<Archive Obituary> Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (June 20th 1947)
Bill Schenley
Photo: http://www.arrivelasvegas.com/seigal02.jpg
Benjamin Bugsy Siegel, 42, died last night, suddenly and violently,
with five rifle bullets in his head while the smell of gunpowder
mingled with the overwhelming perfume of nightblooming jasmine at the
palatial home of Virginia Hill in Beverly Hills' most exclusive
section."
Siegel died as he'd lived, in sudden and intense violence. He was a
handsome man with a reputation for womanizing that was almost as great
as his reputation for shooting people dead. In his last years he had
become a darling of Hollywood stars looking for a little excitement. A
far cry from where he started.
He began his career with Meyer Lansky on the Lower East Side of
Manhattan as an enforcer. Together they formed the Bugs and Meyer Mob,
which rented itself out as protection for bootleggers' shipments.
Often, they charged almost as much as the shipment was worth. When
Lansky moved up the underworld foodchain, Bugsy went with him as a
strongarm guy.
Lansky tried to get Siegel installed as chief killer in Murder, Inc.,
but the other bosses of crime realized this would put Lansky in a
position of strength over all of them. Instead, Siegel was sent to
Nevada to start the U.S.'s first legal luxury casino, the Pink
Flamingo. This probably led to his death. "Rumbles of trouble among
various interests with money invested in this $6,000,000 Monte Carlo
of Nevada had been circulating around the underworld for several
months. It was reported that the boys did not see how they could ever
get their money back."
<Note: The following day, Sunday, June 22nd, the Daily News ran this
photograph with this caption ... >
"One of his eyeballs was found
15 feet across the room on the tiled floor."
Photo:
http://rope.wrko-am.fimc.net/bulger/02.23.05.Bugsy_4.jpg (graphic)
---
Photo:
http://www.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/2/23/BugsySiegelSmaller.jpeg
---
The Mobster With The Movie Star Looks And The Certifiable Paranoia
Brought Las Vegas Much More Attention After His Death
Than He Did During His Short Life
FROM: The Las Vegas Review-Journal ~
By John L. Smith
For an incurable paranoid who had only a few moments left to live,
Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was probably feeling pretty content.
It was June 20, 1947. Siegel had escaped the stifling Las Vegas heat
for the cool shadows of the Moorish-style house at 810 Linden Drive in
Beverly Hills. He'd just returned there from Ocean Park after a late
dinner at Jack's-at-the-Beach. Settling onto the chintz sofa in the
living room, a copy of the Los Angeles Times before him and his
trusted pal, Al Smiley, a few feet away, the dapper Siegel was the
picture of confidence.
He was probably as self-satisfied as a sociopath with a blood-soaked
portfolio could be. After his Flamingo's disastrous grand opening on
Dec. 26, 1946 -- the strains of Jimmy Durante's one-liners and Xavier
Cugat's band fading amid the word that the casino had lost a
fortune -- the shiny new Las Vegas resort was reopened March 27 and
was finally turning a profit. That fact was almost certain to quiet
the whispered rumors from New York and Miami Beach that his days as a
Las Vegas casino mogul were numbered. Even his hell-raising
girlfriend, the fiery Virginia Hill, was in Europe and out of shouting
distance.
At age 41, Ben Siegel had carved out a notorious name for himself in
the annals of organized crime and in Las Vegas history as well.
Somehow, he had managed to walk between the raindrops and avoid
conviction on a plethora of crimes ranging from bootlegging to murder.
If he had not become a silver screen gangster, which his closest
friends believed he secretly wanted to be, he had accomplished the
next best thing: He had become a genuine gangster with movie star
looks and had surrounded himself with the Hollywood glitterati.
In a few seconds, his name would become permanently etched in the
American psyche. When people thought of Las Vegas, they would always
think of Benny Siegel. Not because he had turned the Fabulous Flamingo
into the snazziest carpet joint in Sin City, but because, at that
moment, an assassin wielding a Army-issue carbine aimed at the back of
Siegel's carefully coifed head and blew his brains and one of his
pretty blue eyes all over the living room. Smiley was untouched. The
shooter was never identified.
Siegel's .30-caliber send-off not only made headlines from L.A. to
London, it linked the handsome psychopath forever with the fortunes of
Las Vegas.
