Title supplied by cataloger.; Photograph was edited for publication purposes. Virginia Hill was born on August 26, 1916 in Lipscomb, Alabama. She was famous for being the girlfriend of mobster Bugsy Siegel. Hill ran away from her hometown at the age of seventeen and went to Chicago where she found work waitressing and dancing. She met a wealth gangster and became involved in the Chicago crime scene. She was used to pass messages and packages between gangsters, and eventually worked in the accounting office of Al Capone, funelling funds in Swiss bank accounts for various gangsters, including Bugsy Siegel. She moved to Los Angeles and became involved with him. He named the hotel he was building in Las Vegas 'The Flamingo,' a nickname he had given Hill. They had a tumultuous relationship with arguments often turning into physical fights. Siegel was in trouble with the mob and was gunned down on June 20, 1947 in Hill's Beverly Hills home. Hill became a witness in Senate hearings involving organized crime. Hounded by the IRS for unpaid taxes, and fearing reprisal from the mob, she moved to Europe where she died on March 24, 1966 in Austria, an apparent suicide. First photograph dated November 21, 1939 reads "Virginia Hill, dancer, is shown as she appeared in court testifying that she was one of four occupants of a car that hit a bridge near Palm Springs while doing nearly 70 miles an hour. Meta Carlyle, also in the car, is seeking $52,348 from Val Rasset, dance director, the driver." Hill is pictured seated, wearing a fur coat.; Second photograph dated January 2, 1940 reads "Virginia Hill, above, dancer, faces fight in suit. Dance director claims she drank with him before auto crash."
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;26 x 21 cm. Photographic prints
Hill, Virginia,--1916-1966 Hill, Virginia,--1916-1966--Trials, litigation, etc Siegel, Bugsy,--1906-1947--Friends and associates Women--California--Los Angeles Fur coats Portrait photographs Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express photographs Herald-Examiner Collection photographs
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