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This is going to be a fascinating couple hours. Welcome back, George Nori with you, Stone Wallace with Us. Author researcher film historian Stone Wallace has been examining various film genres, including classic Hollywood favorites such as Western's comedies, horror in the war. He has published twenty books plus novels and nonfiction stories, short stories, screenplays, scripts, and has written numerous
articles for North American publications. He has conducted celebrity interviews with such legendary performers such as the late Anthony Quinn, Colleen Gray, Lloyd Nolan, Robert Stack, and fifties horror director Herbert Strock. He has attended the Red River College, the National Institute of Broadcasting, and Robertson Broadcast Academy. Stone Wallace on Coast to Coast Stone, good job on the George Raft book.
Well, thank you so much, George. I'm glad you enjoyed it. And let me just tell you right up the bat, I'm thrilled to be speaking with you. I'm a longtime fan of your work and as a broadcaster myself, I use you as kind of an inspiration to my own stuff.
Well, thank you for that. How did you decide to key in on George Raft?
You know, what's an interesting story. Maybe I'll go back a little bit. I've always been interested in the Underworld, and it says it's very strange. I was quite young and I was visiting my aunt and uncle and they had a book on the nineteen twenties, and I was just sitting there going through this book, leaping through it, and I came across the section on al Capone and the Gangsters of the nineteen twenties and what it was, I don't know about. Something clicked in me and I thought, wait,
this is fascinating stuff. And from that point on, I just began it, you know, researching a young boy, even researching the Underworld, the Gangsters of the nineteen twenties, the Desperados of the nineteen thirties, That became a hooked on The Untouchables with my dad watching that on Friday nights,
the reruns, and just kind of grew from there. George Raft himself, I was not that familiar with, but I was in Chicago in nineteen seventy two, this summer of seventy two, and there was a movie playing on the late show called Each Dawn I Die.
No.
Of course, I knew about Jimmy Cagney and I was a fan of Bogart, but I really knew nothing about But I watched this movie that night and there was something about his presence, his character that really struck a chord with me. I thought, boy, this guy's he's got personality, and he's tough, and he's really tough. And from that point on I began researching him. I found out he was a very fascinating man and his career was very fascinating.
So I can say George over fifty years, I've been just kind of following him as much as I can and gathering as much information on Raft as possible.
I would guess Stone that if you understood Hollywood, most people would know the name George Raft. But what do you think about some of the younger millennials nowadays? They probably don't know any of that.
It's not just that George. But when I was writing the book, and that was about the part in two thousand and seven, and people would ask me, so, well, what are you working on and what's your project? I still I'm working on a book on George Raft, and inevitably I got a blank expression who never heard of him? So I would say something like, well, are you familiar with the movie? Sound like it hot? Maybe you know?
And I was trying to find something there that they could relate to, but it was it was like, nobody knows you know who I was talking about. And the thing is, as time goes by, I'm finding it's not just Raft, of course, but a lot of the big stars in that era. People today don't really know who they are. So maybe they recognized the name, but they would have no idea what their what their impact on film or anything was exactly.
He was born in New York and then passed away in Los Angeles. He lived eighty five years.
Yes, And that's an interesting thing too, because George himself mentioned on the last talk show he ever did, which was The Mike Douglas Show in nineteen eighty, he was quite ill at that point he was. Mike Douglas asked him what born, how old he was, and George was very happy to say, well, I was born in eighteen ninety five and I'm eighty five at this point.
Yeah.
Later on they were saying a census did come out and said he was born in nineteen oh one, and that was becoming a controversial subject for a while because some were saying that. But then you say, well, George would know his own age, and why would he lie, and you know, add six years to his life. But he was born in nineteen oh one, So even on his tomb, in his crypt it says George Raft eighteen ninety five nineteen eighty, So I think he would know. But perhaps the sense at that time to forget he
was born in Hell's kitchen. They might not have been as complete and thorough as they could have been.
How did he get pinned as a gangster type mobster in the films?
Well, as you know, he grew up pretty rough, and when he was dancing in the nightclubs in the nineteen twenties, most of these places were rowned by mobsters, and he rubbed shoulders with a lot of the big names of the I'm Dutch, Schultz, Lake's Diamond, the New York base Shots, particularly Ony Madden, who was almost like as a mentor.
It was actually only Madden who was sent her George to Hollywood to act as sort of a companion to Texas Gwynnan, who was the big gut star in New York at the time of d LFA Club, and George went with her to Hollywood where she was making a picture called Queen of the Nightclubs and he played a small part and a lot of people thought he played a dancer, but actually he played a band leader in
that a very brief scene there. From that, he was trying to make a career in Hollywood, did a lot of bit parts, some dancing and stuff like that, and finally he was noticed by a director named Roldan Brown who thought he would be ideal to play Spencer Tracy's bodyguard, a gangster in the movie called Quick Millions, and that started him on the road to that type of role. From that, he of course went on to Scarface and he was off and running.
It's truly a remarkable career. And the subtitle of your book is interesting the man who would be Bogart tell me about that?
Well, that's that's the whole point. I mean, we talked about Humphrey Bogart who became the big star. Now there's a lot a lot involved in that because George Raft had the opportunities that he passed on that Bogart took
and made it into legendary, legendary roles. So had Raft taken those parts, had he done Dead End, had he done High Sierra, especially had he done the Maltese Vulcan, well, Bogart would have probably continued on as a great actor eventually, probably would have found a good role for himself, because I'm sure had Rapt Apartment, yeah, Rapt taken on the Maltese Vulcan, he would have been given Casablanca, which of
course invented Bullgart's start, would start him. But he wasn't considered really for Casa Blanca because he turned down so many roles that the producer Hal Wallace and director Mike Rates said we want Bollgart for this part, and that pretty much left, you know, George on his own, and he left Warner Brothers after doing one more film called
Background to Danger. He went independent and did pretty well for a while in the nineteen forties, but as the times changed, his style of acting wasn't his accepted by the public as it had been back in the nineteen thirties and early forties, and of course Bogart ascended to superstardom and Raft slowly kind of faded away into obscurity.
Did Raft ever win an Oscar or anything like that?
No? No, And one of the biographies that mentioned that in the picture called Souls that Seed that he did with Gary Cooper, that he was nominated for an Oscar. But I researched that and that's not true. No, he never received any type of award for his acting.
Was he one of Hollywood's greatest unknowns?
Not? Well, not during the time he was making the movies to Paramount and Warner Brothers. When I interviewed Lloyd Nolan some years ago, he said that at the time, in the nineteen thirties, although Raft wasn't terribly pardon me, accomplished doctor, he said that he was probably the biggest star in the Paramount lot, next to Gary Cooper.
Wow.
And when Raff left Paramount to go to Warner Brothers, he was offered pretty much everything that was there in those types of roles. John Houston, the director, said, everything was intended for George Raft back in those days. So he was big. The thing is, that's the thing. He
could have been a major star. In fact, a friend of mine acted, Pardon acted in the movie What Price Glory with James Cagney and Dan Daey, And he overheard Cagney and Daily talking one day and Cagney said, you know, if George Raft hadn't been so big headed, he would have been probably the biggest star in Hollywood. Wow, that's from Cagney.
Now.
Do you think when he walked down the streets of Los Angeles Stone people recognized him during that era?
Oh? Definitely. Oh yeah, he was huge. I mean people, that's what's really interesting about his career is that he was so big at the time that he became, you know, basically obscure in those later years. I mean, he would attend functions and he was the main celebrity. Basically, he'd be going on a cruise somewhere with other celebrities and he'd be the one who'd be mobbed. And he were talking with names like Bob Hope and people like that. But people seemed to gravitate towards George Raft.
We had an intern working for us at our network, a great kid. Last name was Wilkinson Wilkerson, and his grandfather was the guy who started the Flamingo hotel in Vegas that Bugsy Siegell bought.
Out that was Billy Wilkinson.
That's right, exactly, yes, and the youngster was our intern, great kid. And the George Raft knew Bugsy, didn't he.
Well, yeah, they were very good friends. There's one book I wrote on Buggsy Siegel whore talked about that they knew each other as kids. But that wasn't ness. That was untrue because Marina Roth was born in eighteen ninety five and Stiegel I think was born in nineteen o six, and they probably knew each other in the twenties and
probably rubbed shoulders. But when Raft went to Hollywood in nineteen twenty nine, Bugsy came, I think in their early to mid thirties and immediately struck up an association again with George and they paled around a lot together. They went to racetracks and nightclubs and things like that. So they became very good friends. And yeah, it was it was well. Then again, Buggsy was actually friends with a lot of celebrities in California at that time.
Yeah, that's right. And he got killed in Beverly Hills, didn't Hey, pardon I think he got killed in Beverly Hills, didn't he?
Yes, he did. He got killed at the house of his girlfriend, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, what's her name? Mom?
They shot him in the right through the window.
Well, yeah, they shot him several times. Actually he got right. His eye was blown right out of his socket. So yeah, Virginia Hill, I'm sorry. I couldn't have lost her name for a second. Yeah, that was his girlfriend. And that was all because of the the failure of the Flamingo Hotel at the beginning there, because he was in such
a rush to get that casino the hotel opened. That he opened the casino but not the hotel, and they had lousy weather that weekend that they opened the hotel the holiday that they ended up losing a lot of money. And they also the Underworld, who was financing the hotel, also felt he was skimming money off the top because he was spending so much money to get this thing built. Yeah, so eventually they kind of just he wrote him off the books.
Let's say they decided to do him in. Did the Mob have an influence with movies in Hollywood?
