Godmother: 25 rare photos of women of the gangster world
Famous gangsters were always surrounded by women: windy beautiful mistresses, nondescript faithful wives, famous actresses and criminal accomplices at that time, who "stood on the lookout" and fired from two hands with pistols.
We have seen the girlfriends of criminals in the movies more than once, because the lively interest in the culture of the mafia has not faded for many decades. But what did the women of the gangster world look like in reality? What was the fate of these extraordinary young ladies who were wives or mistresses of bandits and often committed crimes themselves?
Smitty White is under arrest after her boyfriend Ralph Prisco was shot by police during a botched robbery, 1942. Women who decided to link their lives with gangsters were called mob moll or gun moll. This term came into use at the very beginning of the 20th century, while "Moll" is a derivative of "Molly", which is how girls of easy virtue were called in England in the 17th century.
May Capone, the wife of the famous gangster Al Capone, is wrapped in furs, trying to hide from the cameras of journalists while visiting her husband in Alcatraz prison, 1929. May, a girl from a respected Irish family, married in 1918 and at the same time gave birth to her husband's only son Sonny. Her husband infected her and the child with syphilis, but, despite everything, she remained a faithful and caring wife until his death. May lived a long life, leaving this world in 1986, at the age of 89.
Love and blood: actress Alice Granville was shot by her husband, Pete Donahue, a gangster from the Dutch Schultz gang, 1931.
The beautiful brawler Virginia Hill is one of the most famous women in the gangster world. She was a courier for the transportation of "black cash" and the mistress of the famous Bugsy Siegel. In the photo of 1951, Virginia at the end of her criminal career in the courtroom, where she appeared before the Kefauver committee on charges of tax evasion. In the same 1951, she fled from American justice to Europe, and 15 years later committed suicide in Austria, where she lived in poverty and oblivion.
Janice Drake holds a special place in the list of women associated with organized crime. A beauty queen, a former Miss New Jersey, she spent countless hours in clubs and restaurants in the company of the most venerable mafiosi, despite the fact that she was married to comedian Alan Drake, from whom she gave birth to a son.
Twice Drake had dinner with men who were found dead the day after the fatal encounter with the beauty. In this picture taken in 1952, Drake was photographed by the police, where she was called for questioning after the famous playboy Nat Nelson was killed. The girl was seen with him a couple of hours before her death.
The end of Janice Drake was sad: in 1959, she was shot dead along with the mafia Little Oji Pisano. The bloodied body of the former beauty queen was found in the front seat of a mafia Cadillac. The girl and the gangster were shot in the back of the head.
Virginia Ornmark, 19, and Fred Schmidt, 24, are accused of murdering a bra salesman, 1944.
15-year-old Carmen Martinez is led into the courtroom. For the sake of her mafia boyfriend, she committed the murder of 17-year-old Raul Banuchi, 1959.
Margot Donahue was arrested while trying to hand over a gun to her accomplice William Matea, 1961.
Heartbroken Lottie Coll, wife of Irish gangster Vincent Wild Dog Coll in the courtroom, 1933.
Variety show dancer Marion Kiki Roberts was also associated with the mafia, as she was the mistress of a gangster during the late Prohibition era, Jack Legs Diamonds. Jack was shot by unknown people, and in the photo a girl with a picture of another of her lovers - actor Jack La Rue, 1937
And here's what gangster Jack Legs Diamonds, whose girlfriend you saw in the photo above, looked like. Here he poses for a photographer with his long-suffering wife Alice. Alice was a deeply religious woman, devoted to her husband despite his numerous crimes and infidelities. Two years after Jack's death, his widow, by then long forgotten by the public and the press, was found shot dead in her modest apartment in Brooklyn. Alice's killer was never found.
Rita Rio is the mistress of gangster Louis Amberg, the right-hand man of the famous Dutchman Schultz. The beauty herself claimed that she had no idea about the type of activity and the source of her lover's income. The mafioso, as usual, came to a bad end: he was found burned alive in a car.
Arrested lovers Margaret Kelly and Frank Palumbo. The couple were arrested for the Dancehall robbery and murder in 1932.
Palma Vital, the lover of gangster Salvatore Dambrosio, shows wonders of self-control. Her face is completely emotionless, while she is being tried for perjury in 1961.
17-year-old Nancy Serville was arrested for "standing on the lookout" during a raid by a gangster gang in the New York borough of Queens, 1936.
Florence Gerrity was detained by the police in 1948 along with five accomplices. During the interrogation, the girl said about the gang leader George Foley: "Life was boring before I met him."
"I thought it was a lighter," 23-year-old Lilian Stang "turns on the fool" during an interrogation in 1947. She was arrested for illegal carrying of weapons.
Although the gangsters tried not to shine the "work" that their fighting friends did for them, justice still overtook many women. 1933, Mary Baker, known by the nickname of the Girl with Two pistols, sobs in the Bronx police station after her arrest.
This girl looks so innocent, but in fact she is not: Jean Hunter, John Zeller's mistress, arrested after another Brooklyn robbery, 1935.
Lottie Kohl, the widow of Vincent Kohl, along with two mafia accomplices, is accused of murdering a passerby during a robbery, 1933.
She doesn't repent at all! Margaret Kane smiles as she is led out of the courthouse where this gangster's girlfriend was found guilty, 1932.
You might think it's a man, but it's a mafia-related girl, Mary Duke. She was photographed at the police station with her arm bandaged after she was wounded in a gangster duel, 1943.
Starlet Louise Rolfe and her husband, notorious gangster Jack McGurn, shortly after their wedding in 1931. For decades, Louise was a friend of mafia members, two of whom she was married to. A documentary was made about this woman in the 1980s. Unlike many other combat friends, she lived a long life and died in 1995 at the venerable age of 89.