Allen Smiley “was one of the most powerful gangsters in [California],” wrote author Gerald Horne in Class Struggle in Hollywood, 1930-1950. He was Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel’s partner and best friend and subsequently, Johnny Rosselli’s* right-hand man. Somewhat in the shadow of these famed men and a private person, his story is less well known. So…
1946 Mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel’s wife, Esta (née Esther Krakower) filed for divorce in Reno, Nevada after 17 years of marriage. The two had wed when she was 18 and he was 23. In the divorce settlement, Esta got their Hollywood house, their New York apartment, Bugsy’s Cadillac, $600 a week in alimony ($7,500 today)…
1972 Twenty-six years after the gangland assassination of mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and his debut of the Flamingo in Las Vegas, a trap door was discovered in one of the hotel-casino’s offices when the carpet was pulled up during some remodeling. It hid a 15-inch-square safe encased in cement, which was believed to have been…
1949 The article, “Las Vegas Gamblers Arming in Control Battle,” ran on the front page of a Los Angeles newspaper in the third week of December, to the chagrin of Nevada gambling regulators, casino owners, officers of the law and other industry representatives. The story reported that in the new iteration of Sin City: •…