In a town with more than its share of wiseguy misfortune, what makes
Siegel's demise so special? For that matter, what makes the infamous
Bugsy worthy of a place in the pantheon of local historical figures?
Several things, really.
In an odd way, Siegel was better for business in death than in life.
Had Siegel lived a long time, he might have ended up respectable or in
the penitentiary. Had he died of a heart attack or the gout, he might
have become a footnote in time.
Instead, he died violently and, in a sense, got to live forever.
Through the years, Siegel has been credited for everything from
putting the glow in neon to inventing Las Vegas. The fact the Flamingo
wasn't even his idea tells you something about how myths are made.
The Flamingo was the creation of Billy Wilkerson, a Hollywood
nightclub owner and one of the founders of "The Hollywood Reporter."
Wilkerson had plenty of big ideas and no shortage of friends in the
underworld. The Flamingo was to be his crowning glory. By the
mid-1940s, it was an unfinished dream deferred.
Enter Siegel.
Bugsy was not only a wealthy man in his own right and a big-time
earner for his mob friends, but he had access to all the money the New
York, Chicago and Miami Beach underworld could generate. Numerous
published accounts of Siegel's status rank him as one of the most
respected and feared names in the syndicate. He carried the sort of
clout that was capable of persuading tightwads like Charlie "Lucky"
Luciano and Meyer Lansky to invest in his desert dream. And they did.
Siegel and the boys bankrolled construction of the Flamingo with $1.5
million, but in the months following the end of World War II,
materials were scarce. The job immediately ran over budget.
It didn't help that the four-floor Flamingo was built like a fortress,
a testament to Siegel's paranoia. The thick concrete walls were
reinforced with steel acquired from Naval ship yards. Siegel's
top-floor suite was riddled with trap doors and escape hatches, one
leading to a getaway car in his private garage. There were gun portals
and hallways leading nowhere. The Flamingo was a physical
manifestation of Bugsy Siegel's troubled brain.
But it also was filled with the sort of posh amenities never before
seen in Las Vegas. Siegel not only poured big money into carpets and
fixtures, he spared no expense on a pool, tennis courts and riding
stables. Siegel's idea, his first Las Vegas attorney, the late Lou
Wiener Jr. once said, was to create a real resort capable of not only
attracting the Hollywood set, but also to give gamblers a variety of
diversions from their inevitable losses at the tables. Siegel
envisioned adding a championship golf course to the Flamingo, but his
plans were interrupted.
Theft at the Flamingo construction site was legendary, a big part of
the reason the hotel ultimately cost $6 million, an incredible figure
for the times. "A lot of characters, I think, duped him," Wiener said.
"They'd go through the front gates with materials and drive out the
back." But at least one author suggests Siegel's own sticky fingers
were responsible. Says Richard Hammer in his well-researched
"Playboy's Illustrated History of Organized Crime:"
"Siegel was not only a flop as an impresario, but, Lansky said, he was
a thief as well. Lansky had learned that Miss Hill was making frequent
trips to Europe, depositing several hundred thousand dollars in cash
in a numbered account in Switzerland; the cash had come from the
Flamingo's building fund.
"Nobody, not even an old trusted comrade like Siegel, steals from his
underworld friends and gets away with it. Siegel's execution was
ordered, but first he would be given time to prove that his Nevada
dream might actually come true."
It is possible, too, that Siegel's Hollywood profile became so high
that he became an embarrassment to his associates. He was a
silver-screen sycophant and groomed the acquaintance of major players
such as Jack Warner, Cary Grant, Barbara Hutton, Jean Harlow and every
hoodlum's favorite actor, George Raft. American gangsters learned how
to walk by watching George Raft on the screen. They learned how to
talk by listening to his snappy, wiseguy patter.
"He was a frustrated actor and secretly wanted a movie career, but he
never quite had nerve enough to ask for a part in one of my pictures,"
Raft once said of his pal.
Las Vegas history buffs know Siegel as the man who developed the
Flamingo, but few appreciate just how big a hoodlum he really was.
Born in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn in 1905, as a boy Siegel
befriended Meyer Lansky. Together with a gang of teen-age toughs known
as the Bug and Meyer Mob, they provided protection and efficiently
performed a string of contract killings on behalf of the city's
bootlegging fraternity. By the time World War II broke out, Siegel and
Lansky had made the post-Prohibition transition from illegal whiskey
running to illegal bookmaking, numbers running and gambling. Siegel
lived at the Waldorf Astoria and traveled in a bullet-proof limousine
with the requisite pair of torpedoes posing as bodyguards.
