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Speaker 1: Well, they may have lost a little bit of their

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Speaker 1: luster in the past few decades, but you gotta admit

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Speaker 1: the mafia still fascinates us. They dominated illegal booze, drugs, sex,

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Speaker 1: and gambling in the first half of the twentieth century.

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Speaker 1: I'm Patty Steele, the wise guys who built Las Vegas,

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Speaker 1: and the deadly outcome for one of them. Next on

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Speaker 1: the backstory, The backstory is back. Everybody's talking about the

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Speaker 1: twenty fifth anniversary of the huge HBO show The Sopranos. Right.

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Speaker 1: Show traces the evolution, or maybe the decline of the

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Speaker 1: mob in the late twentieth century. The mafia really had

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Speaker 1: its heyday back in the nineteen twenties on through to

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Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. Now, early on names like al Capone,

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Speaker 1: John Dillinger, Lucky Luciano, Carlo Gambino and later the Genovies

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Speaker 1: and Gotti families not only terrified their enemies but fascinated

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Speaker 1: the public. But there were a couple of guys in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen five forties who didn't exactly fit the mold,

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Speaker 1: the Italian American mold. They were Meyer, Lanski and notably

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Speaker 1: Bugsy Siegel, and those guys focused on Las Vegas, that small, hot,

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Speaker 1: dusty town and helped turn it into a gambling, partying

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Speaker 1: and sex mecca. Bugsy saw it as a gold mine.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty, Vegas had a population of about five thousand.

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Speaker 1: That's when the government began building the nearby Boulder Dam

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Speaker 1: we know it today as the Hoover Dam, and they

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Speaker 1: brought in around twenty five thousand workers to build it.

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Speaker 1: The mafia and a few local businessmen saw an opportunity

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Speaker 1: to entertain the mostly young male workers with casinos and showgirls,

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Speaker 1: of course, and Bugsy Siegel wanted to capitalize on that.

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Speaker 1: Bugsy and his childhood pow Meyer Lanski had grown up

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Speaker 1: in Brooklyn and they started their business during Prohibition in

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Speaker 1: the late nineteen twenties. They formed the Bugs and Meyer Mob,

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Speaker 1: making money off of legging, gambling, and even murder. They

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Speaker 1: hooked up with powerful mob figures like Lucky Luciano and

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Speaker 1: Frank Costello, but after a time they realized their Jewish

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Speaker 1: heritage meant they would always be outsiders to their mafia

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Speaker 1: cohorts who were Italian. So in the nineteen thirties, Bugsy

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Speaker 1: heads to Hollywood, where his handsome looks and his charm

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Speaker 1: make him a hit among movie stars, all kinds of celebrities,

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Speaker 1: even politicians. He makes money through gambling and narcotics. By

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Speaker 1: the early nineteen forties, Vegas grabs his attention. He partners

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Speaker 1: with the guy who owns the famed Hollywood Reporter newspaper,

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Speaker 1: Billy Wilkerson, but Bugsy pretty much muscles him out and

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Speaker 1: steals management of the project from Wilkerson. He's backed financially

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Speaker 1: by those old mafia pals like Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello,

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Speaker 1: and he begins a project that really redefines Las Vegas.

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Speaker 1: That project, the Flamingo, the town's first big luxury hotel

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Speaker 1: and casino where it is. Bugsy called it the Flamingo

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Speaker 1: in honor of his girlfriend, Virginia Hill, known for her

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Speaker 1: very long legs. The Flamingo was going to be a luxurious,

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Speaker 1: sophisticated destination for people with money who liked to spend it.

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Speaker 1: But it's the aftermath of World War Two, and with

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Speaker 1: all the postwar building going on, the construction of the

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Speaker 1: Flamingo had a lot of challenges. The million dollar budget ballooned,

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Speaker 1: not just because supplies were tough to get, but also

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Speaker 1: because of Bugsy's extravagance, crummy management, and corruption. Now it

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Speaker 1: looked like the place would cost about six million to

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Speaker 1: open a fortune in those days close to one hundred

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Speaker 1: million today, and that really upset Buggsy's silent partners in

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Speaker 1: the Mob. On top of that, workers weren't getting paid

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Speaker 1: and Bugsy was threatening them to keep them on the job.

