THE MOST RECENT POST WAS A DRAFT. Please don’t think I lost my mind, that was a draft of notes for a post. I don’t know how to spell parallel when I am speed writing. Now you know!
Author: LouLou
I am a creative Nonfiction author, lifestyle columnist, and mob historian. Personally a free-style chef, historic preservationist, trailblazer, swimmer, and manic Rolling Stones listener.
Since 1997 I have renovated historic homes and converted them into vacation rentals.
WRITING MY WAY HOME.
This is a previous post (2011) that I am re posting for new readers.
MY FAMILY history was brought to life in an unpublished memoir. The stories lived on during a long arduous journey of research and trying to get published. Sometimes I read pages to get close to my parents. I squeeze in between them like a ghost, hear their voices, and see their expressions. If I remove the outside world, the hum of the hotel air-condoning , the delivery trucks, and speeding motorcycles, I can remember swimming in the pool with my mother. I see her bathing cap strap pulled down across her chin, her red lipstick, and her one-piece strapless bathing suit. I can see her freckles, and her long slender arms backstroking as she swam.
Early in 1960 my father decided to build a swimming pool in the backyard of our house on Thurston Circle. I had just completed swimming lessons and asked my father for a pool. Years later he told the story: “My little girl asked for a pool, and I built her one.” I think he built the pool for my mother. He was under investigation with the FBI and Department of Justice, and spent most days in court defending himself against a deportation order to Russia. Subpoenas, arrests, and trials were routine events that tied my parents together against a world of misunderstanding. After eleven years of nail biting suspense, my mother just wore out. The pool was built with the intention of removing my mother’s anxiety and sadness. My father designed the shape of the pool around the original pool at the Garden of Allah, a highly scandalous Hollywood hotel apartment that attracted starlets and gangsters in the early 30’s. I know this tiny detail from photographs I’ve seen of the Garden pool. More obscure details surrounding the building of our pool were found reading his FBI files.
My father accused the pool contractor of being an informant for the government. One sunny afternoon he marched him out of the house. I was hiding behind a drape when the confrontation broke out. I recall the big shouldered contractor running from my father’s threats. Most likely an FBI agent was parked outside and followed the man after he scampered out.
The pool was finally completed in mid 1961. There are photographs of my mother and I in the pool; her smile is radiant and naturally composed. She and I swam everyday. My father loved to swim too, but he was busy with court proceedings and meetings. Before the year ended my mother filed for divorce, the house burnt down, and I was released from childhood. I don’t regret those events any longer. They were steps that shaped my character, and what brings me back to the topic of growing up with gangsters.
The best memories of my childhood are in swimming pools and restaurants with gangsters and gamblers. They were part of the family, and when they were around my father was on very good behavior, and my mother defenseless against their irresistible humor, pranks, and generosity. She just sort of glided in and out of activities, and helped me ride the vibrations. She didn’t laugh out of herself like I do, and she rarely yelled. The older I get, the less I seem to be like her. Maybe the passage of life experiences determines which parent you will take after. Had I married and had children, maybe I’d be more like her. Since I get into all kinds of tricky situations, and throw the dice, I need my father’s strength more.
Over the years, I have forgotten some of the dead reckoning discoveries I made about our family history. Still nothing compares to reading about my Aunt Gertie. She was my father’s sister. Until I read about her in the FBI file, I didn’t know she existed. I haven’t figured out why my father left her out of our life. According to the FBI files she was a remarkably loyal sister. Gertie was the one who confronted the federal agents when they arrived at the family home in Winnipeg, Canada. She pushed my grandmother out of the interview, and spoke for the family. The agents showed her a recent photograph of my father. She told them that her brother left home when he was twelve and they had not seen him since. She could not verify the identity of the photograph because almost twenty years had passed. The agents left without any evidence and continued to search for the birthplace of my father. Every time he was arrested, he entered a different birthplace. He named Chicago, New York, Detroit, and Los Angeles. His origins were discovered through a letter that his mother had written when he was fifteen and confined to a boys reformatory. The letter was turned over to the FBI, and that is how they discovered his parents lived in Winnipeg. The government could not deport my father to Russia without verification from his family. Eventually my father won the battle. He was granted citizenship in 1966, two weeks after my mother died.
