Dean Martin Names 7 Golden Age Hollywood Actors Who Were Actually the Most Evil Mafia Bosses – ht
Before taking his final breath in 1995, Dean Martin decided not to take the blood-soaked secrets of Hollywood to his grave. He slammed a shocking blacklist of the seven most powerful male actors of the golden era right onto the table. And the title he used to refer to these colleagues was not silver screen stars, but a much more ruthless and naked phrase, the most disgusting mafia bosses.
From a screen hero like Frank Sinatra casually holding a gun and firing straight into the head of an opponent right in a hidden corner of a casino. To a suave Cary Grant nodding to order his henchmen to take a knife and chop off a debtor’s fingers right on a poker table. Behind their radiant smiles for the cameras and their righteous roles, they hid a ruthless nature.
They used film sets as a safe cover to directly run smuggling rings. Personally counted blood-stained stacks of cash and swung their arms to execute anyone who dared to stand in their way. Let’s open the pages of these archival files. The brutal physical actions recorded inside will directly shatter the glamorous image of the superstars the public once applauded and worshipped.
Frank Sinatra pulling the trigger to seize a $2 million suitcase. In the final days of 1995 in a hidden corner of the La Dolce Vita restaurant in Beverly Hills, Dean Martin sat leaning back in his familiar cushion chair. At age 78, failing health made him reach out to pick up his whiskey and soda slowly.
He didn’t drink immediately. Just slightly rotated his wrist >> >> so the ice cubes clinked against the crystal glass, creating steady rhythmic sounds. People often approached, pulled up a chair across from him, >> >> and constantly asked questions about the brilliant halos of Hollywood. Instead of smiling and telling nice stories from the red carpet, Dean Martin slammed his glass of liquor down on the table.
He decided to speak out about the physical truths that the movie studios always kept hidden. Dean Martin started with the first name on the list, his close friend >> >> Frank Sinatra. He recalled the time in December 1946 when Sinatra took a flight that changed entire archival files at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
That morning, Frank Sinatra appeared on the airport tarmac carrying a large leather suitcase in his hand. According to reports declassified by the police much later, inside the suitcase was $2 million in cash stacked in bundles and tied tightly with rubber bands. The singer swung his arm carrying the heavy suitcase taking decisive steps up the metal stairs and walking straight into the passenger cabin of a commercial airplane.
He pulled out a chair and sat down right next to the Fischetti brothers, high-ranking members belonging to the Chicago Outfit crime syndicate. Immediately after, the plane’s engines roared lifting them into the air and heading straight for Havana. Cuba. A few hours later, the plane landed. Frank Sinatra carried the suitcase down to the tarmac, got into a car with the gang members, and traveled straight to the Hotel Nacional de Cuba.
When the car stopped at the gate, the singer pushed the door hard and stepped out. He carried the suitcase through the main lobby area squeezing past a team of bodyguards in black suits to head straight into a closed door banquet room. This was the location of the Havana Conference, a gathering of underworld bosses to directly redistribute the network of power.
Frank Sinatra pushed the door, stepped into the room, and set the suitcase containing the money down on the tile floor. He reached out to pull an empty chair sitting down directly at the banquet table right next to Lucky Luciano, one of the most powerful bosses in America. Throughout the meal, the singer used a knife and fork to cut his food, raised his glass of liquor to clink against the glasses of gang members, and spoke directly with them.
That same evening, Frank Sinatra stepped onto the wooden stage of the hotel, gripped the microphone stand with both hands, and sang a private performance for the bosses sitting in the audience. Outside the hotel area, FBI agents crouched low in cars parked along the street to observe directly. They held fountain pens writing Frank Sinatra’s name straight into their notebooks, confirming his physical presence alongside wanted criminals.
These handwritten pages were immediately put into the archives forming the foundation for a surveillance campaign with an increasingly thick file. A few days later, when Sinatra returned to America, dozens of journalists swarmed him in the airport lobby. Cornered by questions about Lucky Luciano, Sinatra flared his jaw muscles, swung his arm, smashed a reporter’s camera hard, then took quick strides to his car and slammed the door shut.
