Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel is the man most responsible for Las Vegas’ renaissance as the gambling capital of the world.
Siegel was born Benjamin Siegelbaum on February 28, 1906 in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. As a teenager, he crossed the bridge into Manhattan and formed a gang on Lafayette Street, which bordered the Little Italy border, with another thug named Moe Sedway. His main racket was to extort pushcart owners for protection money, and if they were not paid promptly, they would burn the poor owner’s cart.
Soon Siegel became associated with Meyer Lansky, the man who would shape his life and ultimately his death. Together they formed the “Bugs and Meyer Gang”, which began in auto theft and ended up running successful contracts for smugglers, who had their shipments hijacked. This neat little murder business was the forerunner of the infamous Murder Incorporated, which handled hundreds of contract killings during the 1930s.
In the late 1920s, Siegel and Lansky hooked up with ambitious Italian mobsters Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Joe Adonis, Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia, and Tommy Lucchese. Together they formed a National Crime Commission, which controlled all organized crime in the United States for many years. Siegel was the group’s top hit man, and he led the four-man team, which riddled the body of Joe “The Boss” Masseria in a Coney Island restaurant with bullets. Siegel developed a reputation as a man who not only killed frequently, but enjoyed killing, with the glee of a schoolboy on his first date.
In the late 1930s, the Commission sent Siegel to California to take over his West Coast rackets, including the lucrative racing cable, which relayed horse racing results to thousands of bookies around the world. the country. Siegel pushed aside West Coast mob boss Jack Dragna, who was told by Lansky and Luciano that if he didn’t step down and hand over the reins to Siegel, bad things would happen to him fast. Dragna did as he was told.
While in Hollywood, Siegel, once a handsome movie star, was a renowned ladies’ man, sometimes sleeping with three or four stars at a time. He hung out with movie stars like Clark Cable, Gary Cooper, George Raft, and Cary Grant. The girls he slept with included Jean Harlow, Wendy Barry, Marie McDonald, Virginia Hill, and the Italian Countess Dorothy diFrasso. Even though Siegel was busy with the girls, he always found time to kill a little on the side. In 1939, on the orders of New York City Jewish mob boss Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, Siegel beat up Harry “Big Greenie” Greenberg, who was singing like a canary for the feds. Siegel was arrested for murder, but after a witness conveniently disappeared, he was cleared of all charges.
Bad publicity from the Greenberg trial ruined Siegel’s city man reputation in Hollywood, so the Commission sent Siegel to Las Vegas to scout locations for a hotel/casino they wanted to build. Siegel found the perfect spot and convinced New York City kids, including his friend Lansky, to invest millions in an opulent nightclub he called The Flamingo. The Flamingo building was a disaster from the start. His insistence on only the best of everything skyrocketed costs to a staggering $6 million, which annoyed his New York City associates more than a little. Also, there was concern that perhaps Siegel was making a bit of construction money to finance his actions with the ladies.
Opening night in December 1946 was an absolute disaster. Siegel had moved the opening date forward to March 1947, while the hotel was still in the last stages of construction. With The Flamingo not showing itself well (the lobby was covered in ugly fabrics), the Hollywood crowd stayed away, and within a few months, The Flamingo was over a quarter of a million dollars in the red. Losing money gambling was unheard of among the mob, so the Commission made the business decision that Siegel’s days on earth had to end. Old friend Lansky had no trouble signing the death warrant for his childhood friend. Business is business and Siegel was bad for business.
On June 20, 1947, in Beverly Hill, Siegel was sitting on the couch in the living room of his girlfriend Virginia Hill’s house, reading the Los Angeles Times. Suddenly, two rifle bullets fired from an open window struck Siegel square in the face. A bullet hit him in the right cheek and settled in his brain. The second hit him in the nose and pierced his right eye. The eye was found on the ground, fifteen feet from Siegel’s lifeless body.