Gertie died after my father. I don’t know if they corresponded over the years. I have learned enough about my father to know he was protecting her from further harassment. Maybe if my father lived longer they would be coming after me.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from Luellen Smiley/ owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Luellen Smiley and [Smiley’s Dice] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
SMILEY & SIEGEL
THE SIEGEL SMILEY LEGACY
BY: Luellen Smiley
When I was eleven years old our home burnt to the ground in the Bel Air fire, and everything we owned fell to ash. Shortly after my mother moved us to an apartment in Brentwood, a mammoth carton arrived and was placed in the center of the living room. My mother cut it open and urged me to look inside. I sat cross-legged on the avocado green carpeting and discovered bundles of garments; Bermuda shorts, blouses, sweaters, and shirts.
I quickly shed my worn trousers and stepped into a new outfit, dancing about as I zipped myself in. My mother watched, and echoed my childish yelps of elation.
“Mommy, who are these from?”
“They’re from your Aunt Millicent.”
“Who is she? I don’t remember her.”
“You were a little girl. She loves you very much.”
Years later, my father, Allen Smiley, called and told me to come over to his apartment in Hollywood.
“Why Dad?”
“Millicent is coming by; I told you she moved here, didn’t I?”
I’d learned Millicent was Benjamin Siegel’s daughter, and Ben was my father’s best friend. Dad was sitting on the same chintz covered sofa the night Ben was murdered.
“You mean Ben Siegel’s daughter?”
“Don’t refer to her that way ever again; do you hear me? She is Aunt Millicent to you.”
When my father answered the door, I watched as they embraced. Millicent had tears in her eyes. She walked over to me, and took my hand. I looked into her swimming pool blue eyes and felt as if I was drowning. She sat on the edge of the sofa and lit a long brown Sherman cigarette. I studied her frosted white nails, the way she crossed her legs at the ankles, her platinum blonde hair, and the way her bangs draped over one eye. What impressed me most was her voice; like a child’s whisper, her tone was delicate as a rose petal.
I spent the rest of that afternoon memorizing her behavior. She emanated composure and a reserve that distanced her from uninvited intrusion.
Over the next few years, Millicent and I were joined through my father’s arrangements, but I was never alone with her. When he died in 1982, she was one of only three friends at his memorial service.
As the years passed, and my tattered address books were replaced with new ones, I lost Millicent’s phone number. I had been researching my father’s life in organized crime, and had gained an understanding of my father’s bond with Ben Siegel. My discoveries were adapted into a memoir and recently into a film script about growing up with gangsters. During this time, I had reconnected with several of Dad’s inner-circle, but Millicent was underground, and now I understood why.
Last year I received an email from Cynthia Duncan, Meyer Lansky’s step-granddaughter. She told me about Jay Bloom, the man behind the Las Vegas Mob Experience, a state of the art museum that will take visitors into the personal histories of Las Vegas gangsters. Cynthia contributed her significant collection of Meyer Lansky memorabilia, and assured me Jay was paying tribute to the historical narrative of these men by using relatives rather than government and media sources. She wanted me to be involved.
Despite my apprehensions about the debasing and one-sided publicity that characteristically surrounds gangster history, I contacted Jay. In his return note, he invited me to participate, and added, “Millicent would like to contact you.”
A month later I was seated in Jay’s office waiting for Millicent. When she walked in, I stood to embrace her, and this time the tears were in my eyes.
Millicent’s voice was unchanged and so was her regal posture. “Our fathers were best friends, attached at the hip. Your Dad was at the house all the time. I’ll never forget when he and my mother met me at the train station to tell us about my father’s… death. Smiley was very good to us. My mother adored him too.”
Jay took me on a tour of the collection warehouse, and the history I’d read about unfolded before my eyes. The preview room was like a family room to me, because some of the men had been my father’s lifelong friends and protectors. I stopped in front of the Ben Siegel display case and saw an object that was very familiar.
