Flamingo opens with three-day gala

On this date in 1946...

The Flamingo casino, financed in large part by underworld investments funneled through racketeer Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, opened its doors for the first time on December 26, 1946.

Cugat and Durante

A three-day opening event, December 26-28, featured entertainment by orchestra leader Xavier Cugat, singer and comedian Jimmy Durante, Broadway performer Tommy Wonder (a veteran of some Our Gang films) and singer Rose Marie.

At the time of the opening, the Flamingo's hotel section was still under construction, and management hoped it would be completed by March 1, 1947. Advertisements for the three-day opening urged southern California visitors to "fly up any day and come back the same night." Chartered planes departed for Las Vegas at 5:30 in the afternoon and returned guests by 1 a.m.

The Flamingo was billed as the "most luxurious night club in the world." Its advertisements vaguely (and somewhat conservatively) placed its construction cost at "better than $5,000,000."

That figure had risen dramatically in the months leading up to the opening, and it would continue to rise. Back in early October, the final cost had been estimated at between $2.5 million and $4 million.

The exterior of the casino was beige and brown. It was lined with bushes illuminated with red and blue lights. Numerous potted palm trees were placed around the establishment. An artificial green lake stood at one side. The large bar had green leather walls with many mirrors, a black ceiling and "tomato-red furniture."

Not the first

Flamingo may have been the "most luxurious night club" at that moment, but it was not the first Las Vegas hotel-casino to cater to wealthy gamblers.

El Rancho Vegas (opened on The Strip in 1941), El Cortez (1941), Nevada Biltmore (1942) and Hotel Last Frontier (1942) were already in operation and reportedly doing good business. Columnist Erskine Johnson noted in June 1946 that those ventures, set in motion before U.S. entry into World War II, remained "jammed" with visitors:

Movie stars, millionaires, socialites and plain John Does are standing two deep at the roulette and dice tables. Every gambling casino in town - and there's one on almost every corner - is grossing from $3000 to $5000 a night. And every night is like New Year's Eve.

Johnson reported rumors that the funding for Flamingo construction was coming from Barbara Hutton, heiress to portions of the Woolworth retail and Hutton financial services fortunes. According to Johnson, Hutton was "sinking a small fortune" into the project, "which will be a gilt casino with hotel attached."

Los Angeles Times, Dec. 24, 1946

Priorities

Flamingo construction was repeatedly delayed for various reasons. At least twice in the summer and fall of 1946, the project was halted for a review by the federal government's Civilian Production Administration (CPA).

The year-old CPA, a postwar version of the War Production Board, was tasked with prioritizing the use of construction resources. In spring 1946, CPA had put a temporary stop on all non-essential commercial building not already started in order to concentrate resources on the housing needs of returning U.S. servicemen.

Columnist Hedda Hopper called attention to the Flamingo construction and a wider building boom in the Las Vegas area in a September 10 column. She also mentioned financial backer Siegel by name:

A huge night club, backed by Bugsy Siegel and called the Flamingo, was started only a few months ago. It features four swimming pools, and reservations are already being taken for a November opening. Yet our returned soldiers can't even find a shed for shelter.

The "only a few months ago" remark was a problem, as it suggested the building effort began after the March 26 effective date of CPA's Veterans Housing Project No. 1 regulation. A federal compliance commissioner reviewed the project in mid-September and announced that work on the night club had started before March 26 and that the planned hotel and connecting shops of the horseshoe-shaped complex were merely phases of the project already underway and not separate projects.

That decision was pushed aside in early October, as the CPA ordered a halt to the project and conducted a further review. At that moment, reports indicated that just $400,000 - about one-tenth of what was then the expected project cost - had been spent on construction.

Focus on casino

Resources appear to have been channeled into the completion of the casino before year-end. The casino was mentioned regularly in the press during the month of December.

• Columnist Leonard Lyons wrote on December 19 that the movie and radio comedy team of Abbott and Costello had committed to work at the Flamingo for pay of $15,000 a week.
• Columnist Louella O. Parsons commented a few days later: "Quite a lot of people are goig to Las Vegas the 26th and 27th for the opening of the Flaming." Parsons mentioned that Cugat and Durante had been booked as entertainers.
• Columnist Hedda Hopper immediately expressed surprise: "I can't believe Jimmy Durante will give a two-week guest shot to the new Flaming gambling casino in Las Vegas."

