Virginia Hill

Born Onie Virginia Hill on August 26, 1916 in Lipscomb, Alabama, Hill was the seventh of ten children born to horse trader W.M. (Mack) Hill and his wife Margaret. By the time Hill was eight, she moved to Marietta, Georgia with her mother and siblings after her parents separated. Hill attended Roberts Grammar School, where she completed eighth grade, then dropped out. In November 1931, Hill, then 15, married 16-year-old George Randell.

In 1933 Hill left Georgia for Chicago with Randell, with the hopes of breaking into the pornography business. Once in Chicago, Hill separated from Randell, divorcing him the following year. Hill found a job as a waitress at the mob-run San Carlo Italian Village exhibit during the 1933 Century of Progress Chicago's World Fair, and supplemented her income working as a prostitute.[6]

She came to the attention of a wealthy bookmaker and gambler, Joseph Epstein, who became her financial advisor and reputed lover (although Epstein was known to be gay), and ultimately, Hill entered into the Chicago Outfit crime organization. In addition to being sexually passed around the Chicago mob, she was used as a courier to pass messages between mobsters. One contemporary commentator described Hill as:

... more than just another set of curves. She had ... a good memory, a considerable flair for hole-in-the-corner diplomacy to allay the suspicions of trigger-happy killers and a dual personality, close-lipped about essentials, and able to chatter freely, and apparently foolishly about inconsequentials.

Even law enforcement eventually concluded that she was a "central clearing house" for intelligence on organized crime and enjoyed an independent power base within the Mafia.

Eventually Hill became associated with Charles Fischetti, a cousin and bodyguard of Al Capone. It was Fischetti who sent Hill to New York to keep tabs on Luciano family capo Joe Adonis, which she did by becoming his lover. Hill told people that she was a Southern-belle society girl who had gone through four rich husbands, all divorced or dead, and that she had received $1 million each from their estates, but authentic socialites saw through the ruse. Hill built up an entourage of hangers-on and Latin gigolos hanging out on Broadway and frequently picked up the check.

While in New York, Hill was introduced to another Luciano associate, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, and they ended up in a hotel together that night. Later Siegel's and Hill's separate life paths brought them both to Hollywood, and they began a torrid affair. There were rumors that she and Siegel were secretly married in Mexico after Siegel divorced his wife Esta in 1946, but there has not been any evidence to prove the theory.

Hill's boyfriend, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel NYC police mugshot on April 12, 1928.

Lore has it that Siegel named the Flamingo Las Vegas resort after Hill, who loved to gamble and whose nickname was supposedly "Flamingo," a moniker that Siegel was said to have given her, referring to her long, thin legs,[7] but others have said that Hill was in fact short and somewhat matronly in form. Another story about the origin of the nickname said that after a few drinks, Hill's face would flush a flamingo-like pink.[8] However, organized crime king Lucky Luciano wrote in his memoir that Siegel once owned an interest in the Hialeah Park Race Track and viewed the flamingos who populated nearby as a good omen. The "Flamingo" name was given to the project at its inception by original resort financier Billy Wilkerson.[9]

Four days before Siegel was assassinated at Hill's home in California (June 1947), Hill took an unscheduled flight to Paris, France, giving rise to speculation that she was warned in advance of Siegel's impending murder.

In 1950, Hill married Hans Hauser, an Austrian skier (and head of the Sun Valley, Idaho Ski School);[10] later giving birth to their only child, Peter Hauser (November 20, 1950 – 1994).[11][12] In 1951, Hill was subpoenaed to testify before the Kefauver hearings, where she denied having any knowledge of organized crime despite being described by Time magazine in March of that year as the "queen of the gangsters' molls."[13][14][15] After Hill was indicted for income tax evasion in 1954, she moved to Europe, where she lived for the rest of her life with her son.[16]

Hill died of an overdose of sleeping pills in Koppl, near Salzburg, Austria, on March 24, 1966 at the age of 49.[16][17] Hill is buried in Aigen Cemetery in Salzburg.[18] According to Andy Edmonds' biography Bugsy's Baby: The Secret Life of Mob Queen Virginia Hill, her death was suspicious despite it being an apparent suicide. The Austrian media, which were well informed about her former relationship with Siegel, speculated that she tried to get money by using her knowledge of the Italian-American Mafia .[19] Hill was the subject of a 1974 television movie, in which she was portrayed by Dyan Cannon.[4] She was played by Annette Bening in the 1991 film Bugsy, a dramatization of her relationship with Bugsy Siegel (portrayed by Warren Beatty). Hill was also the "loose" basis for Joan Crawford's character "Ethel Whitehead"/"Lorna Hansen Forbes" in the 1950 film noir The Damned Don't Cry.[20]

• Edmonds, Andy. Bugsy's Baby : The Secret Life of Mob Queen Virginia Hill. Secaucus, New Jersey: Carol Publishing Group, 1993. ISBN 1-55972-164-2

• Virginia Hill at IMDb
• Excerpt of testimony