“My father has the identical ivory figurine of an Asian woman. I still have it.” So much of their veiled history was exposed; between these two men was a brotherly bond that transcended their passing and was even evident in their shared taste in furnishings.
Jay showed me a layout of the Mob Experience in progress. I turned to him and asked, “Is it too late to include my father? All the rooms are assigned.”
“Millicent and I already spoke about it. She wants your Dad in Ben’s room.”
After I returned home, Millicent and I talked on the phone.
“Your father belongs in my Dad’s room. They’ll just have to make Mickey Cohen’s room smaller.”
“My father hated Mickey,” I said.
“So did mine! When are you coming back? I’ll kill you if you don’t become part of this.”
WORLD VISION
WORLD VISION
By Luellen Smiley
I made a list of the horrors, corruption, and confusion that dismantled the ordinary into extraordinary. The notebook is on top of my desk, on top of the entire works-in rewrite documents. All the other tributes to my success or failure are stored mentally; I have to look and hear the world. I am addicted to news alerts, commentaries, panels, and interviews. Along with the experts and analysts I listen to, my own voice and opinions are exploding.
I am not Charlie, Kayla, or Kyle’s wife. I am a writer of interior battles. My writing has never steered towards Politics. It is a freeway I never understood; a freeway my father told me at a young age was not to be trusted. A subject I avoided in college, and a topic that fumbled my thinking during my young adulthood rap sessions.
How faraway those years grow everyday. We chanted peace and love, in our kooky outfits, and our imaginative minds. I was full with Lennon, Dylan and Joni.
How much longer can I remain silent? There is a blockade of conversation about politics; it goes up like a digital wall, as soon as I meet a stranger. I was in La Posada Hotel the night the terrorists captured the Kosher Deli and Coffee House. I went to record by hand, the reactions of people I pick out very impulsively. A sort of lightning rod hits when I go into public and select my conversations. I may meet someone I have to write about.
No one had time to really absorb the truth of this historical moment. We may read, or watch the news, shake our heads, and then tuck our children into bed. I feel that our lives our complicated more with finances than any other single threat. Most of us just want to take a vacation. So what can they expect of us. Do we have a voice? Do we have a fax number to the Administration? Sometimes I dream of one representative in every state of the Union grabbing the microphone, and all digital devices, and shouting out, “Stop the war Republicans and Democrats! IMAGINE IF WE WERE UNITED… JUST A LITTLE.
WHO WAS MY FATHER?
I began my research WITH WHAT I HAD; one of my father’s books; “The Mark Hellinger Story.” I leafed through the index and there was my father’s name along with Ben Siegel’s. According to the biographer, my father visited Mark at his home the night before he died. Mark had stood up in court for my father and Ben at one of their hearings. He was fond of Ben, like so many people were, that aren’t here to tell their story.
After reading the book I rented, The Roaring Twenties, written by Mark, and from there the connections, relationships, and characters began to leap out from all directions. I
submerged myself in history and photocopied pictures of my father’s movie star friends, George Raft, Eddie Cantor, Clark Gable, and his gangsters friends. I found photographs of the nightclubs he frequented, the Copacabana, El Morocco, and Ciro’s and nightclubs that he referred to in his mysterious conversations. I made a collage of the pictures and posted them above my desk. I played Tommy Dorsey records while I wrote. This microcosm of life that was created, allowed me to listen to the whispers and discover the secrets.
I dug into my father’s history without knowing how deep I had to go, or what shattering evidence would cross my path. In my heart I felt this was crossing a spiritual bridge to my parents. The flip side was a gripping torment, tied to my
prying mind. I needed to break into the files in order to break my silence, and discover my parents, not glamorized stereotypes that fit into the category of Copa dancer and gangster. No matter what I uncovered, I always knew it would be ambiguous, and controversial. I did not expect to find a record of murder, dope peddling, and prostitution. I believed that his crimes were around the race track and in gambling partnerships. Even so, I could never understand the similarities we shared, unless I knew them as people. Though I have not rebelled against authority as my father did, I‘m not a team player, I resist authority, and I don’t like waiting in lines.