Benjamin Siegel and George Raft

Opulent playground

One of those covering Flamingo's opening was journalist Bob Thomas. He reported that "a covery of movie names flew over for the opening, including Lon McAllister, George Sanders, Sonny Tufts, Charles Coburn, Vivian Blaine, George Raft, Eleanor Parker and George Jessel."

Thomas said the older hotel-casinos in the area responded to the big-name talent booked at the Flamingo by providing their own entertainment. El Rancho Vegas, he reported, hired comedians the Ritz Brothers and singer Peggy Lee.

He noted that Las Vegas at that moment had "more big-time entertainment than one could find in a week of touring Hollywood night spots."

While the entertainment brought publicity to the Vegas establishments, Thomas reminded his readers that the casinos' wealth was generated through constant gambling. He noted that in the Flamingo casino, patrons at roulette, crap, 21 and chuckaluck tables were busily helping "to defray the $5,000,000 cost of the place." And he confessed, "I made my contribution at a nickel slot machine."

In a United Press report of the opening, the financial backers of the casino were named as Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel; Harry Rothberg, vice president of American Distillers; Billy Wilkerson, publisher of The Hollywood Reporter; and Joe Ross, Hollywood attorney.

Problems ahead

The enthusiastic contributions made by gamblers were not sufficient to please Flamingo's investors. In the weeks following the opening, there were reports that the casino's income was not close to covering its expenses and there was evidence that Siegel was scrambling to keep the business afloat. Newspapers said he took out a $1 million loan in order to pay off a contractor.

Siegel's underworld friends expressed their unhappiness with his management of the casino on June 20, 1947. On that evening, less than six months after the Flamingo's opening gala, Siegel was shot to death.


Sources:

• "An evening in Las Vegas," Los Angeles Times, advertisement, Dec. 24, 1946, p. 4.
• "Flamingo hotel permit allowed," Nevada State Journal, Sept. 15, 1946, p. 21.
• "Las Vegas club building halted," Los Angeles Times, Oct. 1, 1946, p. 6;
• "Nevada politics," Nevada State Journal, Oct. 20, 1946, p. 19.
• "New colossus on the desert," Des Moines IA Register, Jan. 1, 1947, p. 5.
• "State boss of bookmaking slain in south," San Mateo CA Times, June 21, 1947, p. 1.
• "Work halted on Las Vegas club pending probe," Santa Cruz CA Sentinel, Oct. 3, 1946, p. 8.
• "Work is halted on Vegas club," Nevada State Journal, Oct. 3, 1946, p. 4;
• Hopper, Hedda, "Hedda Hopper in Hollywood," Miami News, Dec. 23, 1946, p. 11.
• Hopper, Hedda, "Looking at Hollywood," Los Angeles Times, Sept. 10, 1946, p. 11.
• Johnson, Erskine, "In Hollywood," Visalia CA Times-Delta, June 14, 1946, p. 10.
• Lyons, Leonard, "Broadway Medley," San Mateo CA Times, Dec. 19, 1946, p. 12.
• Lyons, Leonard, "The Lyons den," Oakland Tribune, Dec. 22, 1946, p. Mag. 5.
• Parsons, Louella O., "Deborah Kerr and Gable cast in another picture," San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 23, 1946, p. 9.
• Thomas, Bob, "Las Vegas is called new Barbary Coast," Oakland Tribune, Dec. 30, 1946, p. 6.

Calamia caught, called killing conspirator

Despite D.A. claims, DeJohn murder remains unsolved

On this date in 1948...

San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 24, 1948.

A fugitive, indicted for conspiring in the May 1947 San Francisco gangland murder of Nick DeJohn, was captured in New Mexico on December 23, 1948.

The FBI and Bernalillo County sheriff's deputies arrested Leonard Calamia, aged thirty-two, on a federal warrant. Acting on a tip received from San Francisco, authorities sought Calamia at his new place of employment, the driver's license department of the New Mexico State Revenue Bureau in Albuquerque, but he was not there. They found him next door in the State Highway Department building adjoining the offices of the New Mexico State Police. They learned that Calamia, under the assumed name of Len Tallone, had held two government jobs in the year and a half he lived in New Mexico.

