Showing posts with label Hollywood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hollywood. Show all posts

01 December 2016

He Done Her Wrong

When one thinks of the Golden Age of Hollywood, one doesn’t normally think about crime but Hollywood’s top stars lived with a constant fear that they could become the victims of armed robbers, extortionist or kidnappers. One of the most preyed upon movie stars was Mae West. She was the victim of both extortionists and armed bandits. Regarding the latter, in 1932 Mae was set up by a man named Harry Voiler, whom she considered to be a friend. Voiler was the manager of famed speakeasy hostess Tex Guinan and had ties to Chicago’s underworld. He moved to Hollywood in 1932 along with Guinan in search of Hollywood riches.
A bad guy at heart, Voiler just couldn’t help himself when it came to easy dough. Because Mae’s limousine was in the garage Voiler took to chauffeuring the actress around. On one occasion Mae opened her purse and pulled out a wad of $3,400. This plus the thousands in jewelry that Mae was always draped in was too much for Voiler to ignore. Knowing that he would be driving her around that night he got in touch with a couple of Los Angeles hoodlums and set up a robbery.  That evening, September 28, Voiler picked up Mae at the Paramount Studios and drove her and her manager back to Mae’s house. As Mae’s manager ran up to her apartment to feed her pet monkey, a man stepped up to the car and jerked open Mae’s door. With a gun hidden under a handkerchief, he demanded Mae’s purse and her jewelry.  Once he got what he was after he he told Voiler to take off.
Mae wanted to go to the police but Voiler said that she should wait to see if the robbers try to ransom back her jewelry, he even volunteered to act as her go between,  so the star agreed to wait. In the following weeks Voiler said that the bandits were willing to negotiate and that he would have to fly to Arizona to meet with them, so Mae sent him. Once there he called Mae and said that they had all her jewelry and were demanding $3,200 for it and were not willing to negotiate. Mae refused. With his plan backfired, Voiler was forced to sell the stuff elsewhere.
After the incident with Voiler Mae went to the police and, although it took over a year, Voiler was finally uncovered as the master mind behind the crime. Unfortunately for Mae, by that time, he was back in Chicago and the police were unable to extradite him.
                        Mae West shows the underworld that they won't be able to mess with her.

12 November 2016

Murder Inc. turncoat Abe Reles falls to his death

On this date in 1941, informant Abe "Kid Twist" Reles fell to his death at the Half Moon Hotel, Coney Island. 

Reles
The thirty-five-year-old Reles, who had been cooperating with authorities in Murder, Inc., prosecutions since early in 1940, was expected to testify shortly against big shot Louis "Lepke" Buchalter. Earlier court appearances had been in murder cases against Harry "Happy" Maione, Frank "the Dasher" Abbandando, Martin "Buggsy" Goldstein and Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss. Reles also aided California authorities in obtaining indictments against Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and Frank "Pug" Carbo for the November 1939 Hollywood murder of Harry "Big Greenie" Greenberg.

While Buchalter was on trial (along with Louis Capone and Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss for the September 1936 murder of Joseph Rosen), Reles was housed on the sixth floor of the Half Moon along with government witnesses Sholom Bernstein, Max Rubin and Al Tannenbaum.

According to the official story, Reles decided at about 7 a.m. to try to escape from government custody rather than testify. Authorities said he exited his sixth-floor window and used a rope of tied-together bedsheets to lower himself to the window below. The rope was fastened to a radiator pipe using a length of electrical cord. It reportedly was not fastened very well, and detectives said it detached as Reles attempted to open the screen and window on the fifth floor.

Reles's body was later discovered on an extension roof about 42 feet below his last estimated location. Noting that the body came to rest a good distance from the hotel wall, some investigators and journalists quickly decided that Reles had been thrown out of his hotel room window. Reles became known as the underworld canary who could "sing" but could not fly.

New York Post, Nov. 12, 1941.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Nov. 12, 1941.


New York Times, Nov. 13, 1941.

New York Daily News photo, Nov. 13, 1941.


Los Angeles Times, Nov. 13, 1941.