by Gus Russo
Much as midcentury represented the high point of the mob's long run, so too it was for the Supermob, and Sid Korshak played it for all it was worth. He was now frequently seen at the exclusive Beverly Hills Friars Club on Santa Monica Boulevard, described by the FBI in 1960 thus: "The Friars Club continues to operate as a plush gambling joint and lists among its members such notorious characters as Johnny Rosselli, Jake Factor, [DELETED], and others. Also among the membership are numerous Las Vegas hotel owners and pointholders. There are also legitimate people in the entertainment and business field who are members, but these people seldom appear at the club."67
By the late fifties, the Korshaks were also part-time residents of Palm Springs, where they had a condo, Villa 32, at the Ocotillo Lodge, built by the "Singing Cowboy" Gene Autry on 1111 E. Palms Canyon Drive. The lodge was known as a celebrity retreat; however, it was located in a town that was also fast becoming an underworld retreat, a place where the nation's hoodlum elite convened to plan their crime conspiracies. The Korshaks would eventually purchase a home there and become regulars at elite watering holes such as Charlie Farrell's Racquet Club on North Indian Canyon Drive.
In addition to the powerful Chicago Outfit boss (and close Korshak friend) Joe Batters Accardo and Al Hart's former partner Joe Fusco, over a hundred known gangsters boasted homes in the sun-drenched town located at the base of the San Jacinto Mountains. The town's local paper called Palm Springs "the second home" to top officials of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union, a client of Korshak's, and a body under constant scrutiny by the feds, who believed the low-paid union officials were bilking their union treasuries to purchase the pricey desert getaway abodes.*,68 Former Riverside County sheriff Ben Clark opined, "Some big hoodlums may-put their heads together in Coachella Valley and plan a crime, but the actual crime they're planning won't occur here; it may happen in Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, New York, or New Jersey."69
In addition to the hoodlum element, already owning homes in Palm Springs were Korshak friends such as Harry Karl, Lew Wasserman, Greg Bautzer, Dinah Shore, Swifty Lazar, Max Factor, Kirk and Anne Douglas, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, Tony Martin and Cyd Charisse, Moe An-nenberg's son Walter, and Frank Sinatra, who had homes there dating back to 1947, when he built a house on Alejo Road, and who, in the mid-fifties, lived on Wonder Palms Road, situated along the seventeenth fairway of the new Tamarisk Country Club, the main house later outfitted by Bee Korshak.70
Korshak's Ocotillo Lodge acquisition was but a prelude to the main event: in June of 1959, Korshak purchased a secluded mansion, built in 1948, from Harry Karl for the astonishingly low price of $53,000.*,71 (On his 1961 application for homeowner's insurance, Korshak gave the assessed value of the home as $300,000. In 2004, the property was assessed at over $3 million.) The new Korshak home was located at 10624 Chalon Road, a switchback that boasted elite Hollywood homeowners such as Henry Fonda, John Gavin, Neil Simon, and Gene Wilder. Located in the upper reaches of exclusive Bel-Air, the semicircular, gated home, which borders the property of auto tycoon Lee Iacocca, was a tasteful blend of art deco and classical. The marble-floored manse is situated on a two-acre parcel, replete with gardens, guesthouses, and pool. The entrance, in the inner part of the semicircle, is windowless, contrasting with the outer rim and its floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the gardens and flowing streams.