Calamia admitted his identity and his criminal history - he was an ex-convict, former narcotics peddler and Chicago hoodlum. Police determined that Calamia returned to Chicago briefly after the DeJohn murder and then relocated to Albuquerque, adopting his wife's maiden name of Tallone as his own surname.

He was placed in the Bernalillo County sheriff's office lockup. Bail was set at $50,000. Calamia waived a removal hearing and was turned over to San Francisco police on December 29.

Nick DeJohn

The plot against DeJohn

Calamia was one of five men indicted one month earlier for conspiring in the DeJohn murder. Two of his codefendants, Sicilian immigrants Sebastiano Nani and Michele Abati, were arrested in November. Two others, Frank Scappatura and Tony Lima, remained at large. (There were rumors that Lima was prepared to surrender to authorities at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, but that did not occur. Scappatura and Lima were never arrested in connection with this case.)

According to prosecutors, Nick DeJohn, a former member of the Capone Outfit in Chicago, had been trying to take over underworld rackets in the San Francisco area and was killed by rivals. DeJohn's body was found stuffed into the trunk of his Chrysler Town & Country convertible on May 9, 1947. Evidence indicated he had been strangled to death two days earlier.

Prosecutors believed that Calamia, known to be a close friend of DeJohn, was called upon to serve as the "finger man" in the murder, leading DeJohn to his killers. Calamia reportedly spent much of May 7, 1947, with DeJohn. The Calamia and DeJohn families had dinner together at the Calamia residence. Leonard Calamia and Nick DeJohn went out for drinks to the Poodle Dog restaurant and bar at 1125 Polk Street and then to LaRocca's Corner at 957 Columbus Avenue in the North Beach section. They parted at LaRocca's Corner. DeJohn was last seen alive as he was walking from the tavern.

Reports, later disputed, claimed that at the time of DeJohn's murder, Calamia was home having coffee and cake with DeJohn's son.

Calamia had been arrested almost immediately after the discovery of DeJohn's body. But he had been released May 31, 1947, due to insufficient evidence.

Authorities insisted for some time that the DeJohn murder was essentially solved. They claimed to know where DeJohn was killed, why he was killed and who was responsible. But assembling a convincing case proved to be a problem.

Trial

Prosecutors thought they had a winning case when Calamia, Nani and Abati were brought to trial. But they found that some of their important witnesses were unreliable and could not withstand cross examination.

Leonard Calamia

As jury deliberations started in early March 1949, the district attorney admitted that he did not believe the testimony of some of his own witnesses. Judge Preston Devine denounced witnesses from both sides for giving obviously false testimony.

After thirty hours of deliberations, the jury stood deadlocked and Judge Devine declared a mistrial.

No retrial

The most inconsistent prosecution witness also was the key witness in the grand jury proceedings that resulted in the original indictments.

Mrs. Anita Rocchia Venza claimed that she had overheard the five men plotting to kill DeJohn. She was in a basement apartment near La Rocca's Corner at the time and heard the conversation from an adjoining room. She claimed that the plotters learned of her presence and offered her $500 to forget what she heard and leave the state.

When her statements were determined to be unreliable, the original indictments were quashed, any chance of a retrial was lost and the fugitive warrants against the two at-large defendants, Scappatura and Lima, were voided.

The murder of Nick DeJohn remained officially unsolved.

See also:

• Hunt, Thomas, "Was DeJohn a victim of Cheese War?" Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement, October 2021.
• Valin, Edmond, "Former San Francisco boss supplied info to federal agents," Rat Trap, mafiahistory.us.

