Echoes Of Laurel Canyon - Part 17
Before We Go Too Much Further, A Little Background On The Chicago Outfit In Hollywood
Before we get into telling too many stories of Hollywood in the 1950s and 1960s with Sidney Korshak, a lawyer for the Chicago Outfit, a little history is in order. The Chicago Outfit’s Al Capone and right-hand man Frank Nitti went to prison for income tax evasion in 1931 near the end of Prohibition, but Capone was sentenced to eleven years, and Nitti got only eighteen months. This shorter sentence for Frank Nitti than Capone allowed him to take over the Chicago Outfit crime operations.
Frank Nitti took over for Capone after he got out of prison in 1932, just in time to see the end of Prohibition in America and the end to the rich flow of bootleg cash for the Chicago Outfit. Nitti would install a white slavery pimp named Willie Bioff as his bagman to shakedown Hollywood studios.
Chicago Outfit boss Frank Nitti had to come up with a new source of revenue quickly, and he decided to leverage the Chicago Mob’s union connections to protect against union shutdowns. Hollywood and the Hollywood studios were the first stop for Frank Nitti and his mercenary bagman, Willie Bioff. Bioff’s demands of Hollywood moguls would start in 1936 with $50,000 extortions from the major studios like MGM and Fox, and $25,000 from the minor studios like Columbia and RKO.
Together with a few other conspirators, Frank Nitti and Willie Bioff popularized a new word for protection rackets: “payola” in Hollywood. By calling for work stoppages on Hollywood sets through the Teamsters or the IATSE stage workers union, Nitti and Bioff could cripple the movie production of the major studios. In contrast, the studios still had to pay the top stars their hefty compensation packages.
The $50,000 Hollywood studio protection racket run by Nitti and Bioff had over a ten-year run before Korshak threw a wrench into the extortion machine gears. Painting the union organizers as Communists would be an essential part of breaking the union stranglehold on the studios, and infiltrating the unions with studio men like Ronald Reagan would be the other key piece in keeping the unions in check.
The Hollywood Extortion Scheme forms a pivotal moment in Chicago Outfit history as many mobsters that will later become famous, like Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli, go to prison for this scheme. Roselli was a well-known bookmaker in Hollywood and a friend to all the stars. Roselli would retain his “good cop” relationship with studio heads while Willie Bioff played the “bad cop” for the Chicago Outfit. Korshak knew the value of Roselli's goodwill and that Roselli would survive the purge coming for Frank Nitti and Willie Bioff.
Johnny Roselli was one of the mobsters who would be made famous (and mysteriously released from prison, I believe, from Korshak prosecutor arrangements) for the Hollywood Extortion. However, Korshak had plans for Roselli to form more prominent partnerships after World War II to do the dirty work of the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency rather than just running a $50K per studio extortion racket.
However, until 1943, Hollywood “payola” was a lucrative scheme for the Chicago Outfit. Payola or protection was a much less expensive alternative for many studio productions. Nitti and Bioff certainly had a decade of decadence in Hollywood, but the backlash against this payola would write history with the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) where these shakedown activities would be labeled “Communist”.
George S. Brown was a corrupt Hollywood union boss in this Nitti and Bioff Hollywood Payola scheme, along with another mobster named Paul “The Waiter” Ricca. Ricca was aligned with Chicago Outfit lawyer Sidney Korshak, who was still biding his time to move to Hollywood. Paul “The Waiter” Ricca would be another Chicago Outfit mobster saved by Korshak in the post-Nitti era. Willie Bioff turned informant on other Chicago Outfit brethren in 1943 and may have been the mobster that put Kennedy-connected mobster Sam Giancanna in jail in 1939.
Korshak would make alliances with some of these ousted Chicago Outfit mobsters, like Sam Giancana after they exited prison in 1943. Meanwhile, from 1933 to 1943, Frank Nitti was the key Sicilian godfather who shook down the Hollywood studio bosses, and Willie Bioff was his shakedown artist in Hollywood.
Al Capone’s second in command, Frank Nitti, and Willie Bioff of the Chicago Outfit shakedown the Hollywood studios from 1933 to 1943 until Korshak and J. Edgar Hoover “dropped the dime” on them.
Korshak cleverly used the revenge motive to remove Nitti and Bioff in 1943 at the height of Hollywood World War II propaganda films.
https://www.filmnoirfoundation.org/noircitymag/The-Chicago-Way.pdf
I will throw in a spoiler alert that Chicago Outfit lawyer and fixer Stanley Korshak is going to “drop the dime” on both Nitti and Bioff through mobster Waiter Ricca, Sam Ginacana, and Johnny Roselli to cut the last of the Sicilian Capone Godfather ties to Hollywood Payola. (Another spoiler alert - Korshak was the key source for the original arrest of Capone and Nitti.)
An Untouchable assassination in 1933 on Frank Nitti by a Chicago Police Sergeant named Lang fails, setting up a decade of dealing with the Sicilians in Hollywood for Payola schemes (loosely based on the Sean Connery character in the film The Untouchables). In real life, the Chicago policeman who was paid for the Nitti assassination was named Harry Lang.
Untouchables’ assassination of Frank Nitti fails after Nitti is shot three times in 1933, setting up a decade of paying Hollywood Payola by the movie studios.
Don’t worry. Frank Nitti is going to get what is coming to him in 1943. Nitti supposedly committed suicide, missing himself with his first shot that blew his hat off. Nitti also supposedly wounded himself in the chin on his second shot. Finally, Nitti hit himself with a third shot, conveniently covered by the noise and screen of a train. (Chicago Outfit lawyer Sidney Korshak is the possible inspiration for the lawyer in the musical Chicago and the musical hit, “He Had It Comin’,” from the movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Nitti
There was an odd lack of blood in the death pose of Chicago Outfit boss Frank Nitti, leading some to speculate that he was shot in the back. Korshak had counseled Bioff to confess as the studio bagman in the Hollywood payola scheme, which ended up taking down the “Chicago Seven” in the Chicago Outfit. Nitti supposedly committed suicide a few hours after the indictment.
Nitti’s accountant, Alex Greenberg, had invested millions of Nitti’s Hollywood Payola takings, only returning $100,000 to Nitti’s widow.
Willie Bioff singing like a canary put the Chicago Seven in jail for decade-long sentences.
After Al Capone died in 1947, Johnny Roselli and Paul Ricca were released. The author believes Roselli and Ricca identified where Al Capone he secreted more that $100 Million dollars to Sidney Korshak for a CIA slush fund for covert action for the next decade
Whether Capone’s secret stash was found or not, the stage was now set for Korshak to reset the chess pieces of the Mob in America with the help of a young US Army Intelligence officer named Henry Kissinger and a future President named Ronald Reagan.
Richard Gere stars in Chicago, a story about an Outfit connected lawyer inspired by Sidney Korshak, and sings, “He Had It Comin’.”