The courts never found enough physical evidence to sentence Sinatra to prison. But that trip permanently shackled his name to the Cosa Nostra organization. At his corner table in the La Dolce Vita restaurant, Dean Martin paused the story. He picked up his glass, took a small sip, and sighed. Leaving behind the image of the cash-filled suitcase in Havana, he cleared his mind to prepare to continue telling about another actor whose passport was confiscated by British police for immediate deportation.
George Raft, the deportation stamp crushing the casino. Dean Martin set his glass of liquor back down on the paper coaster, slowly stretched, leaned all the way back into the cushions of his chair, and began to mention the name George Raft. Unlike Hollywood stars who only shook hands with bosses once they had reached the pinnacle of fame, George Raft actually grew up on the same cramped neighborhood blocks in New York since they were teenagers.
This actor had run on the asphalt streets, shared food, and maintained direct physical interactions with those who later became notorious criminals like Bugsy Siegel or Meyer Lansky. When he moved to Hollywood and got gangster roles on screen, George Raft adamantly kept his habit of socializing with the criminal underworld.
The actor frequently drove his own car to casinos controlled by Bugsy Siegel, pulled up a chair straight to the gambling tables, and placed large stacks of cash down onto the felt surface. He reached out to shake hands, put his arm around the shoulders of, and stood right next to prominent members of the underworld to take photos together right in the middle of crowded spaces.
>> >> George Raft’s continuous physical appearances at these betting businesses created a resume that forced law enforcement agencies to pay attention. The peak of the surveillance occurred in the mid-1960s when George Raft signed papers accepting a position as the image director for a major casino in London.
The actor packed his luggage, held his plane ticket, and flew to England for work. However, the appearance of a Hollywood star with a file intimately linking him to the American Mafia’s casino network immediately forced British security forces to act. On a day in early 1967 just as George Raft finished a short trip and returned to the London airport, customs officers stepped forward to block him right at the checkpoint.
A uniformed officer held out his hand directly taking the passport from the actor’s hand. This officer flipped the paper pages, took a metal stamp, and slammed it hard onto the paper to print a line denying a visa extension. British security forces issued a verbal notice declaring a permanent ban on George Raft entering the country due to records noting his direct relationship with criminal organizations.
Right in the airport lobby, security officers stepped forward to surround George Raft. They swung their arms pointing straight toward the waiting gate area and forced the actor to immediately spin around. George Raft didn’t have a chance to pick up a phone to call his lawyer or return to his apartment in London to pack his personal belongings.
He was forced to reach out his hand to take back his stamp, banned passport, pick up his luggage bag, and step onto another flight to return to America that very same day. The decisive deportation action by the British police directly severed the actor’s work contracts. When the flight landed on American soil, George Raft completely lost his source of income at the London casino and faced rejection from major film studios.
Audiences no longer saw him step in front of the camera lens with the dense frequency he used to. In the final years of his life, George Raft isolated himself in an apartment in Los Angeles using his remaining savings and ceasing his public appearances. Inside the quiet space of the La Dolce Vita restaurant, Dean Martin reached out to pull a thin paper napkin from the table.
He used the paper to wipe away the cold drops of condensation gathered around the base of his liquor glass. He crumpled the paper napkin in his palm, tossed it into the ashtray to prepare to continue telling about a male singer who frequently swung golf clubs with gang members. Bing Crosby, black money beneath the golf swing.
Dean Martin brushed the crumpled paper napkin aside to the edge of the table, using his fingers to smooth out the wrinkles on the white tablecloth. He continued to let his mind remember the next name on Hollywood’s underworld list, Bing Crosby. In contrast to his composed exterior of a gentleman who specialized in singing soothing melodies on the radio, Crosby directly executed financial transactions and shared physical space with the criminal world instead of just standing in front of a recording microphone in closed-door
studios. Bing Crosby personally held a pen to sign checks and poured money from his own pockets to invest in buying shares at horse racing tracks in the state of California at that time. These racing tracks were business areas under the heavy influence of mafia gangs. The fact that a famous entertainment star stepped into the betting area and directly invested his money helped the bosses hide their illicit funds behind a legal cover.
The singer frequently stepped up to the VIP grandstand area, reached out to take paper betting tickets, and publicly stood next to prominent figures in the underworld to watch the horse races. He didn’t try to hide or conceal these relationships from the eyes of the public and camera lenses. On weekends, Bing Crosby personally carried a thick leather golf bag, stepping out onto the vast grassy courses in the Los Angeles area.
