LUELLEN SMILEY ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS

Where Gaps of Expression are Liberated

ABOUT

Luellen Smiley is a creative nonfiction writer, author, columnist, and historian whose writing is deeply rooted in a controversial personal history. She is the daughter of Allen Smiley, a close friend, associate, and business partner of notorious Las Vegas gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. Her father was sitting only feet from Siegel when Siegel was murdered in Beverly Hills on June 20, 1947.

That extraordinary childhood history became the foundation for Smiley’s first book, Cradle of Crime: A Daughter’s Tribute, published in 2017. The memoir explores what it was like to grow up as the daughter of a man connected to organized crime while trying to reconcile her love for her father with the secrecy, fear, and criminal world surrounding him.

Smiley’s work has appeared in publications including the New York Post, MORE Magazine, Southern California newspapers, and Authorlink. She wrote the newspaper column Smiley’s Dice—Adventures in Livingness, which earned a Blue-Ribbon Award from the California Newspapers Association for her Growing Up With Gangsters columns.

Her interest in her father’s history also led her to become a researcher and commentator on organized crime history. She has participated in television, radio, and documentary interviews.

Smiley’s next book, Gaslighting Greta, will be published this year. A personal story that reads like fiction. Her own website describes the project as exploring a woman whose life is destabilized by gaslighting and psychological manipulation.

Her writing career reflects a recurring theme: using personal experience and research to uncover the truth behind complicated relationships and extraordinary lives. From the secretive world surrounding her father and Bugsy Siegel to the deeply personal territory of Gaslighting Greta, Smiley’s work transforms difficult experiences into stories of survival, discovery, and ultimately reclaiming one’s voice.

Luellen Smiley is an author whose life has given her an unusual perspective on secrecy, manipulation, family loyalty, betrayal, and survival—and she uses that perspective as the raw material for her nonfiction storytelling.

October 31st, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, Oct. 24, 2011

MOB EXPERT POINTS TO ‘FOWL’ PLAY OVER LAS VEGAS MOB EXPERIENCE BANKRUPTCY: ‘IT’S A CHICKEN MOVE’

“Someone is lining his pockets with cash, and it isn’t the family members who contributed the Mafia Collection” says Mob expert LUELLEN SMILEY, of the declaration of bankruptcy filed last week by the Las Vegas Mob Experience at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas.

Smiley’s father, Hollywood gangster Allen Smiley, was featured in the exhibit’s Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel room as Siegel’s best friend and partner in the 1930s and ‘40s. Allen Smiley was seated next to best friend Siegel the night he was murdered.

Declaring bankruptcy is “a chicken move,” continues Smiley. “Family members have been waiting months for payments. I saw it coming, a month ago.”

The Wall Street Journal, in its bankruptcy blog, reported this week that JVLV Holdings LLC would take over ownership in exchange for putting $2 million to pay off some of the museum’s creditors. The bankruptcy case comes as investor and contractor lawsuits brew against the projects former developer, Jay Bloom, who faces accusations of fraud that he’s fought in court. The proposed sale would allow the buyer of the Las Vegas Mob Experience to leave those lawsuits against Bloom behind.

“The Mob Experience brought together both visual and narrative about the gangster history,” continues Smiley. “This was an extraordinary gamble for Jay Bloom but he earned my trust and other family members. I expected to be out there every few months for personal tours, discussions, and interviews, and if he can resurrect this sinking museum, I’ll stand on my head on the Strip.”

Luellen Smiley’s “Growing Up With Gangsters” stories have appeared in the New York Post, MORE Magazine and numerous publications throughout Southern California. She currently is finishing a feature length script based on her life as the daughter of Hollywood gangster, Allen Smiley Luellen’s extensive research has led to numerous TV and documentary film interviews regarding the Los Angeles mob scene, and especially Benjamin Siegel, her father’s best friend and business partner.

Luellen Smiley is available for interviews about the Las Vegas Mob Experience and “Growing up with Gangsters,” as well as HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and PBS’ Prohibition.

KABC-TV interview on Las Vegas Mob Experience

www.liliespen.wordpress.com.

Media Contacts:

Scott Segelbaum / Right Brain Agency

610.389.1807 / scott@rightbrainagency.com

Randy Alexander / Randex Communications

856.596.1410 / randex@randexpr.com

Online press kits with downloadable jpegs at www.randexpr.com

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