Who Was Mickey Cohen? The Celebrity Gangster of the Sunset Strip
Mobsters DailyMickey Cohen was a former professional boxer who became Bugsy Siegel's top lieutenant in Los Angeles and, after Siegel's 1947 murder, the most photographed and flamboyant gangster of Hollywood's golden age — a celebrity underworld figure who survived repeated assassination attempts and two federal tax prison terms. Where real bosses hid, Cohen posed.
From the ring to Siegel's side
Born Meyer Harris Cohen in Brooklyn and raised in Los Angeles, Cohen boxed professionally as a teenager, then worked for mob crews in Cleveland and Chicago before Siegel recruited him in the late 1930s. He became Siegel's enforcer and public face in LA's gambling wars — the era behind the Flamingo legend — and inherited much of the operation when Siegel was shot dead in Beverly Hills in 1947.
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Wars, taxes and the long fade
Cohen's feud with Jack Dragna's family produced bombings and shootings across the Sunset Strip, yet what finally caged him was paperwork: federal income-tax convictions in 1951 and again in 1961, the second sending him to Alcatraz and then Atlanta, where an attack by another inmate left him partially disabled. The pattern — the taxman succeeding where gunmen failed — echoes Capone at Alcatraz a generation earlier. Released in 1972, Cohen lived quietly on lecture fees and interviews until his death in 1976, famous to the very end and powerful almost never again after prison.
Frequently asked questions
Was Mickey Cohen a real boss? He led his own LA crew but was never boss of the Los Angeles family — that was Jack Dragna.
How many times was Cohen sent to prison for taxes? Twice — federal tax convictions in 1951 and 1961.
How did Mickey Cohen die? He died in Los Angeles in July 1976, years after his release from prison.
Keep reading: Casino's true story: the real people · Luciano invented the modern Mafia · The Five Families explained · Who Was Jack Dragna? Los Angeles' Only Real Mob Boss
From the shop: Shadows of the Underworld — a deep dive into the real bosses, hits and betrayals behind America's Mafia century.
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