4 Of the Most Notorious Mobsters in Hollywood

In the Golden Age of Hollywood mobsters ruled the industry. Here we look at four that took Hollywood by storm.

When most people think of famous mob bosses, they’re usually thinking of mobsters from New York City, or maybe Chicago. They’re probably not thinking about mobsters in Hollywood.

But back in the old Hollywood days, the city was controlled just as much by the mob as it was by movie producers. In fact, many of those movie producers were in deep with the mob.

Who were these famous mafia bosses who controlled old Hollywood? Here are four of the most notorious mobsters in Hollywood’s history.

Bugsy Siegel

Bugsy Siegel was already a pretty famous mobster by the time he arrived in Hollywood. Bugsy worked for infamous mob bosses Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky in New York.

He was a brutal enforcer for the New York mob. He was a founding member of Murder Inc., the infamous group of mob enforcers responsible for countless murders. Siegel was also known as a ruthless hitman and he’s said to have delivered on multiple hits for New York crime families.

How he got to Hollywood depends on who you ask.

The story pop culture has embraced is that Lansky and Luciano sent Siegel to Hollywood to create a foothold over there. But according to the memoirs of several former NY mobsters, Siegel has to flee NY because he was about to be arrested. He chose Hollywood simply because he’d fallen in love with the glitz and glam on previous visits.

When Siegel got to Hollywood, he started running rackets on behalf of his NY crime bosses. Thanks to his looks and incredible charisma Siegel became friends with several Hollywood stars and became a famous figure in his own right.

When the development of Las Vegas started, Siegel quickly got in on the casinos being built there. Soon he was running his own rackets in both Vegas and Hollywood, stealing a good amount of mob money in the process. When word got back to NY that Siegel was taking over for himself, the crime families put out a hit on the hitman.

Siegel’s notorious career came to an end when he was shot in his girlfriend’s home at the age of 41.

Mickey Cohen

Mickey Cohen started his life of crime early. As a young boy, he helped his brothers with their bootlegging activities during prohibition. By the age of 10, he’d been to reform school twice for armed robbery.

As a teen and young man Cohen earned the reputation as a tough guy by competing in illegal boxing matches. Soon the Cleveland mob hired him as an enforcer. Over the next several years, Cohen worked for most of the major crime families in New York and Chicago. He was an enforcer for Al Capone and ran gambling rackets for him.

He spent some time in jail for the murder of several mobsters at a card game he was running, then returned to Cleveland to get away from all the trouble he caused in Chicago.

When his talents weren’t being put their best use in Cleveland, Cohen was sent to Hollywood to work with Bugsy Siegel. Cohen became Siegel’s right-hand man in Hollywood. He was responsible for bookkeeping for Siegel’s Hollywood and Las Vegas ventures. They became good friends and essentially partners. When Siegel was killed, Cohen took over all his operations.

Eventually, Cohen became a mob celebrity in Hollywood. He was friends with all the stars of the day, and according to the gossip of the day, Cohen could make or break acting careers through his underworld negotiations. He was also notorious for collecting secrets and using them to blackmail the famous and powerful Hollywood elites.

He clashed with rival Hollywood boss Jack Dragna several times. Dragna ordered multiple hits on Cohen, but Cohen managed to evade each assassination attempt.

His career came to an unceremonious end when he was arrested for tax evasion and went to Alcatraz. He was released in 1972, right before his death from cancer.

Jack Dragna

Though Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen were bigger names in the mob underworld, Jack Dragna was the real mob boss of Hollywood. Before Siegel and Cohen even made it to Hollywood, Dragna had united the warring Sicilian gangs under one criminal organization with him at the top.

Though Dragna was marginally involved in the inner circles of the mob in New York, he wasn’t powerful enough on the East Coast to be a big player. But in Hollywood, he was the power to be reckoned with. He had his hands in everything from gambling to bootlegging to politics. Dragna was actually quite influential in L.A. politics, making him one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.

Dragna frequently warred with Bugsy Siegel and later Mickey Cohen over gambling rackets and other business interests in L.A. and Vegas. Dragna has a foothold in the development of Las Vegas early on, but as Siegel and Cohen’s control in Las Vegas grew, Dragna’s slipped. He decided to focus his efforts on maintaining control in L.A., which he did until his death in the 1950s.

Though Dragna’s rule over L.A. wasn’t as dramatic as the story of many famous mob bosses, he was actually one of the most successful mob bosses of all time. He maintained solid control of the entire L.A. underworld for over 20 years, outlasting both Siegel and Cohen.

Orlando Spado

Orlando Spado started off his adult years as a regular joe. He served in the Army for several years and earned an honorable discharge in 1966. He originally moved to California with his first wife. When they divorced he found himself in Beverly Hills with his second wife.

It was then that his life of crime began. Spado became a “fixer” for anyone who needed one. When someone with money and power needed a problem solved, they went to Spado. He fixed problems for multiple Hollywood stars, powerful politicians, and most of the powerful mobsters.

Unlike most people involved in the mob, Spado wasn’t associated with a particular mob family. He worked for anyone who would hire him, and eventually became friends with some of the most notorious mobsters on both the East and West coasts.

Spado was arrested on RICO charges in 2008 and served out his sentence. These days, he’s back in Beverly Hills working as an author and involved in a few films and resolving issues for a very few people in Hollywood. His memoir Accidental Gangster, a tell-all account of his years as the most powerful fixer in Hollywood, is now an Amazon best-seller.

An Insider’s View of America’s Most Famous Mafia Bosses

These famous mafia bosses controlled just about every aspect of life in Hollywood from the 1930s on. Though we most often hear the stories of the mafia in New York and Chicago, the mob was just as active in Hollywood. According to some, it still is.

If you’re looking for a fascinating firsthand account of how the mafia functioned in Hollywood in the 60s and 70s, check out Accidental Gangster and Orlando Spado’s blog.