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

Mickey Cohen wasn’t a religious man. But in the autumn of 1949, God came calling at 513 South Moreno in the form of an unlikely duo: Cohen wiretapper Jimmy Vaus and a charismatic young evangelist named Billy Graham.

14 The Evangelist

“He has the making of one of the greatest gospel preachers of all time.”

—the Rev. Billy Graham, commenting on Mickey Cohen

THE YEAR 1949 had been a disastrous one for Jimmy Vaus. “Happy” Meltzer’s trial and the revelations that followed had exposed him as a double agent and placed him in considerable legal peril. And so it was that driving home late one Saturday night in November, filled with mournful thoughts, listening to the original singing cowboy, radio host Stuart Hamblen, Jimmy Vaus heard something that would change his life.

“A few nights ago,” began Hamblen, “I went to the Big Tent at Washington and Hill, and after I heard Billy Graham preach, I accepted Christ as my personal Savior.” Hamblen was so committed to Jesus, he continued, that he was selling his racehorses—save for his sentimental favorite, the champion Thoroughbred El Lobo.

This was serious. Everyone who listened to Hamblen’s radio program knew he was crazy about the horses (as well as other not-strictly-religious activities such as coon-hunting and skirt-chasin’). “He meant business if he were selling his horses,” concluded Vaus.

The next day was a Sunday. Vaus went to the beach. It was foggy and cold. He dropped by Mickey Cohen’s house in Brentwood. Mickey wasn’t home. He drove down to a bar on Washington Boulevard—and then realized, with a start, that he was headed straight for the Billy Graham revival meeting.

By November 1949, everyone in Los Angeles knew about Billy Graham. One month earlier, the lantern-jawed young evangelist with the fierce blue eyes and the booming voice had arrived in town with plans to hold a series of old-fashioned tent revival meetings. The idea was quaint. The messenger wasn’t. Graham was Hollywood’s idea of what a minister should be—a six-foot, two-inch booming baritone who wore sharp, double-breasted suits and flashy ties. Nonetheless, Graham’s campaign for Christ might well have remained a modest affair but for the mysterious intervention of William Randolph Hearst. Soon after Graham arrived in town, the editors at the morning Los Angeles Examiner and the evening Herald-Express received a terse telegram from San Simeon: “Puff Graham.” The city’s largest morning tabloid responded with typical élan. Graham noticed that suddenly “reporters and cameramen were crawling all over the place.” Stories about Graham’s “Crusade for Christ” played across the front pages of the two papers for weeks, as did breathless accounts of the goings-on within what was now dubbed “the Canvas Cathedral” (“the largest revival tent in history”). Modest crowds became impassioned mobs. And so that Sunday evening Jimmy Vaus found himself squeezing onto a back bench under the big tent, one of the roughly six thousand people who’d come to hear Graham speak.

“You know,” Graham boomed through the tent, “there’s a man in this audience tonight who has heard this story many times before, and who knows this is the decision he should make…. This is your moment of decision.”

Suddenly, Vaus found himself gliding up the isle toward the platform at the front of the tent where Graham was standing. Then he was down on his knees. He left in a daze. As he was exiting the tent, a photographer’s light-bulb flashed. The next day, newspaper readers awakened to the headline WIRE-TAPPER VAUS HITS SAWDUST TRAIL.

Celebrity criminal Jimmy Vaus had been born again.

It was with some nervousness that Vaus drove over to Mickey’s house to explain his conversion. November had not been a good month for Mickey. After forfeiting bail on his disappearing gunmen, Mickey needed to be able to show more income from legitimate sources. So he announced plans to sell his haberdashery. Cohen carried it out with unusual style. A huge sign appeared in the haberdashery’s window: MICKEY COHEN QUITS! A spotlight danced across the Los Angeles sky from the doomed store, as if its closing were a movie premiere. Curious Angelenos responded by the hundreds, helping themselves to a look into Mickey’s luxurious lair (as well as a chance to purchase $25 ties at $10 prices). Vaus feared that Mickey’s mood might be bad. But when he arrived at 513 Moreno, he found the gangster in good spirits. When Vaus informed Mickey that he was “going back to the Church, back into Christianity,” Cohen responded, good-naturedly, “Well, what the hell else ya been?”

No, no, Vaus explained. “You’re not a Christian till you give your life to Lord Jesus Christ and are born again.”