Mickey Cohen, the mobster who gets locked up which causes the war for control of the drug trade in the story, was a real-life Los Angeles mobster from the late '30s until his death in 1976 after two imprisonments for tax evasion. He was a small-time hood who joined forces with New York gangster
Bugsy Siegel when Siegel came to L.A. to run the rackets (see the film
Bugsy (1991)). After Siegel's murder in 1947, Cohen took over the rackets that Bugsy had built up, including labor union shakedowns at the studios, drug trafficking, gambling and prostitution. He was so hated by the police that he was constantly arrested for any crime, big or small (he was once arrested for using foul language on the street). As shown in the movie, he was eventually imprisoned for income tax evasion and spent nearly ten years in prison. After his release, he was semi-retired from the rackets and lived off his wealth, remaining a colorful character in Los Angeles until his death in 1976.
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