed by the success of the El Rancho Vegas casino on the Las Vegas Strip, Siegel purchased the Flamingo Las Vegas from Billy Wilkerson.

File:Bugsymemorial.jpg

Bugsy Siegel's memorial in the Flamingo Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas near the wedding chapel

Death

On the night of June 20, 1947, Siegel was shot while at Virginia Hill's home in Beverly Hills. No one was ever charged for the murder, and the crime remains unsolved to this day. Bugsy sat in Virginia Hill’s home reading the Los Angeles Times, a long-range sniper hit him in one of his baby blue eyes with a thirty-caliber high speed carbine bullet (the embellished popular culture description). A proper autopsy revealed that the bullet actually entered the back of his skull, and exited through an eye socket; investigators found the eye across the room. The cause of death was cerebral hemorrhage. It was one of the most gruesome and famous mob murders of the era. According to Florabel Muir, “Four of the nine shots fired that night destroyed a white marble statue of Bacchus on a grand piano, and then lodged in the far wall.”

Bugsy's memorial plaque in the Bialystoker Synagogue - On the plaques above see the name Max Siegel, Siegel's father, whose Hebrew name is "Mordechai Dov "Bar" (son of) Beirush HaLevi" (from the Hebraic tribe of the Levites) and the one for Siegel, whose Hebrew name is "Bairush HaLevi "Bar" Mordechai Dov HaLevi"; implying that Bugsy was named after his grandfather who predeceased his birth.

In the Bialystoker Synagogue on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Siegel is memorialized by a Yartzheit (remembrance) plaque that marks his death date so mourners can say Kaddish for the anniversary of his passing. Siegel's plaque is right below that of his father, Max Siegel, who died two months prior to his son's murder.

Cultural references

• In the 1969 novel "The Godfather" and its 1972 film adaptation, the character of Moe Greene is heavily based on Siegel.
• In the 1991 film Bugsy, Warren Beatty portrays Siegel. Some people question the accuracy of this film.
• In the 1981 NBC mini-series, The Gangster Chronicles, Joe Penny is cast as Siegel.
• In the 1991 movie Mobsters Siegel is played by Richard Grieco.
• In the 1999 TV movie Lansky, the adult Siegel is played by Eric Roberts.
• In the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the character "Angel" claims to have known Siegel.
• In the 1999 episode of the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Badda-Bing Badda-Bang, mob character Frankie Eyes (played by Robert Miano) remarks that Bugsy Siegel "built" Las Vegas, and laments that there is "not one stature" to him in the whole city.

References

Bugsy Siegel was also featured prominently in an episode of C.S.I: Crime Scene Investigation (Las Vegas). He was supposedly dead, but, constantly disguised, he murdered the members of his former gang.

See also

Hollywood's Celebrity Gangster. The Incredible Life and Times of Mickey Cohen by Brad Lewis. (Enigma Books: New York, 2007. ISBN 978-1-929631-65-0)

External links

• Bugsy Siegel fan site nr1 from Bugsy-Siegel.com
• www.bugsysiegel.net, various information including a copy of Siegel's death certificate
• FBI files on Siegel (2,421 pages, heavily censored) From the FBI Freedom of Information Act.
• Bugsy Siegel at Find-A-Grave
• Bugsy Restaurant
• Bugsy Siegel memorial in Las Vegas