He thought Las Vegas had great potential as a new resort destination for travelers. He wanted Hill to join him there. She refused at first. Dragna contacted her and told her to go to Las Vegas, watch Siegel and report back on his activities. In , Siegel became a partner with Hollywood nightclub owner and publisher Billy Wilkerson, whose planned Flamingo resort project in Las Vegas ran out of money after Wilkerson gambled away his cash.
Hill agreed to come live with him temporarily in Las Vegas. Siegel made many expensive changes to the Flamingo. Building materials were stolen under his nose and resold, driving up costs and delaying the project. The debut included Raft and a handful of other Hollywood stars as guests but turned out to be a flop. Siegel closed the gambling hall, finished the hotel rooms and reopened it in early One day in the casino, a drunk and enraged Hill punched a woman. She survived after Siegel and another man drove her to a hospital to have her stomach pumped.
The Flamingo turned around and earned an income in the spring of , but was still in the red. A pilot, Lew Gourley, later wrote that Siegel himself called him to charter her a flight to Los Angeles. Hill said no, that she had to be in Los Angeles within an hour, likely to make a connecting flight. She flew to Chicago and eventually made it to Paris.
Siegel was shot to death 12 days later. In the coming weeks in Europe Hill would survive three more suicide attempts and after returning to the States, a fourth in Miami where Siegel had bought her a house.
After a trip to Mexico, she returned and searched for a home in Reno, Nevada, and Spokane, Washington. By now, federal authorities were investigating her for evading taxes on her cash income. In early , she traveled to the popular ski resort of Sun Valley, Idaho.
There she met a ski instructor named Hans Hauser, a former world champion downhill skier from Austria. The FBI came to investigate, and the lodge wanted her to leave.
But Hauser told Lang he wanted to marry Hill. Lang advised against it but Hauser and Hill eloped the next morning. They had a son, Peter, on November 20, , in Brighton, Massachusetts. The following year, the Kefauver Committee subpoenaed Hill, now 34, to appear in New York to testify during nationally televised hearings on organized crime activities. Hill arrived on March 16, , several months after giving birth.
Hill evaded questions from committee counsel Halley about her organized crime associations. She gave vague answers and artfully lied about the origins of the tens of thousands in cash she had Epstein hold for her in a safe deposit box. Four months after son Peter was born, Virginia was summoned to appear on the hottest TV show in America: The Kefauver hearings on organized crime.
But this sassy redheaded dish? When she sashayed out of the courtroom, Virginia thought she had handled the senators with the same skill she had managed the mob. But rather than avoiding disaster, she had walked right into it. The government began deportation proceedings against Hans. The government put everything from kitchen utensils to diamond bracelets on the auction block, but Virginia was long gone, apparently slipping across the southern border under the protection of a friend with a diplomatic passport.
She still made regular trips to Switzerland. Was she making withdrawals from an old Siegel account? Was the mob still paying her? Was it for her services —or her silence?
Hans drifted away to teach skiing on some other slope, Virginia lived in a small hotel, where her teenage son worked as a waiter. She put out some feelers about whether the U. Vague items appeared in magazines about her publishing a memoir. She reached out to old associates and made mention of needing money, of a diary. On an early spring day in , she suddenly headed to Naples to meet the now-exiled Joe Adonis. Several days later, she was found in the woods near Salzburg, dead from an overdose.
Dangerous men gave Virginia Hill secrets to keep, and she built a life on those secrets. She, of all people, knew that surrendering those secrets could mean surrendering her life.
But Virginia Hill had always pushed her luck — right up to its limit. It comes to your house. For real! View the discussion thread. Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. News How to reach us S. Torrey Pines Dr. The body of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel is carried on a stretcher and placed in a hearse at his home in Beverly Hills, Ca. Hill had departed L.
After a trip to Mexico, she returned and searched for a home in Reno, Nevada, and Spokane, Washington. By now, federal authorities were investigating her for evading taxes on her cash income. Workmen are shown installing lighting system, at the Miami Beach home of Virginia Hill, August 14, in preparation for the elaborate warning system that is being set up for her protection. Siegel's gruesome murder was not the end of Hill's underworld connections and four years later, in , a Tennessee senator on a crusade against organized crime would turn her into a national celebrity.
As law enforcement officials pursued Hill's better known male counterparts, they were also eager to see her occupy a prison cell, claiming she had violated federal tax laws. And while she had briefly flirted with the idea of starring in movies -- she appeared as a hat check girl in 's " Manpower " -- Hill would soon find her greatest fame on television as her fiery Senate testimony was broadcast into homes around the nation.
You can see her at the three minute mark in this clip from "Manpower. Virginia Hill, right above, as Lawrence Stone, center, investigator for the Denver District Attorney, escorted her into an automobile at the Denver Airport, July 6, to question her about any possible "Denver Connections. Estes T. Kefauver, a Tennessee Democrat, in launched an investigation into the Mafia. In doing so, the Kefauver Committee "brought a parade of gamblers, hoodlums, crooked sheriffs and organized-crime figures out from the shadows to sit and testify before the white-hot lights and television cameras.
Housewives were glued to their sets day after day, while in barrooms and cafeterias, men gathered on their lunch breaks to witness the proceedings," according to Smithsonian Magazine. Hill wore "a mink cape, silk gloves, and a large hat, and with the presence of a movie star Asked how the men made their money, Hill said she 'didn't know anything about anybody.
She told of her turbulent relationship with Siegel, saying they had had a heated fight in a Las Vegas hotel after 'I hit a girl at The Flamingo and he told me I wasn't a lady. Mink-bedecked Virginia Hill Hauser, one-time girl friend of slain mobster Bugsy Siegel, listens, left, to a question from the Senate crime probers in New York, March 15, and provides an answer, right, with an expressive wave of her hand.
The Smithsonian article goes on:. She soon after hopped on a plane and fled the country to evade a tax evasion charge by the Internal Revenue Service. Virginia Hill, defendant in several federal income tax suits, tastes some home cooking where she is visiting relatives at Pensacola, Florida, August 18, She is resting from recent differences with federal tax agents who sold her West Coast home to pay back taxes.
It was further believed that he was using Hill to transfer the money to Swiss bank accounts, serving as only his courier this time. After one of their many fights, Hill left for Paris on June 10, Ten days later, Siegel was shot to death inside her Los Angeles mansion.
Reputedly, when she heard of the murder, she fainted. When police later questioned her, she denied that she was his mistress or that she was aware of his ties to the Genovese crime family. She claimed that "His mistress was that Las Vegas Hotel.
In , Hill was subpoenaed to testify before the Kefauver hearings and denied having any knowledge of organized crime.
She told investigators that her income came from gifts her boyfriends gave her because of her sexual prowess. The IRS seized her house and property and auctioned them off for back taxes.
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