I had to reinvent my mother through the subconscious. I skated over thin ice trying to set her truth apart, from what I
had invented, dreamed, or had been told. I listened to Judy Garland’s recordings, and premonitions surfaced, of how my mother loved Judy, how it must have felt to be under the spot lights of MGM, and dancing in ginger bread musicals while her own life was draped with film noir drama.
I studied my mother’s face in all her films, rewinding and stopping the tape, as if she might suddenly return my glance. She had dancing and background shots in the musicals produced by Arthur Freed. I remembered dad talking about Arthur, and how prestigious it was to be in his department.
When I discovered the Museum of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, I went down and filled out a slip of paper with my mother’s name on it and waited for my number to be called. I felt something like a mother discovering her child’s first triumph. They handed me a large perfectly stainless manila envelope, and a pair of latex gloves to handle the file. I had to look through it in front of a clerk.
“That’s my mother,” I proclaimed. He blinked and returned his attention to a memo pad. Inside the envelope were black and while glossy studio photographs, press releases, and studio biographies of my mother. The woman who pressed my clothes, washed my hair, and made my tuna sandwiches. There she was in front of the train, for Meet Me in St. Louis, and a promotional photograph in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, dated 1947. That was the year Ben was shot. I looked further to find more clues. I needed to know where she was the night Ben was murdered. Maybe she was on location when it happened. Maybe she was in New York at the opening of the film. I could not place her on June 20, the day Ben was murdered. I imagined my father called her and told her the news. The marriage plans were postponed, their engagement suspended. My father had to get out of town.
I spent everyday picking through the myths I’d heard and read. I heard a clear chord of scorn, for exposing family secrets, “It’s nobody’s business what goes on in our family, don’t discuss our family with anyone, Do You Hear Me!” I must have heard that a thousand times.
I began to dig with an iron shovel. I asked every question I wasn’t supposed to ask, and preyed into every sector of their life. I wanted to know about his childhood, where he grew up, and why he left home when he was thirteen years old. Who were my grandparents, and why didn’t he talk about them. How did he meet Ben Siegel and Johnny Roselli, and when did he cross over into the rackets?
I contacted historians, archivists, judges, attorneys, Police Chiefs, FBI agents, authors and reporters across the United States. He always said, “Reporters can destroy your life overnight.” And here I was, uncovering what he had sheltered all his life.
I wrote to the INS in WDC and asked for their assistance. Six months later I received a letter from the INS in Los Angeles. They acknowledged his file, it was classified and they could not locate it. The progress was tediously slow, and the waiting oppressive.
While I waited for the files, I read Damon Runyon, and Raymond Chandler stories and attempted to identify which character personified which gangster. The stories were about the people that came to my birthday parties, Swifty Morgan, Nick the Greek, Frank Costello and Abner Zwillman,(the Boss of the New Jersey syndicate.) The dialect of Runyon and Winchell mimicked the same anecdotes my father used over and over! By understanding Runyon’s characters I began to know my father. At night I watched old gangster movies and that opened another door of familiarity.
I read almost every book in print about the Mafia and ordered out of print books from all over the country. They began to topple on my head from the shelf above the desk. Allen Smiley was in dozens of them. Every author portrayed him differently, he was a Russian Jew, a criminal, Bugsy’s right hand man, a dope peddler, a race track tout, and sometimes the words bled on my arm. To me, he was a benevolent father, a wise counselor and a man who worshiped
me.
The INS claimed my father was one of the most dangerous criminals in the United States. They said he was Benjamin Siegel’s assistant. They said he was taking over now that Ben was gone.
That day I put the file away, and looked into the window of truth. How much could I bear to hear more?
Mom and Dad second from Left. I don’t know the other people.
