Larry D. Gragg - Benjamin Bugsy Siegel: The Gangster, the Flamingo, and the Making of Modern Las Vegas

Benjamin Bugsy Siegel

The Gangster, the Flamingo, and
the Making of Modern Las Vegas

Larry D. Gragg

Copyright 2015 by Larry D. Gragg

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gragg, Larry Dale, 1950

Benjamin Bugsy Siegel : the gangster, the flamingo, and the making of modern Las Vegas / Larry D. Gragg.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 9781440801853 (hardback) ISBN 9781440801860 (ebook) 1. Siegel, Bugsy, 19061947. 2. CriminalsUnited StatesBiography. 3. CriminalsNevadaLas VegasBiography. 4. GamblingNevadaLas VegasHistory. 5. Las Vegas (Nev.)History. I. Title.

HV6248.S5619G732015

364.1092dc23

[B] 2014029312

ISBN: 9781440801853

EISBN: 9781440801860

19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook.

Visit www.abc-clio.com for details.

Praeger

An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

ABC-CLIO, LLC

130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911

Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

For Kelly, Al, and Su Kim Chung

I have been interested in Ben Siegels role in the development of Las Vegas for a decade. My initial effort to explain his contributions came in an article published in History Today in 2007. Three years later came an occasional paper that dealt with the mythology associated with Siegels vision of a new resort for the southern Nevada city, and in 2013 I included a chapter on him in Bright Light City: Las Vegas in Popular Culture, 19052005. In that chapter, I sought to demonstrate that Las Vegas and its developing Strip were already prospering before Siegel opened the Flamingo in December 1946. Since I had essentially deconstructed the Siegel myth, it seemed appropriate to offer a full-length biography of the successful New Yorkborn gangster who so embraced the celebrity culture of Hollywood and the rich possibilities for a legitimate life in Nevada. Siegel did contribute to the development of Las Vegas, but not in the way portrayed in popular culture.

One quickly becomes indebted to a host of people in researching and writing a biography. It begins with my great colleagues in history and political science at Missouri University of Science and Technology, who are some of the brightest teaching-scholars anywhere. What a privilege to work with such talented people! I have also had some outstanding students with whom to work on all things Las Vegas. Notable among them is Amanda Webb, who did such good work researching both Siegel and Moe Dalitz. The faculty and staff at Special Collections in the Lied Library at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas have become a second family for me. In 11 years of research, I have spent nearly 200 days at Special Collections. Delores Brownlee, Su Kim Chung, Michael Frazier, Michelle Light, Peter Michel, Joyce Moore, Dave Schwartz, Tom Sommer, Barbara Tabach, and Claytee White always make my research trips both rewarding and delightful. Patricia Iannuzzi, dean of University Libraries at UNLV, has a real treasure in the folks in Special Collections.

Several people at other repositories have assisted me throughout this project: Amy S. Wong and Simon Elliott at the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA; Spencer Howard at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library; Helen Long at the Newberry Library; Melinda Gandara at the University Art Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Lisa A. Hutchings and James DArc at the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University; Bruce Tabb at the Special Collections at the University of Oregon Libraries; Crystal R. Van Dee at the Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas; and Carolyn Fisher at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas. In my search for photos, Delores Brownlee at UNLV and Ginny Poehling and Lisa Jacob at the Las Vegas News Bureau were most helpful.

I have had the great good fortune to learn much from four individuals who read the entire manuscript and offered many helpful suggestions. Doris Gragg, Jim Giglio, Peter Michel, and Michael Green consistently improved the substance and style of the manuscript. All errors that remain, of course, are my own.

Michael Millman, my editor at ABC-CLIO, has been supportive and enthusiastic throughout the process of developing the manuscript. His cogent advice and rapid responses to my many questions have been most reassuring.

Finally, I wake up every morning knowing how lucky I am to have a wonderful family. Doris, Julie, Curt, Hopper, and Rascal are the true joy in my life.

He is to Las Vegas what Benjamin Franklin is to Philadelphia. Las Vegas was Benny Siegels vision, his grand design. Had it not been for his dream, there might be nothing there at all.

Stephen Birmingham, The Rest of Us, 1984

On June 20, 1947, less than six months after he opened the Flamingo Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, Ben Siegel died in a hail of bullets while sitting on a couch in a Beverly Hills mansion. Cut down at the age of 41, Siegel was one of the nations most widely known gangsters. Six years earlier, a New York City detective familiar with all the powerful organized crime figures in his city argued that Siegel was the leading gangster in this country. The subject of many newspaper articlesparticularly about his role in bootlegging during Prohibition, his Hollywood connections, and his association with the new Flamingoin the decade preceding his demise, Siegel had accomplished what many in organized crime shunned. He had become a celebrity.

A handsome man, Siegel stood five feet, nine inches tall with brown hair and blue eyes. Always fit in appearance, he weighed no more than 160 pounds. Unless angered, Siegel spoke softly and slowly and was known to be gifted at witty repartee. Vain in the extreme, Siegel loved to dress the part of the sportsman, wearing the latest fashions for young men on the nightclub circuit in New York and Southern California. Normally charming, particularly to beautiful women, Siegel nonetheless possessed a hair-trigger temper, and he used it to his advantage. Those who interacted with him were either fascinated or frightened.

Such a charismatic gangster should have been remarkably successful, and he was for many years, profiting from bootlegging in the East and then illegal gambling on the West Coast; but Siegel was also impetuous, restless, impatient, and too easily attracted to risks. He quickly rejected his immigrant parents ways and the tedious values of hard work and thrift. He always pursued the best way to make money quickly, whether legally or not, and whatever money he made, he spent. Like so many among the nouveau riche, Siegel truly embraced conspicuous consumption in his residences, his trips, his cars, and his clothing. Yet he never forgot to provide for his wife, children, and parents.

In indulging his passions and tastes, Siegel became one of the toughest and, at times, one of the most brutal leaders of the underworld. He did not tolerate opposition even from other powerful gangsters. He rejected the organized crime code that one must submit to the will of the group. By the late 1930s, Siegel had become a maverick, willing to work with allies only as long as he could control the critical decisions. Whether running the race wire business in California or building a hotel in Las Vegas, Ben Siegels word was final. His steely resolve to have his way regardless of the potential consequences occasionally placed him in jeopardy and ultimately cost him his life. He left a record that illuminates a good bit about the nature of organized crime in the first half of the twentieth century in America, a culture that did not accept impulsive and unpredictable individualists, no matter how charming.