Sitting in a Brooklyn jail cell, Abraham "Pretty" Levine, a low-level gangster on the fringes of the contract-killing syndicate that became known as Murder, Inc, maintained a loyal silence for most of March 1940. When he finally broke, as the cops had always known he would, he spilled everything he knew about the gang -- how it worked, who ran it and where the bodies were. Eventually, he became the leading witness for the prosecution in the trials that finished Murder, Inc and sent his former bosses to the chair, which is as good a reminder as any of the importance of bit-part players.
One of the stories Pretty told the District Attorney is of particular interest to us, because it starts with a trip to the cinema.
One night, just a few months before he was arrested, Pretty bought a ticket for Golden Boy (1939), a film about a prize fighter. Imagine his dismay when it turned out that, instead of tough boxers duking it out in the ring and triumphing against the odds, the movie was one of those sappy family melodramas full of yakking dames and weepy fathers and with hardly any boxing at all.
As the final reel approached, Pretty was so bored that even the long-overdue climactic boxing match in Madison Square Garden was unable to fully capture his attention, and he found himself noticing background details, like the interesting extras in the quick cutaway shots. There were well-dressed guys from Harlem; there were ex-pugs with squashed noses and cabbage ears; there were some millionaire types in evening dress. And then there was a three-second shot of a bunch of tense gamblers, all chewing gum nervously because they've bet big on the fight:
This, Pretty told the DA, was amazing. He could hardly believe what he was looking at. Plastered right there in the very middle of the movie screen were the unmistakeable features of a guy called Big Gangy Cohen, who Pretty hadn't expected ever to see again. He hadn't seen him or heard anything about him since he'd vanished in the aftermath of a bloody murder one dark night in the Catskills, two years earlier.
At that time, Irving -- to give Big Gangy his real name, which we must, as contemporary sources don't seem to be able to agree on whether he spelled his name Gangy or Gangi -- was first lieutenant to a mobster called Walter Sage, who operated a slot machine racket in the Catskill resorts. The Murder, Inc bosses had given Sage the concession as a reward for years of steady service, including a number of contract killings.
Most of Murder, Inc's killers were small-time Jewish or Italian hoods from Brooklyn, like Sage or Pretty Levine. The gang -- which called itself the combination; "Murder, Incorporated" was a journalistic invention -- had invented an ingenious and lucrative scheme that enabled them to carry out murder contracts for mobs across America. The low-level gangsters who were given the contracts had no connection to the victim, and, often, didn't come from the same city, so the police had little hope of catching them. During the 1930s, Murder, Incorporated's hitmen killed hundreds of people throughout the country and were seldom caught.
Naturally, therefore, when the gang found out that Sage had been skimming the profits from the slots racket, they decided to have him killed as well. What did he expect they would do? They're Murder, Inc.
Pretty explained to the DA that Irving was nominated to be one of the killers as Sage was his best friend and wouldn't be suspicious when he suggested that they go for a late-night drive way up into the mountains with a man called Jack Drucker, another killer they knew. The hit was organised by one of the higher-up mobsters called Pittsburgh Phil, who tailed Irving, Sage and Drucker as they drove through the night. His car was driven by Pretty Levine.
At a lonely spot in the road, Pretty watched the tail lights ahead of him swerve suddenly back and forth. The car tipped into a ditch and, as Pretty and Pittsburgh Phil pulled up, the back doors opened. Out of one stepped Drucker, wiping blood from his icepick. Out of the other sprung Irving, "as if fired from a cannon". The others watched, stunned, as he charged into the woods, screaming incoherently. According to Pretty, they had no idea what had come over Irving and they didn't follow him to try to find out, as they had to get on with the urgent job of lashing a pinball machine to the corpse of Walter Sage and dumping it in a lake.