After coming West to oversee the Capone mob's successful takeover of
the race wire business, Siegel's infatuation with Hollywood began to
show -- and his profile began to rise dangerously high. At the same
time he was muscling in on illegal gambling throughout Southern
California, buying percentages of small Las Vegas casinos, clipping
Tony Cornero's S.S. Rex gambling ship, and strong-arming his way into
the Agua Caliente racetrack in Tijuana as well as a California dog
track, Siegel was busy being seen in the company of Harlow and Raft
and many other stars. Continental race wire sales to Las Vegas sports
books alone generated $25,000 a month, according to "The Green Felt
Jungle," and Siegel bought into the Golden Nugget and Frontier at a
time his pal Lansky was picking up a piece of the El Cortez.
Siegel was one of the schemers behind opening a pipeline of narcotics
trafficking from Mexico to the United States, and he raked a
percentage of the profits from the largest prostitution ring in the
West. If it moved in the netherworld of illegality, Benny Siegel got
his pinch.
Siegel's temper was legendary. No one dared call him "Bugsy" to his
face, and anyone with a smart aleck comment about his height or
thinning hair was likely to get his teeth knocked down his throat. To
some local observers, Siegel's maniacal chest-puffing set the pattern
for several generations of big-shot casino moguls.
Las Vegan Herb McDonald, then a young assistant general manager at El
Rancho Vegas, met Siegel through Billy Wilkerson. For a short time,
McDonald knew Siegel only as a casino man.
"We played gin rummy, and I won 28 bucks," McDonald said in an article
in Nevada magazine. "When I saw Ben Siegel again, he asked me when I
was going to give him a chance to win some of his money back. I said,
'Any time you think you're good enough.' "
A short while later, McDonald learned Siegel's true background as a
member of the board of Murder Inc.
"My knees buckled," McDonald said. "Had I known that, I would have
lost it."
But Wiener knew Bugsy as an intense character who was not without a
charitable streak. Siegel was a soft touch for the Damon Runyon Cancer
Fund.
"When he got killed, you wouldn't believe how many employees broke
down in tears," Wiener recalled. "He was very generous with the help
and very well liked. He was good to people. He was good to me and my
wife."
But others knew Siegel as a textbook paranoid.
"He used to go down to Los Angeles about every two weeks," said the
Flamingo's first engineer, Don Garvin. "He'd have me change the lock
on the door of his room almost every week. He and Virginia would sit
out in the hall while I worked. He was a little leery. It got to where
I would pretend to change it and hand him the same key."
But, in 1947, no amount of caution could prevent the boys from
disciplining one of their own.
Wallace Turner put it bluntly in his break-through 1965 book,
"Gamblers' Money:"
"Siegel was murdered reportedly to effect a change in management.
There are those who firmly believe that this killing of the hoodlum
Siegel irrevocably set the pattern for Las Vegas' development as a
gambling center. The Mob was in, these observers hold, and the Mob has
stayed ...
"In a sense he was the Christopher Columbus for the Mob; he went
exploring and found the New World in the desert. But Siegel failed to
adapt. It is possible that he became confused between the two ways of
doing business and thought that because his name was on so many pieces
of paper he really owned the Flamingo Hotel. He was wrong."
Today, the Flamingo Hilton is one of the larger casino resorts in the
world. It has long since shed its association with Siegel's kind, but
management saw fit to honor the Flamingo's founder with a bronze
plaque and a small rose garden not far from the original site of the
Flamingo's first pool.
What is Siegel's legacy?
"I think what it shows more than anything else is the public's
fascination with gangster-type characters," Flamingo publicity
director Terry Lindberg said. "(His death) turned a man who was
basically not a historical figure into somebody who was a lot larger
than life."
Others give Siegel more credit.
UNLV Public Administration Department Chairman William Thompson: "It's
folklore, it's mythology ... His death let the world know we had
casinos ...
"It was important that we turned the corner and quit being just a
cowboy town and became a resort town. He was responsible for that."
It is a sentiment echoed by UNLV history professor Hal Rothman, author
of "Devil's Bargain: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West."