Completely hidden from the road by a gated, eight-foot wall, the site became legendary not just for the Korshaks' annual Christmas Eve dinner parties, but also for its extravagant amenities. Bee Korshak took great pride in her interior-decorating abilities, later outfitting the homes of a number of SoCal bourgeoisie, including the Palm Springs pad of her great friends Frank and Barbara Sinatra.72
Kurt Niklas, owner of the celeb haunt Bistro restaurant in Beverly Hills, attended many of the Korshak soirees and wrote of their extravagance in his memoir, The Corner Table: "Four hundred people minimum, maybe more; it was hard to estimate because it lasted all day and you could come and go at your leisure; you could stay five minutes or five hours, the Korshaks didn't care. Anyone who was anybody was invited, and a few people who preferred anonymity. There was always an orchestra, comprised of some of the finest musicians in Los Angeles, and the caviar and champagne was the best that money could buy . . . The Korshak mansion had a grand dining room with three tables that sat eight people each." 73
Other Chez Korshak luxuries included one of the best wine cellars in Los Angeles, a walk-in vault,^ chauffeurs' quarters, and a world-class art collection. Virginia Korshak, the ex-wife of Sidney's son Harry, recalled, "There were Rembrandt sculptures, original Picassos, Renoirs, and Chagalls. But it was all very tastefully done. "74 Ron Joy, an L.A. photographer who dated Frank Sinatra's daughter, Nancy, remembered his visits to the manse. "I attended a couple parties there with Nancy. The house contained a fabulous 10624 Chalon Road (various views, author photos) art collection that had to be valued in the millions."75 Fellow L.A. attorney and Korshak friend Leo Geffner recalled that not a room was left unadorned; no matter where one went in the Korshak home, one was reminded of the owner's success. "You'd go to the bathroom in his house, and you'd see a small Degas, a Cezanne, a Matisse!" said Geffner. "He didn't know anything about art. I think it was more, this is what you do when you're rich, you have art."76 Geffner, clearly stunned by the collection, which included pre-Colombian art, recently added, "I can't exaggerate what that collection was like. Sidney had a New York curator on retainer whose job was to find art for the collection."77
Whether to protect the art or the family from enemies of Korshak's mob associates, one bizarre fixture at the house left guests a tad unnerved: armed guards. Hollywood producer of The Godfather Gray Frederickson, who co-produced the 1973 film Hit! with Korshak's son Harry, remembered his forays to Camp Korshak: "It was walled and gated, with armed guards on the grounds. Harry told me the guards were there to protect their art collection." 78 Former Sacramento Bee reporter Dick Brenneman, who followed Korshak's life closely, recalled, "I was told that the guards were former Korshak party invitation and reminder (Dominick Dunne) Israeli army members, brought in to 'to protect the Degas.' "79 Former studio executive turned writer Dominick Dunne was invited to the Korshaks' annual holiday bash and came away shaken. "That was the first house I ever went to in my life where there was a guard with a gun at the door," Dunne said in 1997. "It gave me the creeps, if you want to know the truth . . . I went to visit Phyllis McGuire once in Las Vegas—incredible woman. A guy with a machine gun answered her door. But it was at Sidney's that I saw that first."80 Friend Leo Geffner added that, in later years, one of the guards was often seen driving Sidney around Los Angeles. "He had a dual-capacity bodyguard/chauffeur who hung around the house," remembered Geffner.81 More typically for this locale, the grounds boasted a sophisticated electronic security system as backup to the armed protectors.
The sale by Harry Karl would not go unappreciated by Korshak, who returned the favor when he discovered that Karl had a boyish crush on actress Debbie Reynolds, who just happened to be a friend of Sid and Bee's. Reynolds had met Karl when she'd raised funds for the Thalians, a group of actors who donated to various children's charities. Among the many donors were the Sid Korshaks and Al Harts. But the softest touch in town, according to Reynolds, was playboy heir Harry Karl. For months Karl had been sending flowers and begging Reynolds for a date, only to be rebuffed by the actress, who was just recuperating from her breakup with Eddie Fisher. Thus, in December 1959 Sidney played the yenta, calling Reynolds with a request.
"Won't you please accept a call from Harry, Debbie? It's eating him up inside. He just wants a chance to talk to you."
"No, Sidney," Reynolds replied. "I don't need this."
After another call from Sidney, Reynolds relented and went for a dinner date with Karl. Surprisingly, the duo clicked, and soon they rented a Malibu beach house together and married in 1960. When the couple attempted to buy the MGM backlot, their personal banker, Al Hart, raised
$5 million for them, but the deal fell through nonetheless. Between introducing her to Karl and booking her regularly into his Riviera Hotel, where he reportedly negotiated a million-dollar deal for her debut, Korshak helped to make Debbie a wealthy woman. However, that wealth disappeared when the marriage fell apart fourteen years later*
It was a time when all was splendid in the Korshak world: behind the gate, the tiled, circular Chalon driveway was jammed with the finest cars available—a personal obsession of Sidney's—that numbered at least six at one time: Rolls-Royces, Jaguars, Porsches, Bentleys, Cadillacs, and Bee's Karmann Ghia convertible; Bee became a club tennis player and world traveler; teenage sons Stuart and Harry were seen being chauffeured to Pasadena's Polytechnic School, where Stuart wras student body president; Sidney even began collecting the requisite mistresses, the most obvious expression of male power and success, who were openly invited to the Korshak holiday parties. When Korshak applied for homeowner's insurance, he stated that his net worth was now $2 million, a gross understatement.82
Given the hedonistic trappings, one would think that the fiftyish Korshak might have turned into a Hefner-like hermit and enjoyed his Garden of Eden exclusively. But by all accounts, sybaritic Sidney was rarely there to enjoy the paradise he had crafted in the hills of Bel-Air. Not only was he keeping a hectic schedule with trips to Europe, New York, Chicago, and Palm Springs, he began wearing out a trail to a city that epitomized the most recent successful partnership of the underworld and the Supermob: Las Vegas.