Sources:

• "Calamia arraigned here with two other suspects in De John slaying," San Francisco Examiner, Jan. 1, 1949, p. 5.
• "Calamia ask high court for freedom," San Mateo Times, Jan. 20, 1949, p. 1.
• "Calamia faces further quiz," San Francisco Examiner, June 1, 1947, p. 3.
• "Calamia loses plea," San Mateo Times, Jan. 21, 1949, p. 5.
• "Calamia silent in S.F. prison," San Mateo Times, Dec. 31, 1948, p. 4.
• "DeJohn case jury dismissed; stood 7 to 5 for acquittal," San Francisco Examiner, March 9, 1949, p. 1.
• "Delay asked in trial of Nani," San Mateo Times, Dec. 28, 1948, p. 5.
• "Delay granted in DeJohn trial," Oakland Tribune, Dec. 30, 1948, p. 17.
• "FBI nabs Calamia, accused as 'finger man' in DeJohn case," San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 24, 1948, p. 1.
• "Five indicted for De John murder; woman testifies that she overheard plot," San Francisco Examiner, Nov. 30, 1948, p. 1.
• "Hunt pushed for trio in DeJohn case," San Mateo Times, Dec. 1, 1948.
• "New evidence in Nick DeJohn case," Santa Rosa CA Press Democrat, April 2, 1949, p. 1.
• "Police hunt 4 suspects in De John case," San Francisco Examiner, Nov. 24, 1948, p. 1.
• "Police move to wind up De John case as 'solved,'" Oakland Tribune, Nov. 22, 1948, p. 7.
• "S.M. man held brains of Nick DeJohn murder," San Mateo Times, Nov. 22, 1948, p. 1.
• "State to use Calamia story to police at gangland trial," San Francisco Examiner, Feb. 7, 1949, p. 17.
• "Third DeJohn fugitive caught," San Mateo Times, Dec. 23, 1948, p. 1.
• "U.S. warrants issued for 2 in DeJohn hunt," San Francisco Examiner, Nov. 23, 1948, p. 1.
• "Warrants voided in DeJohn case," Santa Rosa CA Press Democrat, April 20, 1949, p. 5.
• Pearce, Dick, "Calamia dislosures key to De John trial," San Francisco Examiner, Jan. 29, 1949, p. 1.

Jury convicts six Outfit leaders, associate

Found guilty of extorting money from movie executives

On this date in 1943...

Six members of the Chicago Outfit and one associate were convicted December 22, 1943, of conspiring to extort more than a million dollars from the movie industry.

Concluding ten hours of deliberations, a federal jury in New York City returned guilty verdicts against Chicago racketeers Louis "Little New York" Campagna, Paul "the Waiter" Ricca (Felice DeLucia), Johnny Rosselli (Filippo Sacco), Philip D'Andrea, Charles Gioe and Francis Maritote, and Newark, New Jersey, union business agent Louis Kaufman. Judge John Bright scheduled a sentencing hearing for December 30.

The trial, which began October 5, established that the defendants were behind the extortion activities of Willie Bioff and George Browne. Bioff and Browne, convicted in 1941 of using their influence over the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE) to force payments from movie studios, were prosecution witnesses in the 1943 case. (Bioff's betrayal of the Outfit apparently resulted in his car-bombing murder in 1955.) The witness list also included Hollywood executives.

Nine men were originally indicted in March 1943, including Frank "the Enforcer" Nitti and Ralph Pierce. Nitti, the Outfit leader believed to have been Bioff's strongest supporter, committed suicide upon learning of the indictments. Nitti is believed to have given assurances to other underworld bosses when they feared Bioff would betray them. Pierce was acquitted during the trial due to insufficient evidence against him.

On December 30, Judge Bright sentenced Campagna, DeLucia, Rosselli, D'Andrea, Gioe and Maritote to ten years in prison and sentenced Kaufman to seven years in prison. He fined each of the defendants $10,000.

See also:

• "Evidence of some lingering hostility"
• "Chicago Outfit big shot shoots self"

Gunman in green car decimates Matrangas

On this date in 1917...

Los Angeles Times, Dec. 20, 1917.

A southern California underworld feud and the continued effectiveness of a traveling gunman in a green car resulted in the December 18, 1917, death of a leading figure in the Matranga Mafia faction.

That evening, fruit merchant Pietro Matranga was walking on Eastlake Avenue, heading to his home at 1520 Biggy Street in the northern portion of Los Angeles's Boyle Heights neighborhood (since taken over by county office and court buildings and USC science and medical facilities), when a large, green automobile with a black convertible top pulled up behind him, near the intersection of Eastlake Avenue and Henry Street.

