Luellen Smiley's memories and research offer a fresh view of Allen Smiley, Bugsy Siegel, and the contested control of the race wire
The daughter of a well-known Hollywood gangster has shared a private, final conversation that casts new light on one of the 20th century’s most puzzling slayings. Luellen Smiley, who grew up as the child of Allen Smiley, recounts a 1983 hospital exchange in which her father insisted on his deep loyalty to Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel.
That murder, which occurred on June 20, 1947, remains officially unsolved and continues to fascinate historians and true crime researchers alike.
In the years since the killing at Virginia Hill‘s Beverly Hills residence, numerous theories have circulated about motive and authorship.
Luellen, after decades of research and a 2016 memoir titled Cradle of Crime: A Daughter’s Tribute, has offered a persistent claim: her father knew more than he ever disclosed to authorities. Her account ties together family recollection, investigative pressure from the FBI, and the shadowy commerce of the era’s betting networks.
A deathbed declaration
Luellen remembers her father on his deathbed in 1983 saying that much would be written about him and that readers should remember that Bugsy Siegel was his best friend and would have taken a bullet for him. She believes firmly that Allen Smiley understood who fired those fatal shots, yet never revealed the name to her, to law enforcement, or to the FBI despite repeated attempts to extract testimony. On the night of the killing, Smiley had been seated beside Bugsy on the sofa and narrowly escaped injury, diving to avoid the assailant as a bullet penetrated his suit jacket.
Family life behind the headlines
Growing up in that home was a study in contrasts. Luellen’s mother, Lucille Casey, had been a model and an MGM musical actress, someone Luellen describes as poised and quietly Catholic. Her parents’ marriage ended amid the tension between Lucille’s world and Allen’s clandestine activities. After Lucille’s death in 1966, when Luellen was 13, she moved in with her father and encountered a regular procession of visitors without last names, known only as Uncle Joe, Uncle Charlie, and Uncle Meyer.
Growing up in secrecy
Luellen recalls the ordinary-surreal routine of a childhood threaded with secrecy: being watched, using phone booths to call friends, and the constant presence of investigators. She met Meyer Lansky as a child and knew him as ‘Uncle Meyer’, not realizing his fame among organized crime circles. That secrecy extended to Bugsy’s own family: Luellen says Bugsy’s daughter Millicent Siegel was largely sheltered and shared the view that the killing pointed toward the Italian mob, a group Millicent reportedly labeled the ‘spaghetti mob’.
Who ordered the hit?
Central to Luellen’s view is the competition for control of the race wire, an illicit but highly profitable network that permitted off-track betting around the country. She explains that in 1946 Bugsy stood to earn as much as $25,000 a month from that enterprise, a sum the family has equated to roughly $420,000 today. The combination of envy over Bugsy’s celebrity connections and the desire to dominate that revenue stream are, in her assessment, why Italian mob elements pushed for the attack.
Meyer Lansky’s role and disputed approval
Not all historians agree on how the decision was made. Luellen recounts that Meyer Lansky visited Bugsy three days before the assassination and urged him to calm down and abandon the wire. While many criminal historians argue Lansky would have had to sanction any such killing, Luellen doubts he ever enthusiastically approved it and suggests he may have been forced by circumstances to accept what others demanded. Still, she rejects a competing theory that her father set Bugsy up, insisting there was no reason he would deliberately seat himself beside his friend if he planned a betrayal.
Legacy and unanswered questions
After decades of research, writing, and reflection, Luellen places her father’s life in the broader immigrant narrative that produced early 20th century city gangs. She frames those organizations as initially protective networks that ballooned into powerful criminal machines with the capacity to influence courts and commerce. Even so, the final puzzle piece of who pulled the trigger on June 20, 1947 remains missing. Luellen’s testimony and memoir add texture and personal testimony to the historical record, but they stop short of delivering the definitive answer, leaving the murder of Bugsy Siegel as an enduring, unresolved chapter in American crime history.