MUST TO MOONLIGHT
Now that you know I am leaving Santa Fe on an exploration of destination, there you are again. Igniting my flashbulbs for the seamless cinema-scope of Santa Fe, you are toggling behind me in the snow, as I plow, sweep and sprinkle salt, you are there when I am in the parade and choosing my characters to congregate, and make a party, and you are there when I wake up in the morning, to draw me out of the down comfort, sheets and pillows that bemoan me leaving, I want to get up and begin the day, because you are there, turning up the music, and opening the laptop to a new page, and the journal to a new entry, and my books that have punished me for not reading them. They are dusty and wrinkled from my sleepy attempts to find the water bottle and drink, and then the spills fall on them. You are there when I am cleaning the stove and bathroom floors, a reminder to get on the floor and douse the tiles with love, listen to music while I vacuum, and end the day with my shoes off and slouching in a comfy chair. You are not dormant spirit, you are rising from the labyrinth of an imagined life and one that is moonlight.
MAXFIELD PARRISH
GET UP AND LISTEN
I DON’T LIKE WRITING IN THIS ROOM any more: the window glass smudged and dusty and I don’t feel like cleaning it, or buying a privacy screen because my front door is glass, and behind it is my living space: sleeping, dressing, eating and working room.
I can’t write in this room because the surroundings are stale to my eye, the rhythm too familiar, the noise still too noisy. At least that is what I have convinced myself are the reasons. If I admit I am seeking alternate locations, then my right hand slaps my left hand and cries; moving doesn’t solve anything!
CONCURRENTLY to my attitude, the doors opened to a new opportunity, and closed as suddenly. A common misunderstanding between sincerity and acting. It took me three days to accept this disappointment. A woman and her adorable daughter made a verbal commitment with her attorney present, that she would lease the house for six months, beginning February. This would enable me to move to Southern California for an exploratory mission on returning home. I haven’t lived in Los Angeles since 1993. My friends rallied behind my winning streak. The universe did not bring this tenant to me, I brought my offering to the universe by listening to friends, who encouraged me and injected the confidence to complete the mission. I’ve been known to launch rocket ship ideas and leave them wandering in space until another launcher discovers them.
THEN CAME WEDNESDAY. I was at my desk when the news broke. I turned away from work, and spent two days gaping at the unfolding events in Paris. Real time images, shot by shocked photo journalists, and narrative so ridden with horror, racing from one scene to another. There were heroes, and the terrorists and byline stories that will erupt over the next few months. The stories of each individual at Charlie Hebdo Headquarters, the policeman who pleaded for his life, and the French Police and Special Forces that stormed the enemy, knowing they too may be shot.
The next day the Kosher grocery store, and the printing press. Reporters here in the USA, stumbled on reporting the news, and misrepresenting the events. I could see their chests heaving, the terror in their eyes, and it slapped me out of my cavern of comfort. It hits all of us at different speeds and times, and although I am a firm believer in the war that we are not paying attention to, this day I was brandished in awareness.
I sought immediate camaraderie. I dressed at dusk, half-work out half cocktail, whatever you call that and went to the Staab House at La Posada. Cynical Steve was at the bar, to the left of me two suited gentlemen; discussing a financial deal over a few hundred thousand. In the salon several sipping couples, almost whispering. :
“Steve, did you hear what happened?” I asked
” You mean Paris?”
“Yes.”
“Yea… yea.” And as he moved away to retrieve glasses, and bottles, I pulled him back.
” Do you know what happened?’
” Tell me. I only heard part of it ?”
I retold the events as I remembered them, emphasizing the courage of the French Swat teams and Police to blow the hostage situation wide open.
” Wow. ” he replied.
I looked up at the TV screen, football .. what a surprise. They don’t feature anything else unless by request of celebrity, executive or neighbor. I am the neighbor.
” Can you turn on the news? You’ll want to see this.” Cynical and a cupid of suppressed intelligence, Steve switched channels. He then stopped his razor rapid chopping, cleaning, and servicing the bar to watch.
THE TWO MEN seated next to me who were slicing up strategy over a few hundred thousand dollars suddenly turned to the screen. I waited. Then they vocalized simultaneously their shock.
I turned to the one closet. ” I’ve been watching all day.” I said.
” It is just horrible. ” Then he shook his head. The other suit echoed the same comment.