*For a couple of months in the late 1930s, Dorfman's scrap-iron union had one temperamental slugger who would go on to infamy after he moved to Dallas in 1947. Known in Chicago as an emotional powder keg, Jacob Rubenstein, aka Jack Ruby, would avenge President Kennedy's November 22, 1963, assassination by whacking his killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, two days later.
*Korshak later said that Robert Kennedy also paid him a visit at his N. LaSalle office. (IRS report of Furfaro int. of Korshak, 10-23-63)
*Marshall was also the recipient of B'nai B'rith's National Humanitarian Award on September 30, 1967. For the gala at the Palmer House, some 950 people paid $100 each to attend. Among the featured guests was Colonel Henry Crown.
*Today, the script gathers dust in Box 98 at the University of Iowa Library's Twentieth Century-Fox Script Collection.
*The FBI noted a Korshak home "in the suburb of Paris." (Report 92-738-48, 2-26-62)
*The Karl-McDonald relationship was the basis for the 1991 Neil Simon film TheMarryingMan, starring married couple Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, who soon ended up in a nasty divorce a la Karl and McDonald, albeit with no kidnapping.
†Zwillman's funeral attracted 350 mourners, among them notables from the worlds of politics, business, entertainment, and the rackets, and 1,500 onlookers outside. Among the crowd of 1,500 on the street were Zwillman's boyhood pal the Hollywood producer Dore Schary, and Toots Shor, owner of the famed New York restaurant that bore his name.
* Among those with Palm Springs addresses were John Lardino and Frank Calabrese, gunmen from the Chicago Outfit; Rene "the Painter" Piccarreto, a money launderer for the Rochester, New York, mob; and Vincent Dominic Caci of the Buffalo Mafia family. Labor bosses with shady connections also called Palm Springs their second home, among them Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union president Ed Hanley (Sid Korshak's connection to that union); its VP, Anthony Anselmo; Local 309 head Anthony Scimecana; and its business manager, Pat Battista.
*The grantor-grantee records of Los Angeles County show that the property was granted to Korshak by deed from Karl's Shoe Stores, Limited.
†Years later, when new owners drilled open the vault, they were shocked to find one empty gun holster and just one bullet.
*Regrettably, Karl was an inveterate womanizer and gambler, losing hundreds of thousands in Vegas and at the Beverly Hills Friars Club.
CHAPTER 9
Forty Years in the Desert
If you worked in Vegas, you worked for the mob, because Vegas was all mob money. It was two different groups down there, from Chicago and New York, who invested money down there. Vegas was a piece of shit. A desert hole.
GEORGE JACOBS, PERSONAL VALET FOR FRANK SINATRA1
THE COMMON MISPERCEPTION is that the mob's association with Las Vegas began when New York boss Meyer Lansky's partner Ben "Don't Call Me Bugsy" Siegel built his Flamingo Hotel-Casino in 1946. But the town's history is more a product of the machinations of Chicago's crime syndicates and dates back more than a decade earlier than Bugsy's desert adventure.
The prehistory of the area began in the early nineteenth century, when Spanish explorers discovered an artesian spring in the southern part of the region. They christened the area Las Vegas, or the Meadows, and, after the conclusion of the Mexican-American War in 1848, ceded the territory to the new nation called the United States of America. There followed periods of domination by Mormon missionaries, and temporary gold and silver rushes. When the mineral deposits petered out, locals considered ways to rejuvenate the state's stalled economy. The state was given a second life thanks to two occurrences in the same year of 1931: the beginning of the construction of the Hoover Dam and the passage of the Wide Open Gambling Bill.
