Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (/ˈsiːɡəl/; February 28, 1906 – June 20, 1947) was an American mobster[3] who was a driving force behind the development of the Las Vegas Strip.

[4] Siegel was influential within the Jewish Mob, along with his childhood friend and fellow gangster Meyer Lansky, and he also held significant influence within the Italian-American Mafia and the largely Italian-Jewish National Crime Syndicate.

[16] During adolescence, Siegel befriended Meyer Lansky, who applied a brilliant intellect to forming a small mob whose activities expanded to gambling and car theft.

Lansky, who had already had a run-in with Charles "Lucky" Luciano, saw a need for the Jewish boys of his Brooklyn neighborhood to organize in the same manner as the Italians and Irish.

[20] Siegel's gang-mates included Abner "Longie" Zwillman, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, and Lansky's brother, Jake; Joseph "Doc" Stacher, another member of the Bugs and Meyer Mob, recalled to Lansky biographers that Siegel was fearless and saved his friends' lives as the mob moved into bootlegging: "Bugsy never hesitated when danger threatened," Stacher told Uri Dan.

[25] Luciano and former Chicago South Side Gang leader Johnny Torrio held the conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

[35] In 1932, after checking into a hospital to establish an alibi and later sneaking out, Siegel joined two accomplices in approaching Fabrizzo's house and, posing as detectives to lure him outside, gunned him down.

[36][35] In 1935, Siegel assisted in Luciano's alliance with Dutch Schultz and killed rival loan shark brothers Louis "Pretty" Amberg and Joseph C.

[40] Since 1933, he had traveled to the West Coast several times,[41] and in California his mission was to develop syndicate-sanctioned gambling rackets with Los Angeles family boss Jack Dragna.

[45] He soon took over Los Angeles's numbers racket[46] and used money from the syndicate to help establish a drug trade route from Mexico and organized circuits with the Chicago Outfit's wire services.

[5] He was known to associate with George Raft, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper and Cary Grant,[52] as well as studio executives Louis B. Mayer and Jack L.

Siegel also met Nazi leaders Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels, to whom he took an instant dislike and later offered to kill.

[62] On November 22, 1939, Siegel, Whitey Krakow, Frankie Carbo, and Albert Tannenbaum killed Harry "Big Greenie" Greenberg outside his Hollywood Hills apartment.

[67] The trial soon gained notoriety because of the preferential treatment that Siegel received in jail: he refused to eat prison food, was allowed female visitors, and was granted leave for dental visits.

[46][68] However, Siegel himself protested loudly about "the stories of his privileged incarceration"[69] and behaviour during the trial, claiming that they were either untrue or grossly exaggerated.

Siegel hated the nickname because it was based on the slang term "bugs", meaning "crazy", and used to describe his erratic behavior.

[70] Siegel allegedly threatened Hollywood reporter Florabel Muir, "who knew [him] well"[71] and was covering the trial, saying "You think because I'm locked up here a punk like you can write anything you please ... Maybe you won't be using that typewriter anymore.

[76] In 1946, Siegel found an opportunity to reinvent his personal image and diversify into legitimate business with William R. Wilkerson's Flamingo Hotel.

[78][79] In the mid-1940s, Siegel was operating in Las Vegas while his lieutenants worked on a business policy to secure all gambling in Los Angeles.

[85] According to later reports by local observers, Siegel's "maniacal chest-puffing" set the pattern for several generations of notable casino moguls.

"[86] Other associates portrayed Siegel in a different aspect; he was an intense character who was not without a charitable side, including his donations for the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.

[87] Local people attended the opening, and some celebrities present included George Raft, June Haver, Vivian Blaine, Sonny Tufts, Brian Donlevy, and Charles Coburn.

When word made its way to Siegel during the evening that the casino was losing money, he became irate and verbally abusive and threw out at least one family.

"[71] According to Florabel Muir, who was "one of the first reporters on the scene",[93] and who had spoken to Siegel earlier that day (he had called "to thank her for a favourable review of a Flamingo show"),[71] the remaining shots "destroyed a white marble statue of Bacchus on a grand piano, and then lodged in the far wall.

"[94] Muir also claimed that she noticed Siegel's left eyeball lying on the ground, and "picked up the sliver of flesh from which his long eyelashes extended.

"Clark Fogg, who for many years was the senior forensic specialist in the Beverly Hills Police Department Lab, concluded that it was more likely that there were two shooters",[71] claiming that ""it would have been nearly impossible for just one gunman" to make such precise shots to Siegel's face because "the mobster's head would have turned upon impact from the first bullet.

Siegel apparently had grown increasingly resentful of the control Sedway, at mob behest, was exerting over his finances and planned to do away with him.

[102] Although Siegel's homicide occurred in Beverly Hills, his death thrust Las Vegas into the national spotlight as photographs of his lifeless body were published in newspapers throughout the country.

[47] The day after Siegel's murder, David Berman and his Las Vegas mob associates, Sedway and Gus Greenbaum, walked into the Flamingo and took over operation of the hotel and casino.

[103] In the Bialystoker Synagogue on New York's Lower East Side, Siegel is memorialized by a Yahrtzeit (remembrance) plaque that marks his death date so mourners can say Kaddish for the anniversary.