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Speaker 1: There was also talk that he and his girlfriend Virginia

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Speaker 1: were skimming cash. Okay, now, it's the Flamingo's opening night

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Speaker 1: December twenty sixth, nineteen forty six, and the place was

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Speaker 1: a mess. Bugsy invited more than two hundred VIPs, including

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Speaker 1: some big Hollywood stars. Now, the problem is the hotel

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Speaker 1: itself isn't finished, so all those high rollers had to

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Speaker 1: stay someplace else. There were a lot of people on

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Speaker 1: hand in the casino itself looked amazing, but with all

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Speaker 1: these folks staying in other hotels, the place was losing money.

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Speaker 1: In order to get on schedule with the hotel's grand

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Speaker 1: opening the following March, they had to shut down the

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Speaker 1: casino and that was financially disappointing to Bugsy's Mob investors

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Speaker 1: not people you want to disappoint right now. On the upside,

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Speaker 1: despite the disastrous December opening, Bugsy reopens the entire Flamingo

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Speaker 1: hotel included just three months later, in March of nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty seven. This time, it's a huge success for a time.

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Speaker 1: Reviews called it an adult fairyland, lush, plush, and fantastic.

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Speaker 1: One said that Flamingo was the most fantastic gambling casino

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Speaker 1: ever constructed. A junior taj mahal Well. Pretty quickly, Vegas's

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Speaker 1: first big luxury hotel in casino becomes a profitable business,

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Speaker 1: but Bugsy had already lost the backing of his mob friends,

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Speaker 1: now turned enemies. It's a really successful spring for the Flamingo.

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Speaker 1: The place starts to turn a profit almost immediately, but

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Speaker 1: Bugsy's threatening behavior and illicit business practices had taken an

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Speaker 1: irreversible toll on his reputation. And then, worst of all,

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Speaker 1: that early success slowed down and the crowds dwindled. Now

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Speaker 1: it's June twentieth, nineteen forty seven, just six months after

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Speaker 1: the disastrous first opening and three months after the initially

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Speaker 1: successful reopening. Bugsy is relaxing at his girlfriend, Virginia Hill's

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Speaker 1: home in Beverly Hills, California. A friend is there visiting

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Speaker 1: for the evening, Bugsy's reading the La times when suddenly

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Speaker 1: a shot is fired, and then more shots. Bugsy is

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Speaker 1: hit multiple times, including at least twice in the head

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Speaker 1: with a thirty caliber military M one carbine. No one

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Speaker 1: is ever charged, and the case is still considered unsolved

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Speaker 1: almost eighty years later. Now where did he go wrong?

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Speaker 1: Was it his crazy lavish spending him and his girlfriend

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Speaker 1: possibly stealing mob money or did he cross somebody else

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Speaker 1: along the way? And there's another twist involving Virginia. She

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Speaker 1: was a mob insider both before and after her relationship

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Speaker 1: with Bugsy. It seems a few days before the hit

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Speaker 1: on Bugsy she left on a last minute trip to Paris,

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Speaker 1: and some think she knew what was coming down and

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Speaker 1: simply got herself out of the way. Years later, Virginia

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Speaker 1: was living in Austria with her son. It was nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty six when she committed suicide by taking an overdose

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Speaker 1: of sleeping pills. There was some suspicion that she was

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Speaker 1: murdered by the mob because she had too much inside

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Speaker 1: info on them. She was forty nine years old. As

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Speaker 1: for Bugsy Siegel, he has an interesting reputation as both

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Speaker 1: a cold blooded mobster, but also as a visionary in

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Speaker 1: the glitzy and kind of cutthroat world of entertainment. The

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Speaker 1: Flamingo he created became the model for the big, glitzy

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Speaker 1: hotels and casinos we see in Vegas. Now seems Bugsy

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Speaker 1: was a lot like Las Vegas itself, lots of bright

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Speaker 1: neon and plenty of darkness. Just a reminder, if you

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Speaker 1: have an idea for a backstory that you'd like me

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Speaker 1: to take a deeper dive into and share, you can

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Speaker 1: direct message me on Instagram at Real Patty Steele or

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Speaker 1: on Facebook at Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstore

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Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durand Group,

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Speaker 1: and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser, our

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Speaker 1: writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.

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Speaker 1: Feel free to reach out to me with comments and

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Speaker 1: even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and

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Speaker 1: on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the

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Speaker 1: Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't

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Speaker 1: know you needed to know