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Mugshot of the twenty-two-year-old Bugsy Siegel's 1928 arrest in New York
Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (February 28, 1906 – June 20, 1947) was an American Gangster, popularly thought to be the impetus behind large-scale development of Las Vegas. He hated the nickname, Bugsy, and wouldn't allow anyone to call him that to his face.
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The beginning
Benjamin Hymen Siegelbaum was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a poor Austrian Jewish family, one of five children. As a boy, Siegel joined a street gang on Lafayette Street in the Lower East Side and committed first mainly thefts, until, with another youth named Moe Sedway, he devised his own protection racket; he forced pushcart merchants to pay him five dollars or he would incinerate their merchandise on the spot.
As a teenager, Siegel befriended Meyer Lansky, forming a small gang with him that expanded to gambling and car theft. Reputedly Siegel also worked as the gang's hitman whom Lansky would sometimes hire out to other gang bosses. In 1926 Siegel was arrested for raping a woman who had turned down his advances in a speakeasy, but Lansky coerced the victim not to testify.
In 1930 Lansky and Siegel joined forces with Charles "Lucky" Luciano. Siegel became a bootlegger and was also associated with Albert Anastasia. Siegel was used for bootlegging operations in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia. During the so-called Castellammarese War in 1930-1931, they fought the gang of Joe Masseria; Siegel reputedly had a hand in Masseria's 1931 murder in Coney Island and later had a part in the formation of Murder, Inc. In 1932 he was arrested for gambling and bootlegging but got away with a fine. Lansky and Siegel were briefly allied with Dutch Schultz and killed rival loan sharks Louis and Joseph Amberg in 1935.
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To California
In 1937 the East Coast mob sent Siegel to California to try to develop Syndicate gambling rackets in the West alongside Los Angeles mobster Jack Dragna. Siegel also recruited Jewish gang boss Mickey Cohen as his lieutenant. Siegel used Syndicate money to set up a national wire service to help the East Coast mob get their cut faster.
Siegel married his childhood sweetheart Esta Krakow, sister of hitman Whitey Krakow, on January 28, 1929. He eventually moved her and their two daughters to the West Coast, after his bosses had sent him there, but kept them in the dark about his many extramarital affairs. Siegel had a number of mistresses, including actresses Ketti Gallian, Wendy Barrie and 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. He is alleged to have used his contacts to extort movie studios. He lived in extravagant fashion, as befitting his reputation. On his tax returns, Siegel claimed to earn a living through legal gambling at the Santa Anita racetrack near Los Angeles.
Siegel became enamored of a sharp-tongued moll and courier, Virginia Hill. They began a torrid affair. Hill helped Siegel establish contacts in Mexico. The Alabama-born Hill was wealthy in her own right and had bought a mansion in Beverly Hills from Metropolitan Opera baritone Lawrence Tibbett, where Siegel frequently stayed. Hill became Siegel's paramour. Later, there were rumors that they had secretly married in Mexico. Their affair, however, did not keep Siegel from continuing his compulsive womanizing. Virginia's reaction to Siegel's infidelities is unknown, but the long-suffering Esta finally had had enough; she went to Reno and obtained a divorce in 1946.
On November 22, 1939, Siegel, with his brother-in-law Whitey Krakow and two others, killed Harry Greenberg, who had become a police informant. Siegel was arrested and tried for the murder (by that time, he had also killed Krakow). He was acquitted, but newspapers referred to him for the first time by his nickname "Bugsy." Siegel was not pleased, especially when his gangland past was revealed.
On one return trip to the East, Siegel drove through the small town of Las Vegas, Nevada. Legend has it that Siegel suddenly had a vision of turning Las Vegas into a gambling mecca. Others said he had merely stopped there for a call of nature.
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His Las Vegas venture
According to popular myth, Bugsy envisioned building a large casino and hotel to which gamblers would flock. His vision was fueled by the fact that Nevada had legalized gambling in 1931. Back in the East, Siegel convinced his fellow mobsters of the possibilities of building a gambling mecca in the Nevada desert, complete with a casino, hotel and entertainment. Siegel returned to the West Coast and began working on his dream to construct a hotel-casino complex on what would later become known as the Las Vegas Strip. Siegel called the place the "Flamingo," his pet name for Virginia Hill.
The reality is that the Mafia had had a presence in Las Vegas casinos dating back to at least 1941. The swank Flamingo was actually conceived and started by Los Angeles businessman Billy Wilkerson, who handed the project over to Siegel only after running short of funds. In return, Siegel allowed Wilkerson to retain a one-third ownership.
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The Flamingo fiasco
However, Siegel knew little about construction; under his oversight, the construction costs ballooned from $1 million to $6 million. Allegedly, the Del Webb company, which was in charge of construction, would drive building materials onto the site, before simply driving them out the back gate and billing Siegel for the work. When Webb told Siegel of his fears that that he would come to harm, Siegel reputedly joked: "Don't worry, Del. We only kill each other."
The Mafia members on the East Coast who had invested in Siegel's project began to suspect that Siegel was stealing money from them. Because Hill had been making frequent trips to Zurich, the mob worried that Siegel might be putting the money into Swiss bank accounts.
In 1946, several of Siegel's business and crime partners flew to Havana, Cuba, for a meeting with Luciano, who was now directing Mafia operations from Italy after being paroled from prison in the United States and deported. One of the main topics for discussion at the Havana conference was whether they should order a hit on Siegel, who was kept in the dark about the meeting. Lansky, who remembered fondly how Siegel had saved his life on various occasions when they were young, took a stand against the hit and asked them to give Siegel a chance by waiting until after the casino had opened. Luciano, who believed that Siegel could still make a profit in Las Vegas and pay back what he owed the Mafia investors, agreed to cancel the hit.
Siegel opened his casino on the star-studded night of December 26, 1946, although he did not have as many Hollywood celebrities with him as he had hoped. Soon the Flamingo ran dry of entertainers and customers, and the gangsters once again met in Havana to decide whether to "liquidate" Siegel. But, luckily for Siegel, he had turned a profit for the month of that second meeting, so Lansky again spoke up in support of his old friend and convinced Luciano to give Siegel one last chance.
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The last act
Eventually, Siegel's business venture in Las Vegas failed. Virginia stole the money Siegel owed the mob and fled to Paris, then Sweden. Even his boyhood friend Lansky now abandoned Siegel. Hill was not at home on the night of June 20, 1947, when at 10:45 p.m., a mob hitman, Eddie Cannizzaro, hidden outside the couple's mansion at 810 N. Linden Drive, in Beverly Hills, shot Siegel in the head with an M1 carbine as he sat near a window reading the Los Angeles Times. The matinee-idol handsome 41-year-old mobster died instantly.
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Cultural references
In 1991, the life of Bugsy Siegel was the subject of the highly fictionalized motion picture Bugsy, with Warren Beatty in the title role.
The character of Moe Green in The Godfather was based on Siegel.
Siegel was also portayed by Harvey Keitel (who himself appeared in the Bugsy film as Mickey Cohen), in the 1973 TV movie The Virginia Hill Story and by Armand Assante in the 1991 film The Marrying Man.
The title of the song Mr. Siegal by Tom Waits refers to Bugsy Siegel.
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External links
