Bugsy Siegel is a name that casts a long shadow in casino history. He’s been credited with having an epiphany that led to the Flamingo casino, which (so the story goes) single-handedly spawned the Las Vegas Strip. That’s a lot to put on one resume, but for decades Siegel has had the role of unofficial godfather to the modern casino resort. He’s been the subject of biographies, novels, documentaries, and even feature films. A handsome, flamboyant former bootlegger and killer with a hair-trigger temper, Siegel was equal parts charisma and menace, which may make him the perfect personification of the casino industry’s past.
There’s just one problem with the story: the Flamingo wasn’t Siegel’s idea at all. Hollywood Reporter publisher Billy Wilkerson actually originated the idea and some construction had been done before Wilkerson sold an interest in the casino to a group of investors, one of whom was Siegel. But to understand how Siegel was in a position to deal with—and ultimately push aside—a Hollywood power player, knowing his background is important.
That’s where Larry Gragg’s biography of Siegel comes in. Gragg is an eminent American historian, the Curators’ Teaching Professor at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. He has a string of strong academic monographs to his credit, including work on early American Quakers, the colonization of Barbados, and 20th century Las Vegas. He has received over a dozen awards for excellence in teaching and research. This is a man who knows how to tell a story, and Siegel’s life is quite the story.
Gragg has meticulously researched Siegel, digging into previously untouched sources, including the gangster’s 2,400-page FBI file. Between these sources, previously published books, contemporary news accounts, and new interviews (including one with Siegel’s daughter, Millicent), Gragg has pulled together as complete a picture of Siegel as has ever existed and, absent the discovery of new material, is likely to exist.
The book traces Siegel’s rise in organized crime from his childhood on the Lower East Side to his hard-won success in Prohibition-era New York City, through his years in Southern California, and into his involvement with the Flamingo. This is a serious, comprehensive biography which resolves contradictions, demolishes myths, and admits when a mystery remains. In doing so, Gragg makes Siegel a bit less mythic but more real.
For example, one oft-told Siegel story is that, before World War II, he and his “friend” the Countess Dorothy DiFrasso traveled to Rome to pitch Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini on a new explosive. While there, so the story goes, Siegel met Nazi leaders Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goering and decided to kill both of them, but was talked out of it. It does seem too good a story to be true, and most Siegel biographers have been content to treat it as a fable. But Gragg, after comparing a number of sources, including Siegel’s own statements at an extradition hearing, travel records, the diary of Mussolini’s son-in-law, and the recollections of Siegel’s daughter, concludes that much of the story is true, though other elements remain “murky.” Goering was in Rome at the same time as Siegel, although Goebbels was not, and upon returning Siegel did say he wanted to kill a guest of the Duce’s. Was that Goering? It’s not unlikely, and thanks to Gragg the incident can be considered quite possibly true.
Gragg charts Siegel’s numerous criminal and business activities as well as his brushes with the law. Siegel emerged as a leading figure in Los Angeles gambling; he originally came to Las Vegas to “sort out” the race wire. That lucrative franchise, without which neither legal nor illegal race books could operate, inspired a great deal of violence for nearly fifty years. In the early 1940s, the skirmish over control of the wire was at its fiercest, and the volatile Siegel was in the middle of the struggle. He had numerous other interests, some legitimate, some not; the latter included Hollywood labor racketeering, bootlegged perfume, and heroin smuggling.
But we’re not interested in Siegel today because he cornered the market in illicit perfume. What about the Flamingo? Gragg lays out Siegel’s exact role in the casino, which was substantial: although it wasn’t his idea, he did take over the project. Siegel saw the desert hotel as his final ticket to legitimacy. Construction difficulties made it more of a “headache” as the opening approached, and, belying the myth that Siegel was a Las Vegas visionary sure of success, he tried to sell his stake but could find no takers. But he did get it open and, after several early miscues, running successfully.
The final chapter on Siegel, is, of course, his 1947 murder , which remains unsolved. Here, Gragg recreates Siegel’s final day and walks us through the many theories about the gangster’s killers, then concludes that unless further evidence is unearthed, the crime is likely to remain unsolved.
This is an excellent biography of Siegel, and an example of just how compelling a character the gangster can be in the right hands. Gragg has torn down the Bugsy myth, but reminded us of how much Ben Siegel still has to tell us about gambling, crime, and Las Vegas history.
Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel: The Gangster, the Flamingo, and the Making of Modern Las Vegas (January 2015, 200 pages with notes, a bibliographical essay, and an index) is published by Praeger (Santa Barbara, California). ISBN 978-1440801853