Here, he directly pulled metal clubs from his bag, stepped onto the turf, and executed his swings to hit the ball alongside Jack Dragna, the man holding the position of the highest boss of the Los Angeles crime syndicate at the time. The fact that two men walked together along the golf holes, reached down to pick up golf balls, >> >> and conversed directly in broad daylight was clear proof that artists were ready to share physical space >> >> with men being intensely monitored by the police.
Bing Crosby even agreed to let gang members transport illegal slot machines right into his own private home. He directly turned the door handle, allowing strange men to carry those heavy metal machines and place them right in his living room to serve visiting guests. When the police force conducted their investigation, agents parked their cars right on the curb outside, rolled down their windows, and used cameras to photograph the times mobsters walked out of Crosby’s gate.
Although the police held detailed reports of these meetings, the courts never issued any arrest warrants or convictions against the singer. Authorities found no evidence showing he directly held weapons or participated in extortion activities. He primarily played the role of an investor, pulling up a chair to share a banquet table, and creating attention to draw customers to the gangs’ businesses at his quiet corner table in the La Dolce Vita restaurant.
Dean Martin reached out to grab his metal fork, skewered a small piece of food, and brought it to his mouth. He chewed slowly, swallowed, then set the clanking fork down on the porcelain plate, leaving behind the images of golf matches on the green. He rotated his shoulders slightly to loosen his muscles and prepared to open the story of Cary Grant, an elegant actor who once directly opened the door of his mansion to welcome Bugsy Siegel in to play poker.
Cary Grant hiding the cleaver before the camera. Dean Martin set his metal fork down on the porcelain plate, reached out, and lightly pushed his leftover food to one side to clear the space in front of him. He picked up his glass of liquor, lightly tapped his index finger against the crystal glass, and moved to the fourth name on the list, Cary Grant.
This actor possessed an elegant exterior and always strictly adhered to the rules of conduct on film sets, unlike Frank Sinatra or George Raft. Cary Grant never carried suitcases full of cash through customs gates or signed his name to illegal casino business papers. However, police files still recorded times when Cary Grant directly shared physical space >> >> with the criminal world.
The actor didn’t go to slums or seedy nightclubs to meet the mafia. Instead, through the introductions of a few acquaintances, he directly unlocked the door of his private home in Los Angeles to welcome Bugsy Siegel into his living room during social gatherings. Cary Grant pulled up a chair to invite this notorious gangster to sit down on the sofa, poured liquor into a crystal glass, and handed it directly to him.
On his weekends off, Cary Grant frequently appeared in the private card rooms of the Hollywood elite. He pulled up a wooden chair, sitting with his back straight next to the round felt-covered table. The actor reached out to receive cards from the dealer’s hand, held multicolored plastic chips, and tossed them into the center of the table to place bets alongside Bugsy Siegel.
The two men sat close to each other, held glasses of liquor up to drink, and talked continuously for hours on end at extravagant, crowded parties. Cary Grant also did not hesitate to engage in public physical interactions with Siegel. When paparazzi raised their equipment to aim, the actor did not turn his back and walk away or raise his hand to cover the lens.
He stepped forward, stood up straight, and directly threw his arm around the mafia boss’s shoulders. He smiled, looking straight into the lens right as the camera flashes popped. The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI immediately collected these photos. Agents held the photos in their hands, used metal pushpins to pin them to tracking boards on the wall, and put all information about Cary Grant’s card games into the archives.
Despite being present in numerous joint photos, Cary Grant never crossed the boundary of a social acquaintance. When searching through documents, the police did not find any of his signatures on gang business contracts or debt ledgers. The peak of establishing this boundary occurred in 1947 when Bugsy Siegel was shot dead.
Receiving the news, Cary Grant did not open his closet to take out a black suit. He did not turn his key to start his car, and absolutely did not set foot in the cemetery area to attend the funeral. He completely cut off all physical contact and maintained absolute distance the moment this mafia boss fell.
Inside the La Dolce Vita restaurant, Dean Martin drank the remaining liquor in his glass. He slammed the bottom of the glass hard down on the wooden table, creating a dry clack. He reached up to loosen the tie knot around his neck, letting out a long exhale. >> >> He pushed the image of Cary Grant’s poker games aside, rearranging the facts in his head to open the file on Peter Lawford, >> >> the man who directly dialed the phone to call the Chicago Outfit.
