I am thinking about some of Dad’s answers to questions. You learn more by listening than telling. I remember if a friend or associate made some business proposition, Dad would answer, ‘I’ve been thinking along those same lines myself, and have a few ideas.’ Now, sometimes, he didn’t know but that gave him a shot into the game. The opponent would then tell Dad everything. The reason I say this is he said that to me. Not in those words, but the same move. Gangster’s do as much strategizing as politicians, maybe more. Coming out of court LA Times Photo. He loved sunglasses, and so do I.
BLOGGERS
STORIES TO SCREEN-AUTHORS AND PRODUCERS CONNECT
Pitch Page by TaleFlick http://www.taleflick.com
MOVING STORIES TO SCREEN The world’s finest library of original stories
CRADLE OF CRIME-A Daughter’s Tribute
Luellen Smiley
GENRE
MEMOIR CRIME DRAMA BIOGRAPHICAL FAMILY
Drama
Mature Audience
Politics
Suspense
Romance
Core Theme
A MAFIA STORY THROUGH THE EYES OF A DAUGHTER.
TIME PERIOD
1960s & ’70s
COMPARABLE TITLES
THE SOPRANOS, THE GODFATHER, CASINO, GOODFELLAS
CHARACTER LIST
• LUELLEN “LILY” SMILEY: TEENAGER/50S. NEEDY, LOOKING FOR LOVE/ADMIRATION FROM HER FATHER; DILIGENT, STRONG MORAL CODE, CAN READ A ROOM.
• ALLEN SMILEY: 65. LILLY’S FATHER, (IN)FAMOUS GANGSTER. CRIMINAL, AGGRESSIVE, CHARMING, BADASS, ENGAGING.
Register for Full Story
Pitch Page by TaleFlick Info by Author
Brief
Luellen “Lilly” Smiley is the daughter of Allen Smiley, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel’s best friend, and
business partner. She rips herself from innocence and confronts her father’s nefarious criminal life, as
she breaks the mafia code of silence ten years after her father’s death.
What We Liked
– True story;
– A period piece inside a period piece (‘40s and ‘70s);
– 1940’s Hollywood, with actual “appearances” by stars of that era;
– The mafia and its members through another perspective;
– The father/daughter relationship;
– Episodic narrative, making it perfect for series;
– Possibility of both a fiction piece and a very rich documentary.
Synopsis
940s Hollywood may seem like the Golden Era of Cinema; Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Lauren Bacall
graced the screen, but behind the camera, there was a seedy underbelly ran by Bugsy Siegel and Allen
Smiley.
In the 1970s, Allen’s daughter Lilly Smiley gets a job at her uncle Jack’s book store. There, she is
constantly reminded and asked about her father from customers and other “uncles” who would come
in. After answering with pleasantries, she realizes that people have a completely different view and
opinion of her father than she does. Through research and help from her therapist, Lilly decides to
unearth the real Allen Smiley.
Each story is an episode; a look into the relationship Allen had with Lilly, Lilly had with Allen, Allen had
with the Mafia, and Lilly had with the Mafia. All three of these dynamics weave a tapestry of an
unstable, yet loving relationship. Some of the stories consist of:
● The day her dad died of Hepatitis C was an apparent hit on the Mafia;
● Meeting celebrities of the day and how they respected her father;
● The day her loving Uncle Bugsy died from a drive-by that sent her dad into hiding;
● One incident where her father wouldn’t let her into the apartment because she forgot the safe
word. He forced her to go to another home to get the key, and wouldn’t let her in;
● The day her parents got a divorce, yet her father came home for dinner every night;
● The relationship between Uncle Bugsy and her dad;
● The time her mother was diagnosed with cancer and spent the rest of her life in the Hospital.
How her dad, even though divorced, never left her side;
● Dad coming from an immigrant family, and how that shaped how he approaches problems;
● Allen, disappearing for weeks or months at a time, and how hard it was on her and her
mother. Once her mother died, it was even tougher on her.
● All the different “Uncles” that would stop by and look after the family.
By the end of the series she has a journey of denial, curiosity, and disbelief. She eventually manages
to find people who understand her history and accept her.
About The Author
Luellen’s “Smiley’s Dice-Growing Up with Gangsters columns appeared in San Diego newspapers and earned a Blue Ribbon award from the CA Newspaper Association. Her research led to TV, radio, and print interviews about her father and Bugsy Siegel.
WINTER, WAYS, AND CHANGE
Thirty degrees doesn’t feel like it did last year. Adventures in livingness in the village, where I am walking, eating, going to the Post Office, stopping into to chat rap with Blossom, and withholding the urge to step into an antique shop. The thing is, I hadn’t planned on living here a year, so when plans are hijacked, we have to adapt. It feels like maturity has surfaced.
