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. Photograph dated December 7, 1967 reads "Bugsy Siegel was murdered here in Beverly Hills." The front of the home is set behind a large lawn, with trees and bushes partially obscuring two balconies. A statue of a lion can be seen on the lawn. The home is located at 810 N. Linden Drive.
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;21 x 26 cm. Photographic prints
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