And that, Pretty Levine told the DA, was the last he'd seen of Irving until the stupid lug blew his own cover by showing up at the end of Golden Boy.(1)
Was Irving supposed to have also been killed that night? Pretty didn't know. Neither did Irving, but he knew he shouldn't stick around to find out. He fled through the dark woods, eventually finding refuge in the garage of a local man named Orville Miller. The next morning, Irving forced Miller at gunpoint to drive him to the nearest bus station, where he began his journey to the west coast.(2)
It's not clear if Irving had a plan to get movie work in Hollywood; I assume he simply headed for a distant city far from Brooklyn where he could vanish. It didn't work, though, as Pittsburgh Phil found out where he was and sent a hitman called Sholomon Bernstein to kill him. Years later, as the Murder, Inc trials drew to an end and Pittsburgh Phil had been sent to the electric chair, Bernstein said:
"I went to California to kill Big Gangi. But I didn't kill him. I got Big Gangi a job as an extra in the movies. I had connections out there."(3)
So, for a couple of years, Irving made a quiet living as a crowd-scene extra. Using the name Jack Gordon, he hid himself in plain view, his image flickering for a moment now and then across screens in every town in the country, and things were going just fine -- until Pretty Levine talked to the DA from Brooklyn, and Irving was extradited to New York to stand trial for the murder of Walter Sage.
The Hollywood connection made a nice angle for the reporters, who photographed a particularly sorry-looking Irving as he returned to the east coast:
(4)
Irving's escape plan had fallen apart. He'd outrun murderers in the Catskills, managed to get himself safely across the country and somehow convinced a hired killer in Los Angeles to not only spare his life, but also get him work in Hollywood and, presumably, lie to Pittsburgh Phil, but now he had to sit in court and listen to Pretty Levine telling the jury about the night he'd helped to murder his best friend, about how he'd reached from the back of the car to pin Sage to his seat while Drucker plunged the icepick into Sage's body again and again -- 32 times, in total. The blood must have been awful.
Irving couldn't take it. The next day's papers read:
"Irving (Big Gangi) Cohen, movie extra on trial for murder, wept today when a witness accused him of participating in the fatal stabbing of Walter Sage, Brooklyn gangster. 'This man is lying. I wasn't there, honestly,' Cohen sobbed."(5)
Irving -- this 260-pound giant -- rose from his seat and wailed hysterically that he was innocent. His lawyer was unable to calm him, and cried for help. A deputy sheriff led Irving from the court, which was suspended for a quarter of an hour while he pulled himself together.
The trial lasted eight days; the jury's deliberations lasted an hour and a half, and the result surprised everyone: the jury had bought Irving's story! Swayed by his emotional denials, they acquitted him. Irving was reported to have cried softly when his sobbing wife, Eva, rushed to his side.
There was only one thing Irving wanted to do. Immediately after the trial, perhaps with cheeks still glistening with tears of relief, he announced to reporters that, now that he had been cleared of all wrong-doing, he was going to dedicate himself to his career as a bit-part actor:
(6)
Even though Irving's alias had been busted during the trial, he kept using it for professional purposes. However, the name "Jack Gordon" doesn't appear to have been entered in any studio's records until 1944, four years after the trial, which might suggest that, even though the law was no longer a threat, he was still too scared of his old mob associates to take anything other than the most anonymous, man-in-a-crowd parts. It's probably not a coincidence that 1944 was the year in which Jack Drucker, who Irving had last seen holding a blood-stained icepick in a menacing manner, was finally arrested and sentenced to life in jail.
For the rest of the 1940s, Irving lumbered through B-movies in the sort of bit-parts that you'd expect a hulking, gorilla-like ex-gangster to attract. His finest hour came in 1945, when he played a silent gunman whose bosses use him to rub out rival gangsters. This role enabled Irving to leave us with a performance that we can only accept as a uniquely well-informed portrait of a hired killer, sculpted from a deep and visceral knowledge of the subject.
It's hardly Irving's fault that the subject's actually kind of banal.
