Born: September 4, 1913, Brooklyn, New
York
Died: July 29, 1976, Los Angeles
Nicknames: Irish Mickey, Gangster Mickey
Associations: Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Meyer
Lansky, the Outfit, Jack Dragna, Candy Barr, Johnny
Stompanato Like so many American mobsters, Meyer
Harris Cohen started out hustling newspapers on the
streets of New York City, but his Orthodox Jewish
family rewrote the traditional script by moving from
Brooklyn to Los Angeles when Mickey was nine years
old.
He quickly got into trouble and was sent to reform
school, where he picked up amateur boxing skills.
When Cohen was 15, he moved to Cleveland in an
effort to become a professional boxer, eventually
competing in some minor fights. At the time, many
fights were “fixed” — the outcome was known in
advance — although that did not deter gamblers from
wagering. On April 8, 1930, Cohen fought his first
professional bout in Cleveland, winning against
Patsy Farr in the only fight of Farr’s short career.
Cohen lost his next five in a row. According to
Boxrec.com, Cohen ended his boxing career with a
lifetime record of 7 wins, 11 losses and 1 draw.
Most of the fights were in Cleveland, but there were
two in Chicago and two in California, including one
in his hometown of Los Angeles. For at least one
bout in Cleveland, he fought under the moniker
“Gangster Mickey Cohen.”
In Cleveland, Cohen met associates of Moe Dalitz, a
Midwestern bootlegger who would go on to become one
of Las Vegas’ leading casino operators. It also was
in Cleveland that Cohen was arrested for armed
robbery, although he beat the rap.
Trying to avoid the scrutiny of police, who now had
Cohen on their radar, the young gangster moved to
Chicago, where he went to work for the Outfit, the
criminal organization founded by Al Capone.
According to published biographies, Cohen ran a
gambling operation there in the waning days of
Prohibition. Cohen afterwards claimed to have met
Capone, but the timeline is difficult to reconcile:
Capone likely was already in prison for income tax
evasion by the time Cohen was operating in Chicago.
In 1937, with the backing of the Outfit, Cohen
relocated to Los Angeles with a mission to organize
the rackets in swiftly growing Southern California.
Cohen eventually tangled with other mobsters,
especially Jack Dragna, his rival for rackets and
the lucrative “race wire.” It was a long-running,
vicious and bloody gang war.
Cohen’s legitimate businesses and criminal rackets
were all over the map during his long career in L.A.
Cohen operated jewelry stores and ice cream trucks,
dinner clubs and loan-sharking operations. He shook
down business and labor groups, and he allegedly was
at the center of a pornography and blackmail
operation that penetrated deep into the heart of the
Hollywood community and local government leadership.
He was arrested and fined a token amount for beating
up a rival in 1942, but, with a lawyer paid for by
national Syndicate boss Frank Costello, the killing
of a professional rival, Max Shaman, in May 1945,
was ruled self-defense by the L.A. County district
attorney.
He was credited by Meyer Lansky with helping to
engineer the original partnership between the
Teamsters Union and the Mob, had the support of
Charles “Lucky” Luciano to be the boss of the Los
Angeles rackets, and called crooner Frank Sinatra a
friend.
Along the way, Cohen publicly and financially
supported the congressional campaign of a young
Richard Nixon. He met and befriended a young
evangelical named Billy Graham, and made a fan of
William Randolph Hearst, the publishing magnate.
In June 1951, Cohen was convicted of tax evasion and
sentenced to four years in prison. A decade later,
Cohen was again convicted of tax evasion, and did 11
years in federal prisons (where he survived an
assassination attempt, one of a reported 11 in his
career).
In his personal life, Cohen was married to
wholesome-looking actress LaVonne Cohen from 1940 to
1958; was linked to actress Liz Renay, who spent
three years in jail for refusing to inform on him;
and dated the burlesque queens Tempest Storm, Candy
Barr and Beverly Hills.Cohen hired John “Johnny
Stomp” Stompanato as a bodyguard. Stompanato was
killed by his girlfriend, Lana Turner’s daughter, in
a domestic violence situation in 1958. Cohen paid
for Stompanato’s funeral.
Already famous – or infamous — after his testimony
before the Kefauver Committee and for his
high-profile lifestyle in Los Angeles, Cohen did a
live television interview in 1957 with Mike Wallace,
later of 60 Minutes fame. During the interview,
Cohen admitted to killing at least one man in
self-defense and harshly attacked Los Angeles Police
Chief William Parker.
Cohen continued to make news and operate various
businesses throughout his life. He was diagnosed
with stomach cancer after leaving his second stint
in federal prison in 1972, and died in his sleep in
1976.