"The most important thing about Siegel is he raised the ante here,"
said Rothman. "He had an idea, however bizarre, of what class was. As
we become a resort destination, we actually owe him more and more."
Las Vegas historian Frank Wright: "His death was a great advertisement
for the city of Las Vegas in a sense. It certainly brought attention
to Las Vegas and created a sort of sense of illicit excitement about
Las Vegas."
Ever a defender of the image of his old friend, Wiener credited Siegel
with setting a standard others are still trying to match.
"He was one of the most progressive businessmen I've ever met," Wiener
once said. "Had he been alive today, he probably would have had the
first 3,000-room hotel in Las Vegas."
But Ben Siegel was not meant for such a tame fate. By spilling his
blood, he lives forever in Las Vegas history.
---
Photos: http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,445257,00.jpg
Virginia Hill's home: http://www.afhu.org/site/chocolate/album/05.jpg
Death certificate: http://www.bugsysiegel.net/deathcert.html
Coroner's report: http://www.bugsysiegel.net/coroner.html
Ben Siegel's women ~
Esta Siegel: http://www.bugsysiegel.net/esta.html
Virginia Hill:
http://www.vnn.vn/dataimages/original/images468683_hill.jpg
Wendy Barrie:
http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/j/Wendy%20Barrie.jpg
Marie McDonald:
http://www.fantasticthings.plus.com/Autographs/Autog_pics/marie_mcdonald.JPG
Ketti Gallian: http://cinestills.com/image/1/g/galliankettifox.jpg
Siegel's last photo:
http://www-x.nzz.ch/folio/archiv/2000/08/img/haentzschel3.jpeg
"Don't worry, we only kill each other."
- Ben Siegel (to Del Webb) -
Bob Feigel
magnanimously proffered:
>FROM: The Los Angeles Daily News (June 21st 1947) ~
>
>Photo: http://www.arrivelasvegas.com/seigal02.jpg
>
>Benjamin Bugsy Siegel, 42, died last night, suddenly and violently,
>with five rifle bullets in his head while the smell of gunpowder
>mingled with the overwhelming perfume of nightblooming jasmine at the
>palatial home of Virginia Hill in Beverly Hills' most exclusive
>section."
Well ... *someone* certainly wanted to make sure he was well and truly
dead. b
"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Woody Allen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wax-up and drop-in of Surfing's Golden Years: <http://www.surfwriter.net>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Matthew Kruk
>
> On Mon, 20 Jun 2005 06:26:51 GMT, "Bill Schenley" <stra...@ma.rr.com>
> magnanimously proffered:
>
> >FROM: The Los Angeles Daily News (June 21st 1947) ~
> >
> >Photo: http://www.arrivelasvegas.com/seigal02.jpg
> >
> >Benjamin Bugsy Siegel, 42, died last night, suddenly and violently,
> >with five rifle bullets in his head while the smell of gunpowder
> >mingled with the overwhelming perfume of nightblooming jasmine at the
> >palatial home of Virginia Hill in Beverly Hills' most exclusive
> >section."
>
> Well ... *someone* certainly wanted to make sure he was well and truly
> dead. b
Overkill if you ask me. ;-)
Delbert Stanley
Bugsy's right eye was found 15 feet away from its natural place. I wonder
why the killer (Frankie Carbo?) didn't go for a matching set, and take out
the left eye.
In those days a more superstitious killer would sometimes take out a
victim's eyes after a hit. Some believed that if a victim saw his killer,
the image of the killer being the last thing he saw would be "burned" into
the victim's eyes, sorta like burn-in in a CRT. If the police looked into
the dead man's eyes the killer could be identified! And to think people say
"dead men tell no tales".
The solution was simple. Take out the eyes, you get rid of the evidence.
Despite pieces of Bugsy's brain stuck on the ceiling, leaving that left eye
(she's dead too) the killer
probably had a sleepless night. After all, if Bugsy had double vision in
that one eye, the effect could be to combine both visions forming one image;
the killer (theremin music) .And you think several bullets in the head is
overkill. You would make a poor hit man with that attitude!
Besides, if someone is to appear here (obits) they should deserve to be
here. You make sure they really belong. The mafia never posts a question
mark behind a name.
"Matthew Kruk" <matthe...@telus.net> wrote in message
news:42B6883E...@telus.net...