Mickey Cohen

Cohen’s first involvement with organized crime came when he began working for the Chicago Outfit. During this turbulent period, he met Al Capone and worked alongside Mattie Capone, Al’s younger brother.

Meeting Al Capone was a defining moment for Cohen. He later recalled, “I walked into his office kind of awed, because I was a young kid anyway, walking into the office of Al Capone. He did something which was a very big thing for me, he kind of held my head and kissed me on both cheeks.” Capone thought highly of Cohen and promised to support him in any future ventures.

Cohen's role involved running illegal gambling and card games, eventually leading to a violent shootout between rival racketeers and his exile to California. Before leaving Chicago, he survived the first of many assassination attempts when rival gangsters shot at him while he was wearing his favorite camel hair coat. Shortly afterward, partly because there was little left for him to do in Chicago, he relocated to Los Angeles.

Ill-educated, semi-literate, and naturally combative, Cohen proved the ideal partner for Ben “Bugsy” Siegel. Together they became an effective extension of the East Coast crime syndicate on the West Coast. Before their arrival, organized crime operations in California were relatively modest, but Bugsy and Cohen transformed them into a lucrative enterprise built on gambling, narcotics, and control of labor unions.

Cohen thrived on the West Coast and seemed to survive countless dangers. Unknowingly, many of the clubs and casinos he targeted were already controlled by organized crime, operating before the rise of Las Vegas as the gambling capital.

Although Hollywood was famous for its glamour and gangster films, large-scale racketeering was limited. The dominant crime boss was Jack Dragna, whose operations included offshore gambling ships and protection rackets in which his own men intimidated victims before Dragna offered to "protect" them for a fee.

From the perspective of the East Coast syndicate, Dragna belonged to an older generation of gangsters. He lacked the ruthlessness and influence they desired, and he deeply resented Cohen and Bugsy introducing a competing wire service for bookmakers while operating in his territory.

After Bugsy Siegel was assassinated by a sniper in 1947 while sitting inside a bungalow, Jack Dragna turned his attention toward Cohen, who was expected to take control of the syndicate's West Coast operations.

As the syndicate's representative in California, Cohen cultivated relationships with influential Hollywood figures and leading Los Angeles politicians. He became friends with prominent studio executives and celebrities, including Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. He was even alleged to have protected Davis from a beating ordered by a Columbia studio executive because of Davis's relationship with actress Kim Novak.

When he was not socializing with Hollywood's elite, Cohen exploited them. One of his most profitable schemes involved blackmailing movie stars over private scandals, often arranging for their intimate encounters to be secretly photographed or recorded.

Among his alleged victims was Lana Turner, whom he secretly recorded during an intimate encounter with John Stompanato in a motel room. Stompanato later became one of Cohen's close associates and was eventually at the center of a widely publicized murder case. Cohen reportedly profited by circulating the recording. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was also said to be aware of Cohen's blackmail operation, which helped make him both respected and feared throughout Hollywood.

Following Bugsy's death, Jack Dragna launched a campaign against Cohen. Numerous attempts were made on Cohen's life, including street gunfights, restaurant shootings, and a bombing at his home that fortunately caused no injuries. The escalating conflict eventually drew the attention of the Senate Select Committee on Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce.

Ironically, rather than prosecuting him for organized crime activities, the committee's work ultimately led to Cohen being indicted, tried, and convicted of income tax evasion in 1950. He was sentenced to four years in federal prison.

One of the most notable episodes of Cohen's life involved the highly publicized relationship between his associate John Stompanato and actress Lana Turner. Although never a full member of the criminal organization, Stompanato was an opportunist and gigolo who pursued wealthy women.

Stompanato's relationship with Turner was notoriously volatile, marked by repeated arguments and reconciliations. According to Cohen's autobiography, Turner frequently blamed him whenever Stompanato temporarily left her.

When Cohen learned that Stompanato had been killed by Turner's daughter, the scandal took a personal turn after Turner publicly claimed she feared Cohen would seek revenge. Cohen responded by releasing intimate letters Turner had written to Stompanato, which he said demonstrated her deep attachment to him. Turner's daughter was ultimately found not guilty, while Cohen maintained that the true killers, whom he implied were rival gangsters, had escaped justice.

Cohen returned to prison for a second time in 1961 after being convicted of tax evasion. He was sentenced to 15 years and initially incarcerated at the notorious Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay. Following the closure of Alcatraz, he was transferred to a prison in Atlanta, where he was brutally attacked by a disturbed inmate wielding an iron bar, leaving him partially paralyzed.

After being released from the federal medical center in Springfield, Missouri, in 1972, the aging former mobster retired and spent his remaining years traveling around the country visiting old friends.

One final high-profile episode briefly returned Cohen to the public spotlight in 1974, when 19-year-old heiress Patty Hearst, granddaughter of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). The terrorist group targeted the Hearst family because of the wealth and influence of its newspaper empire.

Because of his extensive underworld connections, the Hearst family sought Cohen's assistance in locating those responsible for Patty Hearst's kidnapping. Despite his efforts, he was unable to make any progress. Cohen eventually withdrew from the matter after it became apparent that Patty Hearst was unwilling to return home and might herself face prosecution for terrorist activities.

Cohen spent his final years at his home in California, where he died peacefully in 1976.

“I started rooting - you know, sticking up joints - with some older guys. By now I had gotten a taste of what the racket world really was - the glamour, the way they dressed, the way they always had a pocketful of money.”

Mickey Cohen

“I didn't kill anyone that didn't deserve killing in the first place.”

Mickey Cohen