For over twelve years, federal officials had argued over what to do about the disastrous periodic flooding of the fourteen-hundred-mile Colorado River. Finally a bold plan was adopted that would, if successful, not only tame the Colorado, but provide water and hydroelectric power throughout the West: the government moved to construct the world's largest dam thirty miles to the southeast of Las Vegas. Since no city can grow without an adequate water supply, the construction of the massive Hoover Dam, which broke ground in 1931, went a long way toward making the idea of Las Vegas viable. With some five thousand dam workers looking for somewhere to squander their discretionary income, Nevadans started talking of legalizing gambling.
The Chicago- Las Vegas Connection
The modern notion of Las Vegas as the planetary mecca for casino gambling was conceived in large part by Sidney Korshak's closest Chicago cronies. The reasoning behind the hoods' interest in legalizing casino gambling was simple: not only would criminals now have a believable, and legit, explanation for their huge incomes, but they would also attain a sublime and seemingly undetectable means to steal directly from the government: by skimming massive profits from the casinos' count rooms before the gross take was reported to the IRS. The only obstacle to this Utopian scheme was the pesky fact that casino gambling was still illegal in the United States. But the mob had inside knowledge that one locale was primed for a reassessment of the gambling statutes—the same state that feared the loss of five thousand dam workers. Therefore, Curly Humphreys, the mob's Einstein and payoff master, was dispatched to the Nevada statehouse to make certain that it happened.
The FBI's massive file on Sid Korshak's underworld link Curly Humphreys (4,949 pages) notes Humphreys's constant interstate travel to grease the skids for the expanding Outfit enterprises. In one example, Humphreys traveled to New York State to bribe legislators to repeal the Sullivan Act, which forbade ex-cons from carrying a weapon.* Humphreys frequently journeyed westward, where he built a getaway home in Norman, Oklahoma, the hometown of his wife. Irv Owen, a Norman native and retired attorney who had known Humphreys's extended family and friends since 1937, recently stated emphatically that he knew how Nevada's Wide Open Gambling Bill came to be enacted: "In the 1930s, Humphreys and his protege Johnny Rosselli [who worked closely with Korshak in Los Angeles] bribed the Nevada legislature into legalizing gambling. Las Vegas owes everything to Murray Humphreys."2
John Detra, the son of one of Las Vegas' earliest gambling-club owners, recently corroborated Owen, specifically insofar as Outfit money passing under the table at the Carson City statehouse. John Detra's father, Frank Detra, had moved from New York to Las Vegas in 1927. A year later, according to John, thirty-one-year-old Frank Detra and family began receiving visits from none other than Chicago's Al Capone,
then twenty-eight. Although John had no knowledge of how the two met, it was clear to him that they were close friends. (It is possible that the friendship goes back to New York, since both men were there at the same time and were of a similar age.) The younger Detra still retains a gold pocket watch Capone gave his father, the back of which bears the inscription FRANCO AMICI ALPHONSE, which translates as "Frank and Alphonse are friends." Detra and Capone were obviously planning a business partnership, said John.
After a brief stint in Las Vegas as a dealer in downtown's Boulder Club, Detra was staked by a still-unidentified Eastern entity to build his own club five miles outside the city line, on a section of Highway 91 that would later be named The Strip. His club, The Pair-O-Dice, would make history as the Strip's first upscale carpet joint. In the vicinity at the time, there only existed The Red Rooster sawdust roadhouse. Although Detra's club was a speakeasy of sorts (a code word was needed to enter), it boasted all the refinements of Vegas lounges that would hold sway three decades later. Open only at night, the Pair-O-Dice featured delicious Italian cuisine, jazz and dance bands, fine wine, and of course, table games. To keep the operation afloat, the requisite bribes were in force. "The old man went to town every month with envelopes, several of them, and came back without the envelopes," John remembered.
When the 1930 debate over gambling legalization was joined, young John began accompanying his father as he made deliveries of cash-stuffed briefcases and envelopes to influential Nevadans across the state. Frank Detra admitted to his son that the money was being spent to ensure the passage of the Wide Open Gambling Bill. John believed the money had to have come from the Capone gang, since Capone was the only major player close to his father. John was aware that some monies were being paid to state legislators, but his father's role may have been even more critical to the pro-gambling strategy: Frank Detra's contacts superseded the local power brokers. "They were all federal people, top-drawer people who influenced the state people," John remembered. On one trip to Reno, John was asked to make the delivery himself. "Dad gave me a little briefcase and said, 'See that house over there? Go ring the bell.' I went over and rang the doorbell, and a man came to the door and said, 'Oh, thank you,' took the suitcase, and closed the door."3