Just around the corner from the Witch’s House in Beverly Hills is one of the most famous crime scenes in Hollywood history – the home where legendary mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel was murdered on June 20, 1947. This home is often cited as being owned by the famous mobster at the time of his death, but in reality it was leased by his girlfriend, actress Virginia Hill. Born on February 28, 1906 to a poor Brooklyn family, Bugsy, who by all accounts absolutely loathed his nickname, went own to become one of the most notorious and cold-blooded mobsters in history.
On that fateful night in 1947, Bugsy returned home from a dinner with friends and retreated to his living room with two friends. The living room area of his house is located to the right of the front door and the windows of that room are pictured above.
At 10:45 pm, while Bugsy sat on his couch reading the Los Angeles Times, his murderer crept up a neighbor’s driveway and fired off nine rounds from a 30/30 shotgun through a side window of Bugsy’s house. Four of those rounds hit Busgy in the head, killing him immediately and sending one of his eyeballs clear across the room. YUCK! The cold-blooded mobster, who is often credited with “creating Las Vegas” was dead at 41. His murder has never been solved.
On an interesting side note, about a year before Bugsy’s death, on July 7, 1946, Howard Hughes crashed one of his airplanes into two homes located across the street from Bugsy’s death house, almost killing himself in the process. One of the homes he crashed into is pictured above.
Bugsy’s death was famously re-enacted in the movie Bugsy, starring Warren Beatty and Annette Benning. But, for reasons unknown, producers did not use the real life home where his murder took place for the filming of the biopic. Instead a home in Hancock Park was used (pictured above).
A HUGE thank you to E.J. from The Movieland Directory for sharing with me a chapter from his book, Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites , and a wealth of information on the life and death of Bugsy Siegel for this post. When I first started writing this entry, I asked E.J. if he had any good stories about Bugsy’s home to share with me. About twenty pages of reading material from E.J. later, this post was born. 🙂 Thanks, E.J.!
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: Bugsy’s real life former home and death site is located at 810 North Linden Drive, in Beverly Hills. Howard Hughes’ crash site is located just across the street at 903 and 905 North Linden Drive. The home where Bugsy dies in the movie about his life is located at 425 S. Plymouth Boulevard in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.