Bugsy Siegel is America’s most dazzling gangster. The killer lived unpredictably and violently – but with style. And he got involved in Hollywood. He splurged and dressed as lavishly as the stars.
Other gangsters always looked like high-flying criminals, even with huge limousines and custom-made clothes, but Bob “Bugsy” Siegel embodied the connection between dream factory and crime. A new biography of Bugsy Siegel by Michael Shnayerson tells the story of how the notorious gangster socialized with Hollywood stars and dreamed of becoming an actor (Bugsy Siegel: “The Dark Side of the American Dream”).
Siegel only came to Hollywood after the golden days of Prohibition. There he had affairs with Jean Harlow, Ketti Gelman and Wendy Barrie. But his great love was Virginia Hill, a failed actress. He counted Gary Cooper, Cary Grant and Clark Gable among his friends and wanted to be an actor himself.
Bugsy Siegel had come a long way: from the desolate tenements of the Lower East Side. Meyer Lansky was just 16 when he noticed 12-year-old Siegel reaching for a gun that had slipped from his hands in a street fight. Lansky yelled “drop the gun” – saving Siegel from arrest. The friendship between the two lasted a lifetime. Together with Meyer Lanksy, Siegel founded the hit squad “Murder Inc.”. The group is responsible for 1000 murders. In the 1920s, Siegel and Lansky brought more liquor into the United States than any other smuggler in the country. This ended in 1933 when Prohibition ended and organized crime had to look for other sources of income.
Siegel left New York to build an empire on the west coast. He was installed as “Man on the Shore” in California. “A move Siegel was born to make,” writes Shnayerson. According to gossip columnist Florabel Muir, he was the “picture-perfect thug for the romantic, emotional, almost childlike adults who populate the film colony.”
But the attentive lover always remained an unpredictable killer. His nickname Bugsy – the bug – alludes to his temperament. When Siegel got angry, people usually died as well. The FBI said he was “insane” in some ways. He was “both beautiful and violent,” according to Shnayerson. “He loved guns. His big problem was that he was always ready to run in and shoot first. Nobody reacted faster than him.”
Siegel knew that making a big entrance in Hollywood was everything. So he rented a huge house in Beverly Hills. He called himself a “sportsman” – that stood for gambling, extortion and contract killing. Siegel built up the protection money business, but he made exceptions. He asked only small amounts from the studio bosses. “Siegel wanted something different from those studio bosses. He wanted to be an actor. He even had footage of himself acting in case the studio bosses wanted to look at it.”
Siegel was immensely vain. A hairdresser reports that he simply undressed in the shop and stood on the table to admire his toned physique in the mirror. His regimen of beauty was as sophisticated as that of a Hollywood diva. But nothing came of the big roles, everyone was too scared of the mafia’s bloodhound. Siegel took the consequence, even without roles, he appeared like a star and lived like that.
He left his ailing wife Esther on the East Coast and was free to sleep in Hollywood. He got Jean Harlow a two-movie deal simply by giving studio boss Harry the money needed to make them. Then came the Countess Dorothy di Frasso, who had just separated from Gary Cooper. “Bugsy was so smooth, so charming, that he was accepted into Beverly Hills society,” wrote screenwriter Charles Bennett. The movie stars were smitten with the easy-going gangster. Jimmy Stewart’s wife Gloria said of Siegel’s rise: “Stars liked bigger stars; to them the only people who could be more glamorous than movie stars were the royals and the big gangsters.”
But at some point the stitch stopped working. The son of Jewish immigrants had made a fortune of $100 million through smuggling, gambling, racketeering and contract killing. But he spent even more money. Money he borrowed from his new friends and never paid back. One could not say no to Bugsy Siegel, but the involuntary sponsors were not enthusiastic either.