A great deal of the job of the hitman, as interpreted by Irving, consists of tracking a target while wearing a slack, blank expression:
Those hours culminate in the shooting of the target, which is accomplished without a change of expression:
And that moment of excitement is followed by the arrest and imprisonment of the hitman, which, as expected by this point, brings about no change in the hitman's expression:
The film is called Crime, Inc. Although it's only a cheap little supporting feature, Irving must have been gratified to have been cast in it, as it's the first cinematic telling of the story of his old gang, and he gets to rub out not only a few gang bosses, but also a thinly disguised version of that dirty, no-good stool pigeon, Pretty Levine.
I don't know if that constitutes a satisfactory revenge, but it's closer than most people get. Take that, Murder, Inc!
After 1950, with the decline of the mobster genre, Irving's type fell out of fashion and his stream of small roles dried up. His last reported job was as a stand-in for Hoss Cartwright in the 1960s TV show, Bonanza.
Irving died in the mid-1970s. I don't know anything about his later life, apart from a few details that his grandchildren left on a website about old Jewish gangsters.(7) They describe Irving as a loving, gentle man who smelled of cigars and alcohol and lived across from the Paramount studio with his wife, with whom he would speak privately in Yiddish. He had a nasty smoker's cough. He would take his false teeth out and chase the kids around the apartment with them. You know, the usual. They point out that Irving's part in Sage's murder was never proven, but admit that it wasn't a subject that the family spoke about, and that their father was, understandably, "very secretive about 'Grandpa'".
Sources: (1)"Murder, Inc - The Story of the Syndicate", Turkus, Burton B and Feder, Sid, Gollancz, London, 1952, pp41 to 43; (2)Kingston Daily Freeman, NY, June 19, 1940; (3)Oakland Tribune, Oct 30, 1941; (4)Kingston Daily Freeman, NY, June 22, 1940; (5)New York Times, June 18, 1940; (6)Kingston Daily Freeman, NY, June 22, 1940; (7)sixforfive.blogspot.com, post:"Big Gangy Cohen Found".
Hi:
I found this article on JACK GORDON really amazing, since I really knew nothing about his past. I'm a bit part actors fan and researcher, and only two months ago I identified by chance GORDON in several films. I've first seen his face playing a hood in PRISON TRAIN (1938), and a few days ago playing a pirate (??) in THE FOXES OF HARROW (1947). I can send you pictures when you can see him, and I'd very much like to contact you, in order to share opinions about my hobby.
Please, answer my message to get in touch. Below is my email address, but you can also write me to peterromita@yahoo.com. I use this email more often.
Posted by: FABIÁN CEPEDA | February 28, 2009 at 07:23 AM
Hi, Fabian. Thanks for writing.
So, Irving's in Prison Train, is he? That's great to know -- I watched the movie last year, but that was before I knew anything about him, so I must have missed him. Excellent news!
At Christmas, I was watching It's a Wonderful Life, a film I've seen dozens of times and know very well indeed, and I was amazed to see that Irving pops up in the scene in Nick's bar (in the alternative world, which is full of gangster types). I'll mail you the screen capture.
Posted by: Diarmid | February 28, 2009 at 11:38 AM
Hello...........Im his granddaughter and would love to get copies of all the things you have regarding him. Any pictures we had of him went in flames when the Malibu fires hit in the 90's......the only picture left is one I have when he was old. Something you may not know is he sent my grandmother and my father to Hollywood before he ran away....seems tho you are portraying him as a sad, loser and he was far far from that...he just wanted to have a good life and keep his family safe. Obviously we dont condone what happened, but as I said in the other website....we didnt know Gangy...we knew Grandpa. I would gladly pay for any copies of anything you have. I look forward to hearing from you.
ThatGirl
Posted by: ThatGirl | August 17, 2010 at 07:02 AM
Hi, Deborah. Thanks for writing. I'd be glad to e-mail you pdf copies of the newspaper pages that have pictures of Irving. How sad that you lost your pictures in the fires... You can e-mail me here: diarmid_mogg (at) yahoo.co.uk (just replace the "at" with a @, and it'll work).