Peter Lawford, the blood-soaked line through the receiver. Dean Martin ran his hand back through his hair, >> >> resting his elbows on the wooden table of the La Dolce Vita restaurant. He adjusted his sitting posture, shifting his body weight to one side, >> >> and continued the story with the fifth name, Peter Lawford.
Unlike those who only socialized at public casinos, Lawford used his very own private home as a place to set up underworld deals. The actor owned a large mansion located right next to the Santa Monica Beach. Instead of going out to crowded nightclubs, >> >> he personally turned the lock, throwing his front doors wide open to welcome two completely opposite groups of people, high-ranking politicians and members of the underworld.
Lawford walked to the corner of the living room, picked up the receiver of a rotary dial phone. >> >> He used his index finger to spin the plastic circles, dialing directly to arrange closed-door meetings through Frank Sinatra’s connections. Lawford created a safe physical space for boss Sam Giancana of the Chicago Outfit to step inside his mansion.
At these parties, Lawford reached out to pull the window curtains tight to completely block the view from the outside. He personally carried metal trays holding crystal glasses, poured full drinks, and handed them directly to the guests. He stood with his arms crossed in the middle of the living room, watching politicians and criminals wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI pull up chairs to sit at the same banquet table.
Lawford didn’t carry guns, didn’t lug suitcases of cash, but he provided the physical location and the lines of communication for government officials and gangs to directly exchange information. However, the act of playing this middleman brought a direct physical consequence when the government decided to launch an investigative campaign and crack down on criminal gangs.
Lawford received an order to sever this line of communication. He held the phone, dialed the number to call Frank Sinatra, and directly announced the cancellation of the president’s schedule to sleep at Sinatra’s house to avoid trouble. That notification over the phone instantly enraged Frank Sinatra.
Prior to that, the singer had spent money to hire workers to pour a concrete helicopter landing pad right in his own yard to welcome the president. The moment Lawford hung up the phone, Sinatra went out into the yard, reached out, and grabbed a sledgehammer. The singer swung the hammer high, smashed it hard into the surface of the patio, and directly ordered the entire helicopter landing pad to be smashed into pieces.
The very next day, Frank Sinatra ordered Peter Lawford’s name to be struck from the cast lists of their joint film projects. Sinatra strode right past Lawford on set, didn’t hold out his hand to shake, and refused to open his mouth to speak receiving orders from Sinatra. The other members of the Rat Pack also immediately terminated all physical interactions with Lawford.
He had to pack his personal belongings himself, carry his suitcase off the film set, and was no longer allowed to step onto the grand stages of Las Vegas. Clark Gable debt collection right under the stage lights. Dean Martin brought his cigarette to his lips, using his thumb to forcefully flick the gear of his metal lighter.
The small flame flared up, burning the tip of the cigarette before he snapped the lighter’s lid shut with a decisive click. He took a deep drag, exhaling white smoke up to the ceiling, and continued opening the sixth file page named Clark Gable. Unlike colleagues who used their private homes as trading places with the mafia, this actor tied himself to the criminal network’s web right at public gambling tables instead of returning home to rest after stressful hours of filming.
Clark Gable frequently took the steering wheel himself, driving his car straight to casinos operated by the Cosa Nostra organization. The actor pushed open the glass doors, stepped across the thick red carpet, and headed straight into the VIP betting area. He pulled up a chair and sat down, continuously pulling stacks of cash from his wallet and placing them on the felt table to exchange for stacks of plastic chips.
When he lost all the chips on the table clean, Gable didn’t stand up and walk out the door. He reached out to take a fountain pen from the hands of the casino managers, directly putting his pen to sign his real name onto IOUs worth thousands of dollars. The mafia bosses held these pieces of paper, but they never dispatched armed men to physically threaten the actor or smash up his house.
Instead, they ordered their henchmen to open the safe, take out the IOUs bearing Gable’s signature, and place them straight onto the table to offer a direct exchange deal to tear up these massive debts. Clark Gable was forced to follow the gangs’ scheduling arrangements. He had to put on a formal suit, personally stepping foot into the main lobbies of newly opened nightclubs and casinos owned by the underworld, exactly as demanded.
