Meyer Lansky facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids Meyer Lansky
Lansky in 1958
Born	Meier Suchowlański (1902-07-04)July 4, 1902 Grodno, Grodno Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	January 15, 1983(1983-01-15) (aged 80) Miami Beach, Florida, U.S.
Resting place	Mount Nebo Cemetery, Miami, Florida
Nationality	American
Known for	Mafia associate, Mafia financier
Signature

Meyer Lansky (born Meier Suchowlański; July 4, 1902 – January 15, 1983), known as the "Mob's Accountant," was an American organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the National Crime Syndicate in the United States.

A member of the Jewish mob, Lansky developed a gambling empire that stretched around the world. He was said to own points (percentages) in casinos in Las Vegas, Cuba, The Bahamas and London. Lansky additionally had a strong influence with the Italian-American Mafia and played a large role in the consolidation of the criminal underworld. The full extent of this role has been the subject of some debate, as Lansky himself denied many of the accusations against him.

Despite nearly 50 years as a member/participant in organized crime, Lansky was never found guilty of anything more serious than illegal gambling. He has a legacy of being one of the most financially successful gangsters in American history. Before he fled Cuba, he was said to be worth an estimated $20 million (equivalent to $166 million in 2021). When he died in 1983, his family learned that his estate was worth around US$57,000 (equivalent to $167,477 in 2022).

Early life
Attempted emigration and trial
Death
In popular culture
See also

Early life

Meier Suchowlański was born on July 4, 1902, in Grodno, Russian Empire (now Belarus), to a Polish-Jewish family who experienced antisemitism and pogroms from Imperial authorities. When asked about his native country, Lansky always responded "Poland". In 1911, Lansky emigrated to the United States through the port of Odessa with his mother and brother Jacob, and joined his father, who had immigrated in 1909, and settled on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York.

Lansky met Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel when they were children. They became lifelong friends, as well as partners in the bootlegging trade, and together managed the Bugs and Meyer Mob, with its reputation as one of the most violent Prohibition gangs. Lansky was also close friends with Charles "Lucky" Luciano; the two met as teenagers when Luciano attempted to extort Lansky for protection money on his walk home from school. Luciano respected the younger boy's defiant responses to his threats, and the two formed a lasting partnership thereafter. The two of them would go on to associate with veteran gangster Arnold Rothstein, up until his murder in 1928.

Luciano had a vision to form a national crime syndicate in which the Italian, Jewish, and Irish gangs could pool their resources and turn organized crime into a lucrative business for all – an organization he founded after a conference in Atlantic City organized by himself, Lansky, Johnny Torrio, and Frank Costello in May 1929.

Attempted emigration and trial

In 1970, Lansky fled to Herzliya Pituah, Israel, to escape federal tax evasion charges in the United States. At the time Israeli law did not permit the extradition of Jews and under the Law of Return, any Jew may legally settle in the State of Israel. The Israeli government reserved discretion to exclude Jews with a criminal past from permanently settling in the country. Two years after his arrival, Lansky was deported back to the U.S. The federal government brought Lansky to trial with the testimony of loan shark Vincent "Fat Vinnie" Teresa. Lansky was acquitted in 1974.

Death

Lansky retired in Miami. Lansky's last years were spent quietly at his home in Miami Beach, Florida. He died of lung cancer on January 15, 1983, aged 80, leaving a widow and three children. On paper, Lansky was worth almost nothing. At the time, the FBI believed he left behind over $300 million in hidden bank accounts, but they never found any money. This would be equivalent to $695 million in 2021.

Lansky's biographer Robert Lacey describes his financially strained circumstances in the last two decades of his life and his inability to pay for health care for his handicapped son, who eventually died in poverty. For Lacey, there was no evidence "to sustain the notion of Lansky as king of all evil, the brains, the secret mover, the inspirer and controller of American organized crime." He concludes from evidence including interviews with the surviving members of the family that Lansky's wealth and influence had been grossly exaggerated. His second wife's granddaughter told author T.J. English that at the time of his death in 1983, Lansky left only $57,000 in cash, equivalent to $132 thousand in 2021 terms. When asked in his later years what went wrong in Cuba, the gangster offered no excuses. "I crapped out," he said. Lansky even went as far as to tell people he had lost almost every penny in Cuba and that he was barely scraping by.

Hank Messick, a journalist for the Miami Herald who had spent years investigating Lansky, said that the key to understanding Lansky lay with the people around him: "Meyer Lansky doesn't own property. He owns people." To him, the FBI and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, the reality was that Lansky had kept large sums of money in other people's names for decades and that keeping very little in his own was nothing new to him.

In 2010, Lansky's daughter Sandra publicly stated that her father had transferred some $15 million to his brother's account sometime in the early 1970s, when Lansky was having problems with the IRS. How much money Lansky was really worth will probably never be known. Since the warming of relations between the United States and Cuba in 2015, Lansky's grandson, Gary Rapoport, has been asking the Cuban government to compensate him for the confiscation of the Riviera hotel that his grandfather built in Havana.