Thinking slips into different chambers; health reminders that I am not forty, finances have been a struggle since I left home, appearance, brown spots on my legs and these cancer sprouts, comfort, to be adaptable to any circumstances that manifest. Once you adapt to the unpleasantries, I think it becomes easier. Then it is possible to empty the closet of youthful memories and replace them with whatever gives you peace of mind.
Jim Marshall- credit. I didn’t sell this one, one of five favorites.
Bob and Baez-JIM MARSHALL
How to describe the sense of protection and security that frees the mind to create and celebrate new challenges, so different now. How short-sided to not know when I had it. Sometimes it feels like my brain is rattling, under siege by these opposing forces, one wants to dance and be in a crowded club, the other wants to make chicken soup, write, recheck my immediate business and watch Butterfield 8. I wish these two characters would merge into one!
This stranger to me, trying to be practical, prudent, safe, and boring is my opposite. We all have some duality. Subtle flips in habitat, the way I would wake early and feel eager to meet the new vacation renters or gallery clients. Sleeping past seven wasn’t of interest to me, I was an early riser because I had so much to accomplish. I do not expose myself verbally or physically in public (LOL) do not forget to turn off the burners, candles, or lock the doors. Do talk to strangers because they may know something I need to hear. Do not sneer at what advantages others have, in envy. I could go on but it’s time to prepare dinner. Sunday dinner, even alone is my time to cook as if it’s for two. What is more crucial to our happiness, than the turntable of our moods…we control the needle.
People here seem to be a bit suspicious, or maybe just curious why I never married and had children, everyone my age has grandchildren. When I was forty, I said I’m not ready, at fifty, they didn’t ask much, then in the sixties, they ask. Not always verbally, I see it the expression, a slightly raised brow, a lip twitch. How I answer now is,’ its a long story.’ Then, if I’m asked to tell the story I start talking as if I’d known them years. I lose them after the last few year’s misadventures. It doesn’t disturb me because I completely understand. I used to be judgmental about people who lost their track, who ended up broke, who had severe misfortune. Shamefully, I didn’t think it could happen to me. Lying seems to be very hip and acceptable these days. Maybe I’ll fictionize the whole last three years.
Now for the first time, this last year, I’ve noticed the bed crushed in pillows and wooly throws feel way to peaceful to leave. As soon as I am dressed the work begins, and just this week I’ve completed the list I’d made when I was in Los Angeles a year and a half ago, honest. The last entry is crossed off.
The new list, all transformative channels; I’m selling my grand Victorian here in Ballston Spa. I’ve owned her for twenty years. I haven’t lived here since 2004, and my last visit was in 2012. She needs a facelift and botox. Once she sells, my suitcases and boxes will need a new address. This channel is snow, like on the television when its blinked out. Where that address will be is unknown. A troubling disturbance that nudges me all day and night. I search the internet, best cities to retire, best beaches, then I end up in Dublin one night reading an expatriate’s travel log online. Without a lover, best friend, husband, male, I am pandemonium, distracted, and insanely unnerving with my sense of direction. When he says ‘everything will be all right’ I calm down from whatever adventure lopsided.
The sale of Follies House will mean more than selling, it will force me to carve out a new vocation because my rentals were my income. Browsing job websites is an alarming epiphany. I don’t understand the qualifications, unknown coded programs, and applications. Even art galleries use social media formats to sell online. How can you buy a photograph or painting in virtual reality? Being self-employed for so many years doesn’t qualify.
Writing is not like running water anymore. I’m second-guessing, straining for clarity and topics that matter to my followers and new readers. Peace of mind squelches insecurity and self-doubt, at least in my adventures in livingness.
Today, the street view of stark-naked trees and branches seemed to happen overnight. Buckets of fallen autumn leaves paint the lawns and while all the neighbors are fastidiously blowing, raking and wrapping up for the city to pick up. The day I set out to rake and sweep the sun was tucked into a ravishing blue sky, almost like Santa Fe. Ten minutes into my amateur leaf raking skills the wind picked up and blew the leaves air-borne. Preparing for the unexpected is the staple that glues sanity here.
Finer details are the urns and pots of mums on every porch. If feels almost obligatory, so I joined in and placed mums in my planters. Now, a week later, snow is smothering the lawns, neighbors’ chimneys spew smoke, and the village is sparsely populated. It’s redundant to even talk about the temperature when you’re in a conversation, it is relevant to talk about the snow, and how many inches are forecast. I refrain from checking the weather so the first morning I woke to powdered sugar-coated trees and streets, it was a cinematic surprise.