The actor strode up onto the wooden podium beneath the high voltage lights of the nightclub stage. He stood before the crowd, reached out to grip the metal microphone stand, >> >> smiled directly, and waved to the audience below. The physical appearance of an A-list movie star immediately drew thousands of fans flocking in to buy tickets, order drinks, and continue putting money down on the gambling tables by forcing Gable to move and stand on stage.
The gangs raked in actual cash flow many times greater than the numbers written on the original IOUs. From the bar area below, FBI agents stood mingling in the crowd of spectators. They reached into their jacket pockets, pulled out notebooks, and used fountain pens to directly record the date and time of Gable’s appearance at this venue.
Although the police didn’t handcuff Clark Gable or drag him to court on gambling charges, those handwritten reports were still put through typewriters and stored away in the permanent archives. Gable had to trade his personal schedule, constantly hauling his body around to perform for free just to directly cross off his financial debts to the gangs.
>> >> At the corner table of the La Dolce Vita restaurant, Dean Martin took his final drag of the cigarette. He reached out, pinched the butt, and crushed it hard into the bottom of the crystal ashtray until the red glowing ember died out entirely. The cigarette smoke gradually faded into the quiet space.
He pushed the ashtray aside, picked up his glass of liquor to take a sip to soothe his throat. Dean Martin cleared his mind, preparing to close the list with the seventh name, Sammy Davis Jr. The man who personally dialed the phone to call the mafia to beg for an order to protect his life. Sammy Davis Jr.
, the marriage certificate blocking the gun barrel. Dean Martin set his glass of liquor down on the wooden table, slowly leaning forward and resting his elbows on the edge of the table to mention the final name on the list, Sammy Davis Jr. Unlike the six previous men who sought out the bosses to borrow gambling money or expand their power, this black singer was forced to pick up the phone to call the underworld just to keep his own life.
In the late 1950s, Sammy Davis Jr. frequently drove himself to pick up and publicly date white actress Kim Novak. As soon as this information leaked out, the president of Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn, immediately slammed his desk in fury. Instead of calling or sending a warning letter, Harry Cohn directly threw money to hire armed thugs to track Sammy down right at his workplace.
These large men reached out their arms to block the singer’s path, shoved him hard into a wall corner, and issued a direct threat to destroy his body if he refused to sever his relationship with Kim Novak. Faced with a direct threat to his life, Sammy Davis Jr. panicked and ran into a public phone booth.
He picked up the receiver, used his finger to continuously spin the plastic circles on the dial face to call straight to Sam Giancana, the powerful boss of the Chicago Outfit. When the other end of the line picked up, Sammy loudly begged Giancana to dispatch black-suited bodyguards carrying guns to California to form a physical protective barrier around him.
However, Sam Giancana stood on the other end of the line and flatly refused that request. The boss clearly declared that his gang could not send men across state lines into California territory to intervene in a personal dispute within Hollywood circles. Giancana directly slammed the receiver down hard onto the cradle, completely severing the singer’s hope of finding armed protection.
Backed into a corner without any remaining physical shield, Sammy Davis Jr. was forced to execute a decisive action himself to extinguish the studio boss’s murderous pursuit. A few days after that failed call, Sammy took long strides up the steps of City Hall. He walked straight to the clerk’s counter, picked up a metal fountain pen, and pressed the nib down to sign his real name onto a marriage registration form with Lorey White, a black woman he had only just met.
Sammy pushed the fully signed paper toward the administrative clerk, officially binding his life to a marriage contract solely to prove on paper to Harry Cohn that he had completely walked away from Kim Novak. By forcing himself to hold the pen to sign that piece of paper, Sammy Davis Jr.
kept his body intact to continue stepping onto performance stages. In the hidden corner of the La Dolce Vita restaurant, Dean Martin finished the story of his colleague in the Rat Pack. He reached out to wave over a waiter wearing a black vest standing nearby to ask for the bill. Dean Martin reached into his dress pants pocket, pulled out a few crisp cash bills, and placed them down, pressing them onto the receipt on the wooden table.
He rested his hands on the seat of his chair, using force to push his body to stand straight up. Dean Martin straightened the wrinkles in his suit jacket, turned his back, and took long strides out of the dining area. He used both hands to push hard on the restaurant’s solid glass doors, stepping decisively outside and vanishing into the darkness of the Beverly Hills streets.
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