L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

By the spring of 1959, they were dating. Cohen lined up a gig for Barr at the Club Largo on Sunset, where she was soon earning $2,000 a week. Mickey was a nightly visitor. On April 20, readers of the columnist Art Ryan learned that Cohen had squired Candy Barr to the Saints and Sinners testimonial dinner for Milton Berle. The romance blossomed. By early May, Cohen was hinting to the press that he was considering tying the knot with Miss Barr after his divorce with LaVonne went through.

While Cohen enjoyed Candy Barr, federal authorities were stepping up their efforts to gather incriminating information on Cohen. A parade of witnesses was now passing before the federal grand jury that had been called to investigate Mickey’s lavish lifestyle. Prosecutors cast a wide net, subpoenaing virtually everyone who might have seen Mickey spend money, from telephone company employees to fight promoter Harry “Babe McCoy” Rudolph to LAPD-cop-turned-private-investigator Fred Otash. Prosecutors also tightened the noose around Mickey Cohen’s previous girlfriend, Liz Renay.

Renay had long been a subject of interest and was repeatedly questioned by the jury. At first, she attempted to make light of these summonses. After being called back to testify in January, she told the press that the jury was “a bunch of old meanies” and complained that the appearance had cost her a movie role. Gradually, though, the gravity of her situation began to dawn on her. Prosecutors had figured out that Cohen had turned to Renay for “loans” when he needed to pay for something with a check instead of cash. In an attempt to support Cohen’s claims that he was broke, Renay initially claimed that he never paid her back. This claim was easily refuted by Western Union records that showed Cohen routinely wiring money to her account in New York. As a result, on March 12, Renay was indicted on five counts of perjury by the federal grand jury investigating Cohen’s income. She was released on $1,500 bail. Two weeks later, on March 31, while Cohen was thumbing his nose at Robert Kennedy and buying a new Cadillac, Renay pleaded innocent to the charges. Evidently, she soon had second thoughts about her situation. In July, she changed her testimony, informing the judge that she’d failed to tell the truth about the $5,500 in “loans” she’d made to Cohen, and on July 18, 1959, a federal judge gave her a three-year suspended sentence—and a clear warning to associate with the likes of Cohen no more. (She later violated the terms of the deal and ended up serving a two-year prison sentence on Terminal Island off San Pedro.)

Mickey’s romance with Candy Barr was similarly ill fated. Early in the summer of 1959, she broke up with Mickey. She promptly married her hairdresser in Las Vegas. Without Cohen’s high-priced lawyers throwing up delays, the law quickly closed in on Candy Barr. Soon after her nuptials, she was deported to Texas to begin her prison term.

Inwardly, Mickey grieved. Outwardly, he soldiered on. He soon found a new flame—a twenty-two-year-old stripper at the Largo named Beverly Hills. Reached by an intrepid Los Angeles Times reporter at noon on October 1 (Mickey was still in his pajamas and visibly sleepy), Cohen confirmed that he and Miss Hills would soon be wed. Their honeymoon was to take place in Miami, where the future Mrs. Cohen would be appearing at the Clover Club. That engagement fizzled too. By late fall, Cohen had a new love, a nineteen-year-old former carhop named Sandy Hagen, whom Cohen had “discovered” at a drive-through.

On December 2, 1959, Cohen and Hagen were having dinner at Rondelli’s, an Italian restaurant in Sherman Oaks that was one of Mickey’s favorite hangouts. (Cohen was widely assumed to be the stealth owner.) With them were Cohen’s new canine companion, bulldog Mickey Jr., and the usual scrum of henchmen (including Candy Barr and Beverly Hills’s manager). At about 11:30 p.m., Jack “The Enforcer” Whalen walked in. Whalen was probably the biggest bookmaker in the Valley at the time. As his nickname suggested, the six-foot, 250-pound Whalen was also one of the toughest. He and Mickey had something of a beef. Whalen had recently beaten up Fred Sica, one of Cohen’s top men. That night “The Enforcer” was out trolling bars for delinquent borrowers, one of whom he spotted in a telephone booth in the cafe. Whalen walked over, grabbed the man, and proceeded to knock him around.