Everett Collection Inc / Alamy Stock PhotoVirginia Hill, a Chicago Outfit courier and the girlfriend of Bugsy Siegel.
It’s not often that women are the focus of a mob story. The American Mafia was, at its core, a business run by men, with women often relegated to roles as sex workers, waitresses, or shills. Women, unlike men, could never be “made.” Despite this, Virginia Hill made a name for herself in organized crime — and even came to be known as the “Queen of the Mob.”
Born on a farm in Alabama, Hill purportedly left home as a teenager hoping to enter the pornography industry. Instead, after arriving in Chicago in 1933, she found her way into the mob. Charming, witty, beautiful, and intelligent, Hill earned the trust of some of the most powerful men in Chicago’s criminal underworld, and they soon employed her as a courier and money launderer.
Then, Hill met Bugsy Siegel, a Los Angeles mobster who would go on to become a key developer of the Las Vegas strip. Their relationship came to be a defining period in both of their lives, with Siegel even reportedly naming his ill-fated Flamingo Hotel after a nickname he’d given Hill.
Siegel was eventually murdered in Virginia Hill’s mansion in Beverly Hills. But her story didn’t end with his.
From Small Town Alabama To Chicago, Illinois
Although much of Virginia Hill’s life revolved around Chicago’s criminal underworld, her story began in the unassuming town of Lipscomb, Alabama. It was here, on a farm, that Onie Virginia Hill was born on Aug. 26, 1916. Her parents separated when she was eight years old, and she moved with her mother and siblings to Marietta, Georgia.
Everett Collection Historical / Alamy Stock PhotoVirginia Hill in 1947.
By the time she was 14, Hill had dropped out of school. When she was around 15, she reportedly married a 16-year-old boy named George, and two years later, the pair found their way to Chicago, where Hill allegedly hoped to enter the pornography industry.
Hill’s ambitions clearly didn’t include a permanent marriage to George, and shortly after the move to Chicago, the two separated. Soon, Hill was working as a “shimmy” dancer at the “A Century of Progress Exposition” as part of the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Some sources claim she also found work as a sex worker.
By 1934, she was working as a waitress at the San Carlo Italian Village, a restaurant frequented by the Chicago Outfit. It was there that she met Joseph Epstein, a lieutenant of mafia financier Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik.
This encounter would change Virginia Hill’s life, paving the way for her to become one of the most formidable women in organized crime.
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Virginia Hill’s Rise Through The Ranks
Joseph Epstein was immediately impressed with Virginia Hill’s intelligence and composure. Not only did she reportedly become his mistress, but Epstein eventually began employing her as a money launderer, supplying her with cash to place bets at various racetracks around Chicago.
Using her looks and charm, Hill quickly rose through the ranks of the criminal underworld. Before she was even 20 years old, Hill was being invited to meet with the Chicago Outfit’s top brass, including men like Frank Nitti and Charles Fischetti.
Hill had established herself as a trustworthy, tight-lipped courier. So, when the Chicago Outfit and Lucky Luciano’s gang in New York struck a mutually beneficial deal, Hill was sent to the Big Apple to get close with New York mobster Joe Adonis. There, she worked to help Epstein launder tens of thousands of dollars in cash. But she also began an affair with Adonis, all the while helping him run various rackets.
Hill also began assisting with the mob’s narcotics trafficking operations in Mexico, forging valuable business connections by charming — and allegedly sleeping — her way into the country’s most elite circles. According to the Mob Museum, she effectively became the “intellectual director” of the Outfit’s Mexican drug-trafficking ring.
It was around this time that Hill also met Bugsy Siegel, who was working under Adonis as one of his top earners. They began a sexual relationship almost immediately — much to Adonis’ chagrin.
Los Angeles Public LibraryBenjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, one of Virginia Hill’s many lovers.
Adonis was reportedly so enraged over Hill’s affair with Siegel that the Outfit stopped sending Hill money. She left New York for California — where Siegel just so happened to be making the rounds as well.
Life In Los Angeles
Both Virginia Hill and Bugsy Siegel were well known, even outside of mob circles. Siegel was friends with some of the biggest Hollywood stars of the age, including George Raft, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, and Jean Harlow.
Hill, meanwhile, made it into the gossip columns after a rather public argument with actor Errol Flynn at the Brown Derby restaurant.
“Virginia Hill was the epitome of a gangster’s moll — gun toting, wisecracking, glamorous and sexy, and most of all, rich,” author Andy Edmonds wrote in the 1993 book Bugsy’s Baby: The Secret Life of Mob Queen Virginia Hill. “Her name was familiar in nearly every household in America; women hated her, men fantasized about her, and the government vowed to destroy her.”
Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock PhotoAlthough Bugsy Siegel was certainly Virginia Hill’s most famous partner, she seduced countless mobsters throughout her life.
Eventually, Hill and Siegel found their way back to each other, embarking on a years-long affair that was the subject of countless rumors.
Some claimed the two were secretly married in Mexico, though this was never proven. It was also rumored that Siegel had named his Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas after a nickname he had given Hill. Even the origins of this purported nickname are debated. Some people say Siegel called Hill “Flamingo” because of her long, thin legs; others say it had to do with her fellatio skills.
Their relationship was tumultuous, however, and Siegel was allegedly physically abusive.
In June 1947, Hill booked a last-minute trip to Paris after one of their explosive fights. Days later, Bugsy Siegel was gunned down by unknown assassins in Hill’s Beverly Hills mansion.
Some have speculated that the suspicious timing of Virginia Hill’s trip suggests she had been warned about the attack. But to this day, no one knows who killed Bugsy Siegel, or whether his mistress was involved in the hit.
Virginia Hill’s Final Years And Tragic Death
Three years after Bugsy Siegel’s murder, Virginia Hill married Austrian skier Hans Hauser, with whom she would have a son, Peter.
In 1951, Hill was asked to testify at the Kefauver hearings, a U.S. Senate investigation into national organized crime. During the hearings, Hill denied having any knowledge of the mob’s criminal operations. TIME later reported that Hill was “playing dumb about the business dealings of her many racketeer friends but boggling Senators with her full-grown curves and succinct explanation of just why men would lavish money on a hospitable girl from [Alabama].”
Everett Collection Inc / Alamy Stock PhotoVirginia Hill testifying during the Kefauver organized crime hearings in New York, 1951.
Eventually, Hill, like many of the mobsters she associated with, was indicted for income tax evasion. Rather than face arrest, Hill fled to Austria with Hauser to raise their son.
Their time together was short-lived, however; Hill would ultimately die of an apparent suicide on March 24, 1966. According to news reports at the time, she was found dead in the snow in Austria after overdosing on sleeping pills. She was only 49.
While it appeared to be an open-and-shut suicide, however, her death raised some suspicion. Over the years, some have theorized that she may have been murdered.
And given her history as one of the most dangerous women in the mob, that theory is certainly plausible.
After learning about Virginia Hill, the farm girl who became the Queen of the Mob, read about Henry Hill’s wife, Karen Friedman Hill. Or, see 33 photos of Murder Inc., the mob’s most brutal hit squad.