Then they returned to dicing up the thousands of dollars.
I took a another sip of wine and waited for another subject to interact with.
A woman showed up at the bar and sat down. She buried herself in a book about Indian Spiritualist and did not ever look up, only to answer her I Phone.
As I was leaving the hotel through the lobby I checked for expressions. The hostess was swaying back and forth on her heels, the concierge was buried in catalogs and her computer. The valet outside commented, ” Not too cold tonight.”
SOME of our media reported beyond professionalism. They showed their feelings. I am awakened.
Are you?
CHRISTMAS WITH NANA
![Small_Porch[1]IMP](https://odysseyofadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/small_porch1imp.jpg)
Gallery LouLou, Santa Fe, NM
The throw of the dice this week lands on the night before Christmas. I can almost hear everyone talking at once, the children’s laughter, and the crackling fire. I can smell Nana’s baked turkey and buttery potatoes, as I sip hot chocolate and imagine which presents beneath the tree are mine. Last night while watching A CHRISTMAS CAROL, I was reminded of Christmas with Nana. If I want to experience something I’ve lost, or something beyond the horizon, I watch TCM.
As the story transitions moved from the rich class to the poor, I thought of the disparity between the two societies at Christmas. Some of us are thankful to receive one gift, and others are hiring the Christmas Tree Decorator to decorate their tree.
Christmas with Nana in her deeply cushioned home in Encino was perfect. I sank into the velvet pillows and moon shaped sofa. She whisked through the house on high heels, dressed in East coast tailor-made suits, draped with an old- flowered print apron, and waving a dish-towel. For the duration of Christmas Eve and Christmas day while all of us screamed, giggled and dropped candy on the shag carpeting, Nana tended to my Mother, my Aunt Pat, and her six children, my step-grandfather, who was in charge of documenting every moment on Kodak. I remember the porcelain cookie and candy dishes Nana filled, the eggnog with a pinch of nutmeg, the flecks of decorative snow we picked off the tree, ornaments attached to everything, and the tiny marshmallows in my cocoa. Nana went all out on Christmas. She used to confess with Sunday school shame, “I hate to say it, but our house is the prettiest on the street.”
My grandfather was perched on a ladder for days decorating the house. All of us children were wrapped in blankets and gathered around the tree in the living room. In order for anyone to cross to the den, they had to navigate around an assortment of limbs, dolls, and toys. Nana made me believe in Santa Claus and the reindeer’s. I reminded her to clean the fireplace before we went to bed so Santa would not be burned.
All of these memories are flushing out from THE CHRISTMAS CAROL, and mirroring the story in a paradoxical way. Because I was a fortunate child, and surrounded by so much love, Christmas is still about that flicker of human kindness, giving presents, and dissolving religious boundaries. A great way to begin the New Year, and with that, I wish you all a Very Happy New Year. .
Any dice to throw Email: folliesls@aol.com
THANK YOU WORDPRESS
THANK YOU WORDPRESS. My odyessy of love stories have reached readers in Egypt, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Mexico, South America, the Soviet Union and the USA. I cannot find time to read all the books on my shelves because I am reading the poetry, literature, and memoirs on WORDPRESS.
“As a dancer and prancer at heart, my feet are my hands, and my hands are my heart.” 2014
Simplicity
Isn’t this woman right!
DROPPING OF THE THINKER
It’s been a month since I’ve seen the Thinker. The time was spent luxuriating in thought and activity. They became days of resurrecting my business, writing, and staying at home, where my fantasia of comfort welcomes me. Above my bed, I hung an umbrella. A vintage peach faded Parasol. One day, while I was searching for a place to store my ribbons, I looked up and watched the light sprinkle through the Parasol. So that is where I stored the ribbons. When I am in bed during an afternoon nap, I see abstractions of figures: dancers, faces, gods, and gorillas. The Thinker noticed the abstraction. I think he said, ” Wow, this is incredible. Do you see the legs? And there is the face.” He took everything in and profited from imagination. He had a thousand virtues, that regrettably did not serve him. 
I don’t know why. You know I want answers, that is why I write.
ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 