Virginia wants no part of it until Bugsy offers her a share, puts her in charge of accounting and begins constructing the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel Casino in Las Vegas however, the budget soon soars out of control to $6 million due to his extravagance. He obtains $1 million in funding from Lansky and other New York City mobsters, on the motion of going big doing it legit in Nevada. On a trip to Nevada to make a maintenance call to a rough gambling joint, Bugsy is struck with the inspiration for a luxury hotel and casino in the desert of Nevada, which happens to be in the only state where gambling is legal. Cohen is put in charge of the betting casinos Dragna is forced to confess to a raging Bugsy that he stole $14,000 and is told he now answers to Cohen.Īfter arguments about Virginia's trysts with drummer Gene Krupa and various bullfighters and Bugsy's reluctance to get a divorce, Virginia makes a romantic move on Bugsy. He is confronted by Bugsy, who decides he should be in business with the guy who committed the robbery, not the guy who got robbed. Ascending local Jewish gangster Mickey Cohen robs Dragna's operation one day. He buys a house in Beverly Hills, planning to stay there while his wife and two daughters remain in Scarsdale, New York.īugsy is in California to wrestle control of betting parlors away from weak Los Angeles crime family boss Jack Dragna. The two meet for the first time when Bugsy visits actor George Raft on the set of Manpower. In 1941, gangster Bugsy Siegel, who had partnered in crime since childhood with Meyer Lansky and Charlie Luciano, goes to Los Angeles and instantly falls in love with Virginia Hill, a tough-talking Hollywood starlet.