Virginia Hill
| Virginia Hill | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 26, 1916 Lipscomb, Alabama, U.S. |
| Died | March 24, 1966 (aged 49) Koppl, Salzburg, Austria |
| Nationality | American |
| Children | Peter Hauser |
Virginia Hill (August 26, 1916 – March 24, 1966) was an American organized crime figure. A courier, she was famous for being the girlfriend of mobster Bugsy Siegel.
Virginia Hill was born on August 26, 1916 in Lipscomb, Alabama. She claimed to have neither worn nor owned a pair of shoes until the age of seventeen, when she ran away.
Hill found a job waitressing at the 1933 Century of Progress Chicago's World Fair, then happened to come to the attention of a wealthy bookmaker and gambler, Joseph Epstein, who became her lover, financial advisor and ultimately, her entree into the Chicago Outfit crime organization. She was used to pass messages to mobsters. One contemporary commentator explained Hill as:
...more than just another set of curves. She had ... a good memory, a considerable flair for hole-in-the-corner diplomacy to allay the suspicions of trigger-happy killers and a dual personality, close-lipped about essentials, and able to chatter freely, and apparently foolishly about inconsequentials.
She became the lover of acting boss and capo Joe Adonis of the Genovese family, then the Frank Costello crime family. Even law enforcement eventually concluded that she was a "central clearing house" for intelligence on organized crime and enjoyed an independent power base within the Mafia. She told people when arriving in Chicago that she was a Southern-belle society girl who had gone through four rich husbands, all divorced or dead, and that she had received $1 million each from their estates, but authentic socialites saw through the ruse. She built up an entourage of hangers-on and Latin gigolos hanging out on Broadway Avenue and frequently picked up the check. Four days before her lover, mobster Bugsy Siegel, was assassinated at her home in California (June 1947), she took an unscheduled flight to Paris, France. There were rumors that she and Siegel secretly got married in Mexico after Siegel divorced his wife Esta in 1946, but there has not been any evidence to prove the theory.
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