Mary Jo Tarola was born in Portland, Oregon in 1928 and by 1952 had established herself in Hollywood, first under the milquetoast moniker Linda Douglas, then under her own far more interesting name. Just two years into her career she married producer Pasquale “Pat” DiCicco. Not well known now, DiCicco was a bootlegger and pimp who became mafia boss Lucky Luciano’s lieutenant in Tinseltown. He was infamously abusive toward women—one dust-up with his first wife Thelma Todd led to her having an emergency appendectomy, and another with his second wife Gloria Vanderbilt involved him slamming her head into a wall. Tarola’s promising film career ended with her marriage to DiCicco, but at least she left behind a few choice artifacts like the above photo by photographer Ernest Bachrach. It dates from 1952 or 1953.

Tonight in 1949 just before 4 a.m.—i.e. early in the morning of July 20—L.A. mobster Mickey Cohen was ambushed by unknown gunmen outside a Sunset Boulevard eatery called Sherry’s. The above photo diagram and close-up shows where his assailants hid behind a billboard across the street from the restaurant and opened fire with shotguns. Cohen was hit in the shoulder, three others were seriously wounded, and New York Daily News reporter Florabel Muir was bruised by a ricochet (or shot directly, according to some accounts). The photo just below shows the view the gunmen had from underneath the billboard. And the last two show the immediate aftermath of the shooting, with a surprising number of bystanders and/or restaurant patrons present considering the late hour, and Cohen henchman Edward Herbert on the ground. He would later die from his wounds. The Sherry’s ambush was the second of several attempts on Cohen’s life. None were successful, though as usual, the members of his circle did not fare well. For a look at a cool collection of photo diagrams and an explanation of their use, see here. 

Above is a photo of the aftermath of the Cocoanut Grove fire of 1942. Its appearance belies the scope of the disaster that took place there. The Cocoanut Grove had been founded as an illegal speakeasy and, after the 1933 repeal of Prohibition, became Boston’s trendiest nightspot. It consisted of several properties that had been consolidated into one, and was a labyrinth of tropical-themed bars, lounges, and dining rooms, complete with a famous “rolling roof” that allowed patrons to dance under the stars during warm summer nights. The club’s cobbled together construction meant there were many points of egress, but owner Barnet “Barney” Welansky was preoccupied with the possibility of people using these to dash without paying their checks, and had hidden some exits behind curtains, locked others, boarded up a plate glass window, and bricked over an emergency exit.

About 10:15 p.m. one frigid November night a fire started for the most banal of reasons. A soldier in the Melody Lounge, which was in the basement, had either loosened or removed a light bulb in an artificial palm tree to create the privacy he desired in order to make out with his date. A busboy was ordered to replace or tighten it. He climbed onto a chair and lit a match so he could see, very likely using one from a matchbook like the one at right. Moments later the canopy of artificial palm fronds overhead caught fire. Whether it was the match or the light bulb that started the blaze nobody ever figured out for sure, though the busboy unambiguously blamed himself and the match.

They were known as the Two Tonys—Brancato and Trombino, a pair of wild mobsters out of Kansas City. In May 1951 they robbed the cash room at the mob-controlled Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. They and their three henchmen had been wearing hats, but Tony Brancato lost his mid-robbery, was caught on camera, and from there ended up on the FBI’s most wanted list. Brancato and Trombino were also identified by a mob subordinate who recognized them because he’d been robbed by them in Beverly Hills. The pair were arrested for the Flamingo robbery, but made bail, then promptly headed to Los Angeles. There they shook down a mob bookmaker’s right hand man, which put them on L.A. crime boss Jack Dragna’s most wanted list. But the difference between his list and the FBI’s was that Dragna’s had nothing to do with capture and trial. He ordered the Two Tonys to be killed, and mob shooter Aladena Fratianno, aka Jimmy the Weasel, took on the task. Brancato and Trombino desperately needed money for their legal defense, and Fratianno told them he’d help them take down a high stakes poker game worth $40,000. The Tonys were thrilled and grateful, but the heist was fiction. Instead, in a car on Hollywood Boulevard, Fratianno had two subordinates murder them. The aftermath appears above and below. Today, 1951.

 

This LAPD mugshot of gangster Johnny Stompanato dates from today in 1952, when he was arrested on suspicion of armed robbery. Stompanato was an Illinois boy who joined the army and after his discharge fell into the west coast gangster lifestyle. He quickly became well known to the cops. Beverly Hills police chief Clifford Anderson described him as “one of the most successful wolves in Hollywood,” which was a polite way of saying he was a pimp, blackmailer, and boy toy for a series of wealthy women, who he often shook down for cash. By the time these images were made he was living the high life as a connected subordinate to top tier mobster Mickey Cohen.

After numerous scrapes, liaisons and adventures, plus an arrest in 1956 for violating the White-Slave Traffic Act, aka the Mann Act, Stompanato met actress Lana Turner. It was the spring of 1957. Turner had just survived an ugly divorce involving a husband who molested her daughter from a previous marriage, and her movie career had taken a hit when MGM had declined to renew her contract. But she was still one of the biggest names in Hollywood, and Stompanato thought he’d finally found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Turner was rich, connected, beautiful, and wild. And she was drawn to him because he looked good, had a bad reputation, and was known to be a dynamo in bed.

Stompanato was accustomed to being physical with women, and, while Turner put up with the abuse, her daughter Cheryl grew less and less inclined to stand by and watch. One April night in 1958 Stompanato was allegedly roughing up Turner, when Cheryl—fourteen years old at the time—grabbed a knife and stuck Stompanato in the chest. Either by intent or lucky aim, one of the toughest and meanest wiseguys in Hollywood ended up cold on the floor, and the case became the tabloid sensation of the decade. Turner’s daughter was eventually acquitted at trial of murder charges on the grounds of justifiable homicide. The photos below provide a chronology of the events and aftermath of the night that brought Johnny Stomp to his end, and you can read a bit more about the killing at a previous post here.

Here's something wonderful we found on our recent U.S. trip. It's a 1929 woodcut print promoting Harlem's famous Cotton Club. You probably know the Cotton Club was one of America's most prominent speakeasies, if that isn't an oxymoron, and that it hosted some of the greatest jazz luminaries of the age, including Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, George Gershwin, and many others. The place was mob owned, specifically by England-born gangster Owney Madden. If stories about the sheer wildness of the Cotton Club are true, this print certainly captures its spirit. The artist here is E.M. Washington, who was quite well known for his woodcuts, and whose surviving original work goes for a fortune. This particular item is a reprint, which put it well within our price range.