Meyer Lansky II tells stories that didnt make it to AMCs The Making of The Mob: New York.
Meyer Lansky, born Meier Suchowlanski somewhere in what is todays Belarus, was known as the Mobs Accountant.
He helped Charles Lucky Luciano turn the chaos of mob rule into organized crime.
Lansky met Luciano when they were both teenagers on the lower east side of New York City.
Under Lanskys guidance, crime became bigger than U.S. Steel, to quoteThe Godfather Part II.
Crime was an institution, During World War II, U.S. Luciano was in jail at the time at Great Meadows Prison in Comstock, N.Y., at the time.
Even Nixon took on Meyer Lansky, extorting Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir to have him deported.
But Lansky II got to introduce the elder statesman to Santana.
Den of Geek: Youre not from the city, are you?
Meyer Lansky II:I was born in 1957 in Tacoma, Washington.
My dad was in the military.
He was stationed at Fort Lewis.
He met my mother out there and thats where I was born and raised, near Seattle.
Have you seen the neighborhood your grandfather grew up in?
It was very interesting.
Do you feel a disconnect because you didnt grow up in New York?
Not really at all because Ive been here quite a few times.
I just havent been down to the sites here where all this initially took place.
My dads talked about New York.
Hes from here and I grew up hearing about all this.
Did your grandfather tell you stories?
I tried to touch on those kinds of stories once in a while.
I asked him did you know Frank Sinatra one time.
All the time I spent with him was down on Miami Beach.
He was already there about ten years before I was born.
I never spent any time in New York with him.
But no, he would steer me away from that.
I learned early on that if I touched on that subject he would just not talk about it.
He didnt want to think about it anyway.
Did your father talk about it?
He told me ever story.
It was a mythical story coming out.
I would compare what really happened to what the movies said happened and the books.
It was interesting to go over those stories.
What were the most glaring differences between what you know and what the movies showed us?
Well, first of all some of the time periods were off.
His age wasnt exactly what they portrayed it as in the movies.
Thats creative license and thats what Hollywood does.
It makes for good movies.
He wasnt a rough guy with anybody.
He was always in control, always self-confident.
Did you watchBoardwalk Empire?
I liked Anatol [Yusef- who played Meyer Lansky] very much.
I liked the show.
I thought the whole show was good.
I loved the filming part of it: the old 1920s glows and the period buildings and the costumes.
I just loved that part of it.
I thought Anatol did a great job.
Theres really nobody that Ive seen whos portrayed my grandfather that I didnt like in some way.
I thought Ben Kingsley was fantastic inBugsy.
Do you see anything of your grandfather in the portrayals?
Yes I do.Godfather II.
Lee Strasberg of course being the top person I personally liked representing my grandfather in Cuba.
I knew that because we would talk on top of buildings or on the beach.
When he said Were bigger than U.S. Steel [it exemplified that].
Lee Strasberg was from relatively the same time period and background.
At one point it was like looking at and listening to my grandfather.
He sounded just like him.
It was almost spooky.
His mannerisms and everything were just perfect.
He was around when that movie came out and he called Lee Strasburg.
He got hold of his wife and his wife knew right away that it was Meyer.
My grandfather said he did a great job.
He could have made him more sympathetic, my grandfather, but he did a wonderful job.
That must have been quite a moment for Mr. Strasberg.
He liked the way he portrayed him.
Your grandfather was one of a few individuals who shaped the 20th Century.
Did he have any sense of his own place in history?
He did have a sense of it.
you’re free to see it just by the way he would tell me: Be honest.
Know what you know.
When you learn something, learn it well.
Be honest with people and it goes a lot farther.
He instilled this in me.
He said see that new building going up?
He says they dont own the land underneath it.
You never want to build something when you dont own the land underneath it, Meyer.
I didnt know it at the time but he was telling me what happened in Cuba.
He was always indirect, if you know what I mean.
He didnt say I lost everything in Cuba.
He would go around it.
I think he knew later I would know more about it.
He was sore at himself.
Do you think he was railroaded?
Nixon basically strong armed Golda Meier to deport him.
The tax evasion charges?
Youre talking about when he had to leave Israel?
Let me tell you this first up front.
We have 350 letters that were actually written by him.
A few of them are what happened in Israel.
Its not what you think.
They really didnt get anything.
Bringing him back to the United States would add up to nothing.
They arrested him for his stomach medicine and that was the end of it.
I read inTough Jewsthat Lansky kicked heroin.
None of that is true at all.
He had nothing to do with any kinds of drugs.
My grandfather would never have anything to do with drugs.
Did you read your aunts book?
I had never heard them before.
She was around Willie Moretti.
There were situations in there that I didnt know about, but I wasnt surprised about it.
That Lansky gave Joe DiMaggio advice on getting back Marilyn Monroe after she divorced Arthur Miller?
No, I dont believe that.
And Sam Giancana and Frank Sinatra, I dont believe that.
My grandfather had the Wurlitzer distributorship right here in New York in the forties.
There was never, with Sam Giancana, anything like that.
I know this because Jean Giancana is one of my best friends.
I know her daughter very well.
The stories are made up, to say the least.
Your grandfather worked Wurlitzer in the forties?
Joe Gallo ran jukeboxes in South Brooklyn, do you think there was any crossover?
That must have been later.
Frank Costello had the leases for the distributorships.
They would maintain them and supply the records but no.
Do you think you learned more about your grandfather from your family or from outside sources?
Im 57 so I was around for 27 years and heard the real thing.
Do you have any Charlie Luciano stories that didnt make it to the books?
I never met Luciano.
She described him as very nice.
I got her stories because I wasnt around.
I was around Vincent Alo who was called Johnny Ola in the movie,Godfather II.
He was already with grandpa in Miami.
But I never discussed Lucky Luciano with him.
I never would have brought it up back then.
It would have been a sore subject.
He didnt want me discussing those subjects.
Were Charlie Luciano and your grandfather close until the day Luciano died in 1962?
They were shut the whole time.
So, who killed Kennedy?
Thats a new theory.
People discuss the Kennedy assassination at dinner tables across America, were the conversations different in your house?
Yes, we never talked about that.
In my life Ive learned about true stories and things that arent true.
Grandpa and Jack Ruby were, he had nothing to do with that.
Im sure he knew of the people who did, but we never discussed it or anything like that.
I think he would have been an engineer like my father.
He expressed interest in that at some point.
My dad was a civil engineer and grandpa was just as interested.
In his early years, he was a tool and die maker.
Im still trying to find the exact location of the shop.
He had to figure out all this out in a primitive way.
He was very mechanically inclined.
He worked on engines.
He wasnt just a math person.
He liked the hands-on work, on engines and motors.
Engineering is what he would have done.
Did he have any favorite gangster movies that came out during his time period?
[Laughs] LikeLittle Caesar?
Well, like Cagney was based on Hymie Weiss inPublic Enemy.
I couldnt tell you if he used to watch things like that.
Benny Siegel would have had a favorite movie.
He would have wanted to star in them.
Grandpa was a little more reserved.
Im they amused him but we never talked about it.
My dad said why dont you play your grandfather something.
So we played Evil Ways by Santana, just by chance.
I realized later, oh my goodness, the Latino sound probably reminded him about Cuba.
He was smiling and asking questions.
He asked who plays that song?
And I said thats Carlos Santana, grandpa.
I remember that like it was yesterday.
I know he frequented nightclubs as a business but did he have a great appreciation for the arts?
Oh yes, very much so.
He was interested in music and entertainment.
He knew good from bad.
He wanted the best.
He went out of his way to kindly his people.
He loved the nightlife and music and everything like that.
What did he think of your band?
We had a ways to go at that time but he appreciated it.
He thought it was great.
At one point I was very into sports and he told my father its getting out of balance.
[LAUGHS] He encouraged me in everything.
Since the Godfather, weve learned that its all family, just another career choice.
I know the Irish were, the ones they were raised with didnt get along with them.
Similar in backgrounds I guess, but not really.
Thats difficult to answer that, but they do, they do get along.
Back then crime was divided very cleanly along ethnic lines.
It was all Sicilian.
Masseria and Marranzano didnt even want any other aspects of Italians.
They didnt want Napolitanos or anything it was just Sicilian, let alone Jewish.
They were in America.
Plus the money that could be made by having alliances with other cultures.
Jews and Italians, they wanted to grow.
They wanted more than just local businesses.
They all got along.
They did the job best.
They could trust who they grew up with.
You have any Lepke stories?
No I dont know a lot about him.
I know what everybody else would.
He was Murder Inc with Albert Anastassia, that aspect of the business.
But he was also a great business man, the Garment district, unions.
These guys were competent and they had very little education.
They were able to run things, have authority.
Louie Buchalter had the tough thing too, thats what he was.
Is the Colonial Inn still in Miami?
No thats long gone.
The resorts are all gone.
The Imperial House is still there, where he lived, on Collins Avenue.
