1. Virginia Hill was famous for being the girlfriend of mobster Bugsy Siegel.
11 Facts About Virginia Hill
2.
In 1933, Hill left Georgia for Chicago with Randell, hoping to enter the pornography business.
3.
Virginia Hill found a job as a waitress at the mob-run San Carlo Italian Village exhibit during the 1933 Century of Progress Chicago's World Fair, and supplemented her income as a prostitute.
4.
Virginia Hill came to the attention of a wealthy bookmaker and gambler, Joseph Epstein, who is said to have become her financial advisor and, possibly, lover.
5.
Virginia Hill told people that she was a Southern-belle society girl who had gone through four rich husbands, all divorced or dead, and that she had received $1 million each from their estates, but authentic socialites saw through the ruse.
6.
Virginia Hill built up an entourage of hangers-on and Latin gigolos hanging out on Broadway and frequently picked up the check.
7.
Urban legend has it wrong that Siegel named the Flamingo Las Vegas resort after Virginia Hill, who liked to gamble and whose nickname was supposedly "Flamingo", a moniker that Siegel was said to have given her, referring to her long, thin legs, but others have said that she was in fact short and somewhat matronly in form.
8.
Virginia Hill committed suicide by an overdose of sleeping pills in Koppl, near Salzburg, Austria, on March 24,1966, at the age of 49.
9.
Virginia Hill was the subject of a 1974 television movie, in which she was portrayed by Dyan Cannon.
10.
Virginia Hill was played by Annette Bening in the 1991 film Bugsy, a dramatization of her relationship with Bugsy Siegel.
11.
Virginia Hill was the "loose" basis for Joan Crawford's character in the 1950 film noir The Damned Don't Cry.