Mickey Cohen rose from a street-corner newsboy in Los Angeles to become the most powerful crime boss on the West Coast, a man whose influence reached so deep that federal authorities could only bring him down on tax charges. Known for his tailored suits, his heavily armored Cadillac, and his fortress-like Brentwood home, Cohen controlled Los Angeles organized crime for decades until his death in 1976. Born in New York City to Jewish immigrants from Kiev, Cohen grew up in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. At age eight, he sold newspapers on the streets to help support his mother, before being sent to reform school for shoplifting and theft as a teenager.
Cohen turned to boxing, fighting professionally under the alias Irish Mickey Cohen. His first professional bout came in Cleveland in 1930, and over the next three years he compiled a record of eight wins, eight losses, and five draws before retiring in 1933. Prohibition drew him to Chicago, where he worked as an enforcer for the Chicago Outfit and briefly crossed paths with Al Capone. After serving a short prison sentence for his role in card-game-related deaths of several gangsters, Cohen ran illegal gambling operations before a dispute with a rival gambler forced him to leave town.
In 1939, Meyer Lansky arranged for Cohen to work with Benjamin Bugsy Siegel in Los Angeles. Cohen oversaw the sportsbook operation at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas and played a key role in establishing the race wire that was crucial to the city’s betting industry. He married Lavon Weaver in 1940. When Siegel was murdered in 1947, reportedly because of his poor management of the Flamingo and possible embezzlement with girlfriend Virginia Hill, Cohen took over as the West Coast crime boss.
One unverified account claims Cohen entered the Hotel Roosevelt, fired into the lobby ceiling, and demanded the killers meet him outside, but no one appeared and police forced him to leave. Cohen survived numerous attempts on his life, including a bombing of his home on Moreno Avenue in Brentwood. He responded by turning the house into a fortress equipped with floodlights, alarms, and an arsenal kept near his 200 tailored suits. In 1950, the U.
S. Senate’s Kefauver Commission, a special committee investigating organized crime across state lines, looked into Cohen’s activities. The investigation led to a tax evasion conviction in June 1951, and he was sentenced to four years in prison. During his incarceration, Cohen reportedly called writer Ben Hecht, who had written an autobiography about Cohen, to offer help fundraising for the Irgun.
Hecht gathered business associates, and Cohen pushed them to donate more. When Cohen later called Hecht from jail seeking bail money, Hecht apologized, and the two never spoke again. Released in October 1955, Cohen became an international celebrity. In a 1957 Time Magazine article, he described encounters with evangelist Billy Graham, saying they would say grace together and discuss Christianity.
According to the report, Christian acquaintances confronted Cohen when he did not change his lifestyle. Cohen was convicted of tax evasion again in 1961 and sent to Alcatraz. He remains the only prisoner ever bailed out of the island prison, with Chief Justice Earl Warren signing his bond. After his appeals were denied, he was transferred to a federal prison in Atlanta.
In August 1963, fellow inmate Burl Estes MacDonald attacked Cohen with a lead pipe, fracturing his skull. MacDonald was later charged with assault. Cohen was released in 1972.
Four years later, in July 1976, he died at age 62 from complications following surgery for stomach cancer, which had initially been misdiagnosed as an ulcer.