Bugsy

The film shows Bugsy Siegel watching his own screen test. In real life, Siegel made many friends among the Hollywood elite, wanted a screen test and had one made. Like many other screen tests, the footage no longer exists, but the legend of Siegel's attempt to break into show business lives on.

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The film George Raft (Joe Mantegna) is shooting when he visits Bugsy Siegel on set is Manpower (1941), in which Raft shared top billing with Edward G. Robinson. The scene in which Raft gets into a bar fight and hands the broken chair to an actress (Virginia Hill (Annette Bening)) really did appear in the film.

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It is one of three films released in 1991 that featured Bugsy Siegel as a character. The other two were The Marrying Man (1991) and Mobsters (1991).

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Most of the Las Vegas scenes of the Flamingo's construction were shot near Palm Desert and La Quinta, California, where a full-scale replica of the Flamingo was built.

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The idea that Bugsy Siegel alone envisioned the Las Vegas Strip is only partly true. The Flamingo was the third major property on the Las Vegas Strip (behind El Rancho and the Last Frontier) and was not even Bugsy's idea. The Flamingo concept came from the corrupt gambler Billy Wilkerson, who intended to model it on Los Angeles nightclubs. Siegel became Wilkerson's partner and eventually took over the project. He later added many of his own ideas to the project, but the original idea was not his.

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Costume designer Albert Wolsky dressed more than 2,000 people over the course of the film and tracked down vintage clothing for most of them.

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After working on this film, Warren Beatty and Annette Bening married.

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For authenticity, Warren Beatty's clothes were virtual copies of garments once worn by the gangster, and everything on him, from his lighter to his cufflinks, was monogrammed in Bugsy Siegel's style.

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Michelle Pfeiffer was dropped from the role of Virginia Hill. A year later, when Annette Bening became pregnant and left Batman Returns (1992), Pfeiffer took over her role.

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Although the film suggests that Bugsy Siegel and Virginia Hill met on a set for the first time, they had in fact met several years earlier. At that time Hill was dating Joe Adonis (played in this film as Joey A. by Lewis Van Bergen), and she and Bugsy had an affair, which explains the hostility between Bugsy and Joey throughout the film.

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James Toback first wrote a 400-page treatment of the screenplay but lost his only copy under strange circumstances. He then wrote the full screenplay, which would have made a film of 3 1/2 to 4 hours. Barry Levinson and Warren Beatty helped make the screenplay filmable in its final form.

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In the late 1970s, Jean-Luc Godard became obsessed with the story of Bugsy Siegel and planned to make a film about him. He wrote a screenplay simply titled "The Story" and planned to cast Robert De Niro and Diane Keaton as Siegel and Virginia Hill respectively. He abandoned the plan when Keaton lost interest and then turned his attention to Every Man for Himself (1980) as a return to commercial filmmaking. An excerpt from the screenplay draft can be found in the 1985 edition of the book "Godard on Godard."

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Harvey Keitel, who plays Mickey Cohen in this film, played Bugsy Siegel in Virginia Hill (1974). He was also set to play Meyer Lansky (played in this film by Sir Ben Kingsley) in Lansky (2021).

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Ralph (the elevator operator) appeared in every Levinson film from Diner (1982) to Liberty Heights (1999).

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The epilogue before the end of the title sequence reads: "A week after Bugsy Siegel's death, Virginia Hill returned all of the missing money to Meyer Lansky. Virginia Hill committed suicide in Austria. By 1991, the six million dollars invested in Bugsy's Las Vegas dream had earned 100 billion dollars." After Bugsy died in 1947, Virginia married her fourth husband, an Austrian skier, in 1950 and gave birth to a son the same year. In 1966 she died in Austria at the age of 49 from an overdose of sleeping pills.

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According to an article in the December 21, 1991 issue of the Los Angeles Times, the costume budget for this film was $1,500,000.

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The car Bugsy Siegel buys off the street is a 1941 Cadillac Series 62 convertible sedan.

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As of 2025, it is the only performance for which Harvey Keitel has been nominated for an Oscar.

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The scene in which Virginia Hill serves Bugsy Siegel shrimp can be dated by the headline of the Los Angeles Times she is holding, about the Allies crossing the Rhine into Germany. This was "Operation Plunder," which began on March 23, 1945.

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James Toback took six years to deliver the screenplay to Warren Beatty.

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The real Harry Greenberg was 30 years old when he was killed. Elliott Gould, who portrayed him, was actually around 53.

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Virginia Hill pulls up in front of Bugsy Siegel's house in a 1938 Lincoln Zephyr Coupe convertible. Only 200 of these cars were produced, and by 2020 one could sell for well over $100,000.

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The four-engine flying boat depicted as it lands in Havana, Cuba, for the mob meeting that includes Lucky Luciano is a 1936 Sikorsky S-42B registered NC16735 and belonging to Pan Am. Shortly after this footage was shot, the aircraft was destroyed on December 8, 1941, in Japan's attack on Hong Kong.

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Cinematographer Allen Daviau lit the scenes as in 1940s Hollywood films.

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Joe Mantegna appeared in The Godfather Part III (1990). In earlier films, the characters Moe Green (Alex Rocco) and Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg) were modeled on Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky.

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It was widely felt that Warren Beatty was too old to play Bugsy Siegel.

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The film came in one week over schedule and $1 million over budget, the same amount Bugsy Siegel proposed to Meyer Lansky and his other partners for the construction of the Flamingo Hotel and Casino. Like this film, the Flamingo ran roughly $5 million over budget in construction costs.

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Harvey Keitel's appearance was altered with the help of a bald cap and a nose piece.

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The car driven by Mickey Cohen, with its large whitewall tires, is a 1939 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Special touring sedan.

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Annette Bening became pregnant with Beatty's baby during filming.

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The red plane Bugsy Siegel tries to board Virginia Hill on is a 1944 Howard DGA-15P, registration N67423. Of all variants, 520 were built between 1939 and 1944, most used by the military and sold for private use after the war. As of 2020, this particular aircraft is still registered as airworthy.

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Like their characters, Harvey Keitel and Elliott Gould are Jewish. Warren Beatty and Ben Kingsley are not. Kingsley has portrayed other Jewish characters in Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story (1989), Schindler's List (1993) and Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001).

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Harvey Keitel and Sir Ben Kingsley were both nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for this film. This makes it the second film in 1991 in which two actors were nominated for the same award. The others were Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis for Thelma & Louise (1991), which also featured Harvey Keitel.

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Something not mentioned in the film is that Ben Siegel was briefly regarded as a suspect in the gruesome murder of Elizabeth Short (the Black Dahlia), which occurred shortly before Siegel's own murder. The proximity of the body to a rival gangster's home, Short's ties to the mob and Siegel's history of vicious knife murders made him a suspect (and still do).

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The year's