Posted by: Diarmid | August 23, 2010 at 11:35 PM
Hey Deborah. Irving was a distant cousin of mine, though we never met. I do not know if you knew his cousin Ruby. I would love to find out more about him.
My email is Viking053@aol.com.
Posted by: Alan Schneider | August 30, 2010 at 02:02 AM
Hey ! Thanks for writing me back....I wasnt sure if anyone would.
Hello Alan :)....I have never met any relatives of his and my father was an only child...and since he never spoke about any of it , I never got a chance to know anyone...altho we had one Aunt tho I think she was more a friend of the family named Libby. Like you Alan, only thing I know is what was written about him and that was only from getting Murder, Inc the book ! My father will never speak about him and he still gets a bit antsy if he gets brought up beause of the real fear still now of retribution. I really would like to know tho....why my grandfather is so interesting to so many people ! lol.... especially in the UK too ! Seems strange. I was probably about 7 or so when he died, so I dont have alot to tell, but my brother and sister do...I will ask my brother to see this site and he can tell you things I cant. Thank you again and I so look forward to getting to see what you have about him!.
Thank you!
Debbie aka ThatGirl
Posted by: ThatGirl | September 05, 2010 at 09:43 PM
There are some things about him in that IMBD (sp) thing, altho alot of things are missing IE: the movies he was in etc.....also of my father...Stan who sort of followed in that arena and became one of the top sound men in the business,nominated 3 times for the Emmys ( or Academy, I get confused which lol) awards and my brother as well....Anthony is a top hair and make up man. Thats about the most I can tell you lol From what I understand ,but not 100% sure was that my father's first movie was Guess Who's Coming to Dinner..altho he isnt credited. Again, thats something my brother and sister can tell you more of. From what I understand also was he was a war hero in the Korean War. You probably dont need this info about the rest of the family lol but its all I know :) My sister had all the medals and pictures and everything when she lived in Malibu and then in 94 when the Malibu fires came...it all went up in smoke so to speak...so this is why Im so very excited that you have this information and pictures!
Alan....being that you say your a distant cousin, I have a question for you...as I know nothing of any family, do you know if anyone in the family has Crohns Disease? I know its a strange question to ask , but I have had it for 16 years and they say it could be genetic, but I dont know anyone that has it. Ok sorry if I oyvertook this posting lol...Im just real happy that I can have something of my grandfather.
Thank you again! :)
Posted by: ThatGirl | September 06, 2010 at 11:38 PM
Regarding Gangy Cohen's acting career:
Brooklyn District Attorney William O'Dwyer said that Gangy got his acting jobs through Slapsy Maxie Rosenbloom, the former boxing champion and later an actor of note in Hollywood. Murder Incorporated associate Sholem Bernstein claimed he got acting jobs for Gangy. Incidently, Burton Turkus's book does not mention Gangy's trial in Monticello. Does anyone have any information aboutthe above issue?
Richard McDermott
Posted by: Richard McDermott | September 11, 2010 at 08:48 PM
My grandfathers best friend was Lorne Greene............and he sent my grandmother and my father to Hollywood before he left NY.
Posted by: ThatGirl | June 14, 2011 at 05:39 AM
My grandfather was Francis(Slim)Sage, a cousin of Walter's. Family legend has him also in the employ of Murder, Inc. in a similar line of work as Walter was. Walter was suprisingly a very observant Jew, went to morning minyan (prayers) prior to performing his duties of contract killing for the day. He was also learned in Talmud. Didn't know particulars of Walters death as written above. The book "Tough Jews" claims he was killed gangland style while sitting in a barbers' chair, but this sounds more plausible. The Murder,Inc. guys differed from their Mafia counterparts as theirs was not a dynastic operation, they got their kids into legit professions like medicine and law.