Witnesses said only one man, the driver, was visible in the automobile at that time. Matranga went to the car and conversed with the driver for several minutes. The meeting seemed friendly. Matranga adopted a leisurely posture, placing a foot on the vehicle's runningboard. When the conversation was over, Matranga turned from the car and continued on his way home.

He had taken just a few steps, when a second man, previously concealed, rose up in the back seat of the auto, pointed a shotgun at Matranga's back and fired twice. Matranga had already fallen to the ground, mortally wounded, as the second shot was fired. Slugs from that discharge tore through two fences and shattered a window at 808 Eastlake Avenue. The green vehicle then sped away, turning down Biggy Street toward downtown Los Angeles.

A resident of Biggy Street watched as a green, six-cylinder automobile roared by. The witness later told police there were two men in the car, a driver and a passenger in the rear seat.

Eastlake Avenue and Henry Street

Matranga, hit in the back and shoulders by ten slugs, remained alive for a short time. He was taken to County Hospital and questioned by police. Authorities were convinced that he knew who shot him, but he would not divulge the name. Before he succumbed to his wounds, Matranga was visited by a cousin. Detectives guessed that the cousin obtained the name of the killer and would be seeking revenge.

The Matranga name was known around the city and particularly well known in the northeastern section around Lincoln Park, where a number of Matrangas and their relatives lived, worked and engaged in criminal enterprises.

Family members had recently been targeted by gunmen of a rival underworld faction. Six weeks earlier, on November 5, Pietro Matranga's brother (or cousin) Rosario "Sam" Matranga was murdered. He returned home, 1837 Darwin Avenue, at an early morning hour, and was driving his automobile toward the garage behind his residence, when he was hit in the back by a load of buckshot fired at close range. According to one press account, the blast nearly took his head off his body. His wife found him dead behind the wheel of his still running vehicle. A year before that, Matranga cousin Tony Pariese was shot in the back by a gunman firing from the rear seat of a large green automobile.

Authorities speculated that the Matrangas were targeted because they had provided information to police on the activities of their underworld foes, a violation of the Mafia's code of silence. It was said that Pariese gave information about a Mafia enforcer named Mike Marino. Police said Marino was working for Mafia interests back East. Pariese's murder occurred one month after he talked with detectives. Rosario Matranga reportedly gave police information about Pariese's killers just days before he became the next murder victim. (One source reported that Rosario informed on a group of arsonists back in 1914-1915, causing three men to be sentenced to prison terms.) Pietro Matranga, a former Black Hand extortion racketeer, supposedly provided information on extortion rackets to police just before he was eliminated by the gunman in the green car.

Police attempted to locate Mike Marino, hoping to charge him with the killings of both Matrangas and Pariese. They said Marino also was wanted in New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Diego and other cities in connection with other gangland murders.

About a year later, authorities learned that the Matrangas had been engaged in a violent feud with a Mafia faction led by Joseph Ardizzone. That became apparent when one Tony Matranga, sixty-five years of age, was accused of taking shots at Ardizzone's brother Stefano with a high-powered rifle in an effort to avenge the earlier killings.

Sources:

• "International gunman sought in Mafia case," Los Angeles Times, Dec. 20, 1917, p. II-1.
• "Last Matranga arrested," Los Angeles Times, Oct. 17, 1918, p. II-1.
• "Mafia gunman being sought," Long Beach CA Daily Telegram, Dec. 20, 1917, p. 6.
• "Murdered by Black Hand?" Los Angeles Times, March 18, 1917, p. II-1.
• "Police seeking Mafia as alleged slayers," Los Angeles Evening Express, Nov. 5, 1917, p. 1.
• "Second in one family victim of Black Hand," Los Angeles Times, Dec. 19, 1917, p. II-1.
• "Slayer suspects silent," Los Angeles Evening Express, Nov. 6, 1917, p. 10.
• "Still hunt gunman," Los Angeles Times, Dec. 21, 1917, p. II-2.
• "Unknown thug kills Los Angeles Italian," Long Beach CA Press, Nov. 5, 1917, p. 4.
• California Death Index, 1905-1929, State of California Department of Public Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics and Data Processing, p. 6903.