In popular culture

In film

The character Hyman Roth, portrayed by Lee Strasberg, and certain aspects of the main character Michael Corleone from the film The Godfather Part II (1974), are based on Lansky. In fact, shortly after the premiere in 1974, Lansky phoned Strasberg and congratulated him on a good performance (Strasberg was nominated for an Oscar for his role), but added, "You could've made me more sympathetic." Roth's statement to Corleone that "We're bigger than U.S. Steel" was similar to a quote from Lansky, said to his wife while watching a news story on the Mafia. The character Johnny Ola, Roth's right-hand man, was inspired by Lansky's associate Vincent Alo. Additionally, the character Moe Greene, who was a friend of Roth, is modeled upon Bugsy Siegel. The film reflects real life in that Lansky was denied the Right of Return to Israel and returned to the US to face criminal charges, but invented details regarding Roth's attempts to bribe Latin American dictators for entry to their countries, as well as Roth's ultimate fate.
In Nicholas Roeg's 1983 film Eureka, based on the story of Sir Harry Oakes, Joe Pesci plays Mayakofsky, a Lansky stand-in looking to expand his gambling empire to the Bahamas.
Maximilian "Max" Bercovicz, the gangster played by James Woods in Sergio Leone's 1984 film Once Upon a Time in America, was inspired by Lansky.
In the 1990 Sydney Pollack film Havana starring Robert Redford, Mark Rydell plays Lansky.
In the 1991 film Bugsy, a biography of Benjamin Siegel, Lansky is a major character, and played by Ben Kingsley, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
In the 1991 film Mobsters, he is played by Patrick Dempsey.
In the 2002 film Undisputed there is a character called Mendy Ripstein who reveals that he worked for Meyer Lansky.
In the 2005 film The Lost City, which presents a fictionalized account of Lansky's involvement in Cuba, Meyer Lansky is portrayed by Dustin Hoffman.
In the 2015 film Legend, Meyer Lansky is referred to many times and sends associate Angelo Bruno, played by Chazz Palminteri, to London.
In the 2021 film Lansky, based on Lansky's life, Harvey Keitel portrays the aging gangster, while John Magaro portrays him during his younger years.

In television

In the 1981 NBC miniseries, The Gangster Chronicles, the character of Michael Lasker, played by Brian Benben, was based on Lansky. Because Lansky was still living at the time, the producers derived the "Michael Lasker" name for the character to avoid legal complications.
In the 1993 revival of The Untouchables, Chicago actor Marc Grapey played Lansky in two episodes.
In the 1999 made-for-TV movie Lansky, Richard Dreyfuss stars as Lansky, Eric Roberts as Benny Siegel, and Anthony LaPaglia as Lucky Luciano.
In the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014), Meyer Lansky is played by British actor Anatol Yusef in all five seasons.
In the 2013 TNT series Mob City, Meyer Lansky is played by Patrick Fischler. (Jeff Braine plays a younger Lansky in a flashback sequence.)
In the 2015 AMC series The Making of the Mob: New York, Meyer Lansky is played by Ian Bell.

In literature

In the 2010 book of photographs New York City Gangland, Meyer Lansky is seen "loitering" on Little Italy's famed "Whiskey Curb" with partners Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo, and waterfront racketeer Eddie McGrath.
In the 1996 novel The Plan, by Stephen J. Cannell, Lansky and fellow mobster Joseph Alo are involved in putting an anti-Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act presidential candidate into office.
In Lansky, the 2009 one-act play by Joseph Bologna, Lansky is portrayed by Mike Burstyn.
In the book Havana by Stephen Hunter, Lansky and Fidel Castro are both main characters.
In the 2009 novel If The Dead Rise Not by Philip Kerr, the hero, Bernie Gunther, meets Lansky in Havana.
In the 2009 novel Ride of the Valkyries by Stuart Slade, Meyer Lansky runs Cuba as the head of the Mafia.
In the 2011 historical fiction novel, The Devil Himself by Eric Dezenhall, Meyer Lansky coordinates counterespionage operations with the U.S. Navy to prevent Nazi sabotage in New York and helps plan the invasion of Sicily.
Lansky is a supporting character in The Raiders, Harold Robbins' 1995 follow-up to The Carpetbaggers.
In the 2015 novel World Gone By, by Dennis Lehane, Lansky is a supporting character and friend to fictional gangster Joe Coughlin. He is mentioned but not seen in the previous novel in the series Live by Night.
The 2016 book of photographs Organized Crime in Miami, includes previously unpublished photos of Meyer Lansky and his second wife Teddy on their 1949 honeymoon, as well as photographs from Meyer's 80th birthday with his brother Jake, and longtime partners Harry "Nig Rosen" Stromberg, and Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo.

In music

Wu-Tang Clan affiliated rapper Myalansky derived his stage name from Meyer Lansky.
Jewish-Israeli musician Sagol 59 has released the song "The Ballad Of Meyer Lansky" on his 2011 album Another Passenger. The song chronicles Lansky's life from birth to death, including his time spent in Israel.