Oh, definitely definitely goes back to the Chicago outfits al Capone. He always wanted to move into the movie industry. Probably was dying out. The mob was looking for new ways to increase their income because they were losing so much money because of the prohibition coming to an end, so Compone ended up, of course, getting caught in the income tax.
Rock went to Levenworth and Alcatraz Frank Nitty and the outfits that they were in charge, and it was Nitty's idea to try and move into the movie business extort money from the producers and studios, so he sent down a guy named Willy Buyoff who was just kind of like a cheap street enforcer and a pamp actually, and sent him down there to start using his influence to extort money from the studios and now, which she did pretty successfully for a while until they stood up against them,
and then ended up that Willy Buyoff ended up testifying against the mob, which led to Frank Nitty committing suicide because he was clauser phobic and didn't want to go back to prison, and Willie Buyof going into hiding, moving to Arizona, living under an assumed name, working as a growth and in the nineteen fifty five years later he went out to start his pickup truck and it was the payoff for buyof let's say boom, yeah, the casino. You know.
Interesting now, with George Raft doing what he did, what did the mob want with him?
Well, not really that much with him once he became a star. When he first went to Hollywood, some of the people he knew in New York, like Larry Faye, who owned the l Fane nightclub in New York, he'd fall on hard times and he came to Hollywood and asked George if George to help him muscle into the taxi cab business. And George, of course wanted nothing to
do with that. He was clean, making a good light for himself in the motion picture industry, so he told Larry no, thanks, you know, good luck to you and whatever. Larry went back to New York and ended up working in like owning a nightclub or managing a nightclub and getting shot by the dorman there some years later. So
his career came to a quick end. And there were always the hoodlums who kind of came around if he wanted to, you know, get to know George or you know, kind of hobnob around with him, and that was not a good thing for his career, especially, like I say, when his career started to fade in the nineteen forties after he left Warner Brothers, and he was definitely was
really quite quite heavily associated with Bugsy Siegel. In fact, when Bugsy was picked up on a book making charge and George happened to be in the room and the cops busted and arrested him, George wasn't arrested because he was just a better He wasn't involved in anything illegal at that point. But he went to court and stood up for Bugsy. And following the court case, there was
a famous picture of George and Bugsy. George has his arms around him, and they called that photo the Kiss of Death, because that was another thing to help solidify the end of George's.
Career, almost like the communists scare in those days.
Exactly exactly. But then some people say, well, you know that proved that George is really a real life gangster, because you know, here he is, he's got a photograph, he's got en Buggy and they're both they're both grinning, grinning at each other, and and that was kind of like you know, he was, he was, he was and with the mob, and like James Kagan you said about him, though he said George Raft was of the underworld, but not in the underworld, and I think that's the best
way to describe it. He knew people, he was on the fringes, I guess in some respects, but he was never actually involved with the mob in any heavy duty way except back in the nineteen twenties and he was working as a dancer. Sometimes he would run shotgun on beer runs for his friend Tony Madden and uh, and you'd involved in stuff like that, but never anything that was you know, murderous, that's for sure.
Could you say the same thing about Frank Sinatra.
Boy, that's always been open to controversy, hasn't it.
I Mean there were pictures that him with gangsters and stuff.
Yeah, there's that famous picture of him. I think he's with that Carlo Gambin a year. Yeah he was, you know, I'm sure you certainly. You know. Again, he started off and you know, singing in these clubs that were owned by gangsters, and I guess those are you know, relationships that really never end. I think you know, once you're in with that, you know, you probably have a certain loyalty to to these people because they gave you a break. At the beginning, and you know, you don't really you
don't really give him a brush off. I don't think that's actually a wise idea anyway, But I think there's always that kind of a loyalty involved with that.
They're respectful to them, well, they're respectful to them sure, Like George Raft never denied that he knew these people, And after Bugsy was killed, George.
Raft was quoted as saying, I thought he was a wonderful guy. He said. Maybe he did things in his work that weren't weren't legal, maybe he you know, hurt people, but he says that was his business, not mine. I knew him as a friend. You know, there wasn't anything to do with me. I mean, he certainly must he certainly couldn't have been naive as to what, you know, bugs he was doing at certain things. But you know,
and he helped him financially as well, pardon me. When Bugsy was in desperate trouble with the Flamingo, George actually loaned him one hundred thousand dollars, which he never got paid back because Buggsy was killed before he could be paid a loan.
And that's going to be a fortune with today's money. Right.
Oh, absolutely well, he had a borro want in annuity he had and this is one of the reasons I think again, George was very Gary Cooper said back in nineteen thirty seven when they were making a movie called Souls at Sea. He said, without going into too much detail about George's questionable friendships at the time, he said, George is a little careless with his money, and don't forget George's In later years he said that he said, I must have made up with ten million dollars during
my career. Part of the lute I spend it on gambling, part on women. The rest I spent foolishly. Which is the which is the right statement?
Something else?
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