This year, I am adjusted to the weather, how to dress, and to create an indoor sanctuary so there is enough art, books, food, and music to accessorize the glim grey skies. Adventures in livingness in a northeastern village in upstate New York reckons with my city upbring in LA. I live amongst blue-collar workers, resilient, tolerant, unpretentious. No movie stars here. Hard cored tough New Yorkers. No BS in Ballston Spa.
HOPSCOTCHING THE TRUTH TWO
Three days later: The door is locked now, it will pop open now and then, in my interior rearview mirror. My secret can only be revealed after mounds of trust have been sifted and sealed. The former LouLou trusted, effortlessly, so the truth is I cannot behave that way anymore. Or can I?
It is the most destabilizing force of emotion to accept I trusted someone who betrayed our thirty-five year “Huckleberry Friend” song. I don’t know how anyone else adapts to this. I’m kinda staring out the window, like a cat staring at an unreachable mouse. When I’m in this mood I listen to Bobby Darin and Tony Bennett, I’m a bleeding nostalgic. Photo Credit Philip Townsend. ” London in the Swinging Sixties.” 
HOPSCOTCHING THE TRUTH
WHEN YOU TOUCH THE TRUTH: by thought, word of mouth, friend, or by a dream, however, it comes, and completely unexpectedly it is, the blessing is it came. 
When it is closure, to events and persons in those events, and if you examine your part, what you played, was it original or falsified, was it genuine, and was it worth it. Asking myself these questions, as the door, locked sealed and intendable, must be the abstraction of goodbye, delete, it’s over. My double vision, the child must behave for now, and let the adult lead me. I tell myself over and over, to keep that door closed, and look to now, the moments, they may starve me of imaginations and dreams, and that’s just what happens when a change has arrived at your doorstep. I do hate goodbyes, never have been an example of someone who moves on, like an octopus, my arms hang on to the best people, places, and homes in my life.
Three days later: The door is locked now, it will pop open now and then, in my interior rearview mirror. My secret can only be revealed after mounds of trust have been sifted and sealed. The former LouLou trusted, effortlessly, so the truth is I cannot behave that way anymore. Or can I?
It is the most destabilizing force of emotion to accept I trusted someone who betrayed our thirty-five year Huckleberry Friend trust. I don’t know how anyone else adapts to this. I’m kinda staring out the window, like a cat staring at an unreachable mouse. When I’m in this mood I listen to Bobby Darin and Tony Bennett, I’m a bleeding nostalgic.
AN EMOTIONAL ATTITUDE
Earlier today, I stopped into bring Blossom a gift, recently re
named from Christine as she reminds me of a flower. Her curly braided brown hair, pink lipstick, birch brown eyes, and flowing printed dress, just formed that image of a bouquet. She was leaning on the glass display of her boutique, (Amazing Finds, in the village of Ballston Spa) eyes wide and bonded to the glass
window.
( Downtown Ballston Spa, settled in 1771)
An instant greeting of, “How’d it go? You look happy. Was it painful?’
My bandaged nose, from surgery last week to remove cancer concerned her, as her flowery eyes turned into studied binoculars. Our conversation drifted into a dialogue about attitude. In the eight months, I’ve lived here and stopped to chat, like four times a week, Blossom has not once displayed melancholy or agitation. Instead, she draws me out of my moody anxiousness (I’m that way. Too emotional) and into laughter and joviality.
” You’re always so positive. How do you do it?” I asked.
” Here’s what I do, I will tell you. Every morning I wake up and write down whatever comes to mind– don’t even think about it, just listen to your thoughts. Write down five thoughts, then go back and cross off the negative ones.”
” Interesting. I journal.”
” That’s different– this works. I wake up grateful, no matter what shit is going on in my life.”
” I’m not that way. I’m too emotional about what happens in my life.”
” Why?”
” Wish I knew, I guess I’m a reactionary. I wish you knew me when I was really happy, content with my life.”
” Forget the past, you gotta let that go. You have it inside you now. I see it, even though you have a lot of obstacles, I know you’re a good person, and you got legs!
” Wish I had your breasts!
“Hah-hah! Listen I want you to do what I said, wake up with what you have and not what you don’t have. Love the purse too by the way.” We hugged and I trotted off, a bit of a dance to my step and a smile on my face. She touched my emotional gear, gave it a push, and into the night. Instead of arguing with myself that I should go out and meet people, mingle, laugh, my evening was music and film, emotions like floating musical notes until midnight.
Three days later, Dorian strikes and my head turned outward, the images on television seemed staged, the aerial footage presented an island of trash floating in dump water. How do they rebuild those miles of destruction? The emotions we have monitored from the comfort of our homes or wherever you happen to be are as one. News anchors drop bashing in the tidepool of politics, and sordid revolting details about Jeffrey Epstein, or the latest protest. I imagine every one of you is horrified, maybe slightly in shock to grasp the velocity of Mother Nature. Floridians are locked up like school children. My friends in Miami cling to one another, as the warnings are now so intensified, the fear detonated functioning life. I’ve never lived through a hurricane; a few tornadoes and my nerves were wiggling from those events. Life, when we come together in emotions is the hope that we can do it when we are not threatened.
Sitting on the porch of Follies House in the wooded hillsides of Saratoga County, NY sealed in verdant shades, tickled by a tap of breeze, only enough to cause the slightest of tones, much like what I am listening to Little Girl Blue by Oscar Petersen. Anais wrote extensively about jazz writing when she lived in New York and frequented all the jazz clubs. So, with my emotions, the music, the serenity of East High Street on a Saturday, white butterflies and cotton ball clouds granulate into daydreaming, and neutrality.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
I tried Blossom’s idea and surprised to find that the negatives are not life-threatening, painful, or disastrous in any way. The positives are it is September in New York, my windows are newly cleaned, so I can see the leaves sprout into golden shades, nothing broke in the house this week, and my refrigerator is full. The essentials of livingness, a partner to warn me from misadventures, a working laptop and printer, friends phone call and texts, oh, and money for perfume and lipstick.
Yesterday I stopped in to see Blossom. ” Pick something out, I love your present. … here try this shawl. It looks like you.” 
WEST TO EAST-PART TWO
THE LAWN MOWERS.
I READ THAT GRASS GROWS AN INCH A WEEK IN THE NORTHEAST and so the neighbors mow once a week. Then they edge, weed wack, then they blow. Some are more finicky than others, I can see them from my bedroom window. Some wear expressions of an artist, intensely serious and meticulous, others mow in business suits on motorized stand-up mowers, and some mow with a visible resentment, an overly redundant but necessary chore in the Northeast.
I don’t mow, I hired a couple, Matt and Jessica. Matt mows with his legs wide apart, no gloves or sunglasses, no earplugs, and Jessica blows. She wears the blower mechanism on her back, her long tanned naturally sculpted arms maneuvering as if she was vacuuming the living room rug. I wait until they have almost finished to greet them on the porch.
” Life sucks,” Matt calls out to me with the motor still running.
” Yes, it does. What’s happened?”
” My daughter got into a car accident on prom night, seven thousand dollars later. He wipes his forehead of sweat.”
” Is she alright?”
“Another driver crashed into them. How’s it look, nice right?”
” Excellent.”
I invited them into the house, for a look at the furnishings I’m selling.”
” Wow, you love music and vinyl! I do too. Is that Mick Jagger in the photograph?”
I took that on to ruminate about my former Santa Fe Gallery of the music photography of the sixties, the Rolling Stones, Hendrix, Beatles, and as soon as my boasting sounded halfway boring, I shut up. I really don’t think my past is important to anyone but me unless they are photographers. I used to sneer at people who only talked about what they used to do. How life revisits you at sixty-something when the bragging projects have ceased.
” You own the house?”
” Half owner?”
” Where’s your other half?”
” Missing in action. It’s all up to me now.”
” That sucks. Listen, if you ever need advice about the Northeast, call me– I know everyone. You lived in Santa Fe right?”
” Yes, eleven years.”
” I hear it’s beautiful.”
” Well, it is, and it was, but I’m here now.”
” You going back? I mean why the hell stay here?”
” Maybe? I just don’t know.” Jessica tilted her head as women do when they see a falling sister.
” Okay, I like you, you’re a nice lady. We’re friends now.”
” Are we good enough friends that I postdate the check for three days?”
” Hell yes! I don’t need the money. Don’t even worry.” I walked into the music room and picked up a double album of Janis, still in the cover.
” You like Janis?”
They both said oh my God I love her. I gave them the album. That’s what friends do, reciprocate.
Matt and Jessica come every two or three weeks because I love grass. The wind blows it, the curve of it when it bends, just like I love long hair. One time I greeted them in my interview outfit, you know, buttons and high heels. Matt said something like, “Lose the scarf and fit in, or they will charge you double.”
If I knew how to manage the Northeast weather, sensibility and had a big family, I’d adopt a cat and get a New York drivers license.
2003 The Village Adopted my Slogan.
