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.

CULTUREING & HISTORY


When and why does privacy replace honesty. Do we have more lies to hide? I find conversations starched, and drafty. When I go out to socialize, I’ll bring a book, one that speaks truth and stage it for attention.

My problems are cornflakes compared to what is in the news: racism, sexual allegations infiltrating the most unimaginable perpetrators, suicides, corruption, mass murder rampages and the politics are so degenerative I fear we have lost all civility. Our souls are at risk, and our consciousness is poisoned because the message is this: if you apologize, you can be exonerated.  In a way, the news reminds me that I have very little problems in that zone, as I’m incapable of crime and racial prejudice. I am guilty of gullibility, raffish behavior and selfishness… that’s not the full list!

After checking emails, I searched for something, you know the feeling, one track goes in a dozen directions with popups, andI landed on this page. It’s Yellow Advertiser. Wrong name for Today in History, but I love this! Early morning history honking.    

Today in History https://www.yellowad.co.uk/it-happened-today

Today in History…it happened on this day! Look back through our archive to find out what happened on this day or any other in history!

News Today in History 

It happened today – this day in history – August 1

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10BC: Birth of Claudius. 30BC: Marc Antony (Marcus Antonius) commits suicide aged 53. 10BC: Birth of Emperor Claudius (Tberius Claudius Caesar AugustusRead more

1971: Astronaut James Irwin and the lunar rover

News Today in History 

It happened today – this day in history – July 31

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54BC: Aurelia Cotta, mother of Julius Caesar, dies at 66. 30BC: Marc Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian atRead more

1909: Eugène Schueller (Mayns) CC_4.0

News Today in History 

It happened today – this day in history – July 30

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762: The city of Baghdad is founded by Abbasid caliph Al-Mansur, just north of ancient Baghdad. 1678: English troops landRead more

1972: Screaming Lord Sutch (Joe Mabel) CC_3.0

News Today in History 

It happened today – this day in history – July 29

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904: Thessalonica is sacked by Saracen pirates led by renegade Leo of Tripoli. 1221: Emperor Go-Horikawa, aged only 10 yearsRead more

1988: Paddy Ashdown (© European Communities, 2005)

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It happened today – this day in history – July 28

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1148: Crusaders abandon their siege of Damascus. 1540: Thomas Cromwell, chief minister for Henry VIII is executed for treason andRead more

News Today in History 

It happened today – this day in history – July 27

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1214: King John of England loses Normandy and his other possessions in France to Philip II of France (hence hisRead more

1957: Carlos Castillo Armas

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It happened today – this day in history – July 26

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1267: The Inquisition forms in Rome under Pope Clement IV. 1469: The forces of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of WarwickRead more

1943: Benito Mussolini

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It happened today – this day in history – July 25

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306: Constantine I is proclaimed Roman Emperor by his troops. 1261: Constantinople recaptured by Nicaean forces under Alexios Strategopoulos forRead more

1904: Henri Cornet

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It happened today – this day in history – July 24

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1148: Louis VII of France lays siege to Damascus during the Second Crusade. 1411: The Battle of Harlaw, one ofRead more

1955: Bluebird K7

News Today in History 

It happened today – this day in history – July 23

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636: Arabs gain control of most of Palestine from the Byzantine Empire. 1148: Crusaders attack Damascus. 1745: Charles Edward Stuart,Read more