Home » » Organized Crime » Mickey Cohen and the Mickey Mouse Mafia: the Birth of a Legend - Page 2

Mickey Cohen and the Mickey Mouse Mafia: the Birth of a Legend - Page 2

© Ron Lombard

At the same time as these criminal elements were attempting to gain levels of power, the film industry was undergoing a great deal of labor unrest that would also lead to the search for communists and the efforts related to "blacklisting" throughout the industry. To aid in maintaining control of their empires the studio heads were willing to enlist the aid of crime lords to help bring an end to the labor unrest and regain control over their actors and writers. From time to time crime elements would be called in to aid in the process of regaining control with the understanding that the favor might be called upon in the future. As an example the mobster Mickey Cohen claimed that Harry Cohn, the boss of Columbia, had asked for singer and actor Sammy Davis Jr. to be bumped off because it was feared his relationship with the young Kim Novak would harm her marketability. Cohen supposedly relented and merely threatened Davis with the loss of his one good eye if he persisted. While efforts to deal with the labor unrest and industry problems in general were handled by the studios without outside interference, including the control of police investigations involving studio stars, the use of mob influence was not unknown. In the Thirties, gangsters had been brought in by the studios to maintain 'labo peace', but they also established themselves within the unions, looking for rich pickings wherever they might be. As one Hollywood star put it: "A group of industrialists finance a group of gangsters to break trade unionism, to check the threat of socialism, the menace of Communism or the possibility of democracy... when the gangsters succeed at what they were paid to do, they turn on the men who paid them. "

Cohen began as a small time thug, but when he arrived in Las Angles and Hollywood he was able to create a legend that still is in question as to elements of truth and fiction. He would rise to control the "Mickey Mouse Mafia" and gain a major place in the annals of organized crime.

The copyright of the article Mickey Cohen and the Mickey Mouse Mafia: the Birth of a Legend - Page 2 in Organized Crime is owned by Ron Lombard. Permission to republish Mickey Cohen and the Mickey Mouse Mafia: the Birth of a Legend - Page 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.