'Bugsy Siegel' Review: A Slickly Lethal Gangster

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T

America's fascination with gangsters stems largely from vintage Hollywood movies featuring plausible stand-ins for real-life mobsters like Al Capone, Albert Anastasia and Dutch Schultz. The slickly lethal Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel—blue-eyed, handsome and physically fit—struck an image seemingly made for the silver screen. If Siegel were to be portrayed believably in the movies, the part would have to go to a charismatic star like Gary Cooper, Clark Gable or Cary Grant, all of whom were guests at Siegel's Gatsbyesque soirees in Los Angeles. (Warren Beatty played the title role in the eventual 1991 film "Bugsy.") "Class," this murderous hood said as a young man, "that's the only thing that counts in life. . . . Without class and style a man's a bum."

Siegel (1906-1947) grew up on New York's Lower East Side. This "American shtetl of more than one million people," writes Michael Shnayerson in his brisk-reading chronicle of Siegel's life and crimes, "[was] more tightly crammed than the population of Bombay, India." Here opportunity for advancement was slim, but not for those who forced their way into "gangster capitalism." Siegel, whose father worked in a factory as a pants presser, quit school early on to help support his parents and siblings. By 12, he was extorting protection money from pushcart peddlers and carriage drivers; those who didn't pay had their carts torched or horses poisoned. What distinguished Siegel from run-of-the-mill urchins, Mr. Shnayerson writes, was "an utter absence of fear. . . . Siegel became known as a chaye—a beast."

In 1918 Siegel met another neighborhood boy, 16-year-old Meyer Lansky, and the two teamed up in a gang. With the start of Prohibition in 1920, Siegel and Lansky became full-fledged criminals, running booze for bootlegger Arnold Rothstein. By 21 Siegel was a rich man, well able to support his family; in time, he would put his younger brother through medical school. But his family would always be ashamed of his money and what he did to earn it.

Throughout Prohibition, Siegel's dark star ascended. By the late 1920s, Mr. Shnayerson writes, "Siegel and Lansky were said to be bringing more booze into the United States than any other bootleggers in the land." In 1931 the two joined forces with other mob bosses (including Lucky Luciano), merging Irish, Italian and Jewish gangs into a multi-ethnic "Syndicate" meant to "minimize bloodshed and to maximize profits." When violence persisted within the new organization (whose interests now ranged into gambling and the garment industry), the Syndicate tapped "Murder, Inc." as its enforcement arm. This squad of killers, on retainer, would eventually claim a collective body count of between 400 and 1,000. Siegel became known for doing his own jobs himself.

"Was the perpetrator of these atrocities a sociopath?" Mr. Shnayerson asks. "A megalomaniac? Or just a sportsman of sadism?" Come again? The biographer, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the author of numerous nonfiction books, goes out of his way to place his homicidal subject in the fairest possible light. He also puts Siegel in a specific cultural framework (the book is part of Yale's well-regarded "Jewish Lives" series). While Siegel didn't attend synagogue, we learn that a rabbi officiated at his 1929 marriage. Later in life, he gave some $50,000 to help fund an army for the future Jewish state.

“The same bonds that held [Siegel and Lansky] together as gangsters held them together as Jews. These included the . . . resonance of Jewish values, shunted aside if business required, but always there in the fabric of their lives.” Consider Red Levine, “an Orthodox Jewish contract killer” used by Siegel and Lansky, “who tried not to kill on the Sabbath—but if the job had to be done, kissed his mezuzah, read his prayers draped in a tallit, and wore a skullcap under his hat as he headed out.”

Coaxed by Lansky, Siegel visited Los Angeles in 1933 to explore new moneymaking opportunities. His arrival was smoothed by his old New York crony George Raft, a fellow gangster and Broadway dancer-turned-Hollywood actor. Siegel muscled in on the management of a Sunset Strip gambling club. He eventually built a grand house in Holmby Hills, where he threw lavish parties for the biggest stars in town.

Jean Harlow became Siegel’s 5-year-old daughter’s “godmother.” Frank Sinatra was awe-struck. Siegel “bowled them over,” writes Mr. Shnayerson, “with his suave manner, his immaculate hand-tailored shirts, his two-hundred-dollar suits.” Only James Stewart was immune to the gangster’s charms; he told Siegel to go to hell. (Cary Grant pleaded with Stewart: “Look, Jim, the guy’s best pal is George Raft, and George says if Benny wants you to be his friend, you be his friend.”)

Tragedy (or at least pathos) lay ahead. First, Siegel fell hard for Virginia Hill, an Alabama-born gangsters’ moll and bagwoman who broke up his marriage and took over his life. Then his ambition launched him on a venture to build a stately pleasure-palace in Las Vegas. The Flamingo Hotel went millions over budget; its opening was a disaster, and it lost money its first several months of operation, angering Siegel’s Syndicate partners.

On the night of June 20, 1947, Siegel, age 41, was shot five times while sitting in the living room of Virginia Hill’s house in Beverly Hills.

Who killed Bugsy Siegel? No one was indicted. Mr. Shnayerson walks readers through possible answers, including the notion that Hill was involved. In the end, we’re led to conclude that it was Siegel’s hubris that did him in. Determined to prove he could make his American dream come true on his own, he squeezed out the experienced people involved with the Flamingo project. Emblematic of Siegel’s poor judgment was his decree that the casino’s moat be populated by a flock of pink flamingos. Out of their element in the desert heat, the pretty birds died.

Mr. Nolan reviews crime fiction for the Journal.