Posted by: Daniel Christensen/Ben Del | October 31, 2011 at 04:06 AM
Interesting. I seem to remember not being sure where the Tough Jews author had got his information about the killing, because it didn't fit with what was reported at Irving's trial or in Burton Turkus's book. To be fair, I think that Mafia stories are always unreliable - people like to embroider the truth and make things more dangerous or glamorous than they were. It's very hard to get to the bottom of these things...
Posted by: diarmid mogg | October 31, 2011 at 05:28 PM
Hello Daniel....Walter was "employed" by Murder Inc. and my grandfather was one of his best friends...hence when this all went down he didnt kill him and it was as stated about going for a ride etc. As much as I knew about my grandfather which isnt a whole lot as I was very young when he died, but he didnt do what he was indicted back for. He did run off that night. I know he always felt responsible as Walter was his best friend and he was there when they drove him , but I know he couldnt do it and didnt....that put the icing on the cake so to speak and when he ran. I can only apologise for any part he had in Walters death and I know he would tell you that too. I know that doesnt mean much, but is all I can say about that. Just know that Walter was important to my grandfather and probably a big part of getting my grandfather out of Mureder Inc.Im sure Walter was just like my grandfather...a wonderful man who was religious and loving and just did what he thought he had to at the time. There is no excuse for any of it and I hope you take this seriously as it does mean alot to me. We cant turn back the clock unfortunately as I know my grandfather wouldnt have been involved that way as Im sute Walter wouldnt have been.
I know Im blabbling on lol, but even tho it has been a long long time...I do think about it still.
I wish there was something I could do, but we cant change the past. Please just know that I do care and have wondered about Walter and his family. They were bad bad times for both and Im sure the both of them wouldve done something to change if they could have. I got lucky and knew my grandfather before he passed away, even tho I was young. I wish you could have had the same. I wish there was more that I could say, but it happened and I cant. I just want you to know that Walter was never forgotten.
Posted by: Debbie | January 22, 2012 at 05:56 AM
Unfortunately , it seems the original poster Fabian Cepeda passed away last year because on his cinema website it has
FABIÁN CEPEDA (1966-2011)
Co-Director y Co-Autor de HollywoodClasico
Extraordinario investigador y autor, gran amigo y maravillosa persona
Nunca será olvidado por quienes nos cruzamos en su vida
Debbie,my name is Phillip and much like Mr. Cepeda I have made it a hobby to research obscure actors/stuntmen and document their appearances with my specialty being television westerns such as Bonanza. A while back I picked up a cast sheet from the 1967 Bonanza episode called "The Deed and the Dilemma" that had several of the stuntmen listed including some of the regular like Bill Clark, Martha Manor, and Jack Gordon. It was the first time I had ever heard of this name then I stumbled across this interesting story.
But to my point, the stuntmen in Bonanza typically appeared in the background as townsman/barfly's or whereever needed and given your grandfather's history of appearing in the background,I am sure he was one of those people as he was on set. The trouble is that I can't identify him based on the 1940s pictures posted here because Bonanza started in 1959 and it is really hard to identify people from 20 year from pictures 20 years before. Do you think you could send me a scan of that photo when he was older so that I have a better ideal what he looks like around the 1960s time period? I ask because I would like to document some of his appearances on IMDb as I have done with many other actors. My e-mail is philarnoldjhs@yahoo.com
Thank You
Phil
Posted by: Phil | March 13, 2012 at 05:35 AM
I don't need the picture, I just found him in a Bonanza episode called "Ballad of the Ponderosa." He was very identifiable.
Posted by: Phil | March 17, 2012 at 06:04 PM
Well done, Phil! If you get a chance, could you upload a screenshot to a website, or e-mail me a copy? I'd love to put it on my page of pictures of Irving. Thanks!
Diarmid (the guy who writes this website)
Posted by: diarmid mogg | March 17, 2012 at 06:41 PM