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.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
BOOKS FOR SALE FROM MY RESEARCH COLLECTION.BASED IN NEW YORK. PREFERRED SALE OF FIVE OR MORE. HARDBACK $14.00 SB $6.00 + MEDIA MAIL. INDIVIDUAL PHOTOS ON REQUEST.
Luellen Smiley – Some book sections are highlighted but otherwise in good condition.Bugsy Siegel’s book, Mr. Mob & King of the Sunset Strip, sold.
THE BATTLE FOR LAS VEGAS SB – DENNIS GRIFFIN
BUT HE WAS GOOD TO HIS MOTHER – SB R. ROCKAWAY
MOTOR CITY MAFIA SB – SCOTT M. BURSTEIN
THE BOYS FROM NEW JERSEY SB – ROBERT RUDOLPH
CHICAGO HB- DAVID MAMET
DOUBLE CROSS- HB SAM & CHUCK GIANCANA
GANGSTERS AND GOODFELLAS HB AS TOLD BY GUSS RUSSO
THE STARKER HB – JACK ZELIG ROSE KEEFE
MOBBED UP HB – JAMES NEFF
BOUND BY HONOR HB – BILL BONNANO
THE PUBLIC ENEMY SB – HENRY COHEN SCRIPT
NAZIS IN NEWARK SB- WARREN GROVER
THE VALACHI PAPERS PETER MAAS
BLOOD RELATION SB – ERIC KONICSBERG
THE OUTFIT SB – GUSS RUSSO
TOUGH JEWS – SB RICH COHEN
THE MAFIA MURDER OF JFK CONTRACT ON AMERICA-HB DAVID SCHEIM
ORGANIZED CRIME HB – PAUL LINDE
CAPONE HB- JOHN KOLER
LITERARY LAS VEGAS SB -The best writing about America’s Finest City MIKE TRONNES
HONOR THY FATHER SB – ( MY DAD’S) GAY TELESE
MURDER INC SB BURTON TURKAS – SID FEDER
THE LAST MAFIAOSO HB – OVID DEMARIS
ALL AMERICAN MAFIOSO SB- THE JOHNNY ROSELLI STORY CHARLES RAPPLEYE & ED BECKER. SIGNED.
PICTORIAL BOOKS
FABULOUS LAS VEGAS HB – MICHELE FERRARI STEVEN IVES
ORGANIZED CRIME- PLAYBOYS PICTORIAL HISTORY HB RICHARD HANNER
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
