L.A. NOIR: THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF L.A.’S NOTORIOUS MOBSTERS

The scene: 1950s Los Angeles, a land of sunshine and shadows. A time when Hollywood sparkled and glamour girls like Lana Turner seduced. Leading men and tough guys Frank Sinatra and John Garfield sauntered into Chasen’s, the watering hole of choice for high-rung Hollywood names. But L.A. was never all blue skies and make-believe. Beneath the glitter there was grit. La La Land was about big business and big deals: films, real estate, politics, and crime. In the red leather banquettes of Beverly Hills and in the smoke-filled rooms of joints on the Sunset Strip, some deals would be made with a pen and a handshake, while others with a slug and a gun. When the sun went down, the stars come out -- and so did the Hoods. LA Sunshine turned into LA Noir—home of one of America’s most notorious gangsters – Mickey Cohen. 

This week The Halli Casser-Jayne Show will explore the shadowy underworld of 1950s Los Angeles with Pulitizer Prize nominee and investigative journalist Gus Russo, author of Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers; with Tere Tereba, author of Mickey Cohen: The Life and Crimes of L.A.'s Notorious Mobster; with Director of Education Dr. J. Victor McGuire, Ph.D from the Mob Museum in Las Vegas; and with John Buntin, crime and urban affairs writer at Governing Magazine and author of LA Noir, the story of  the Los Angeles underbelly and America’s most admired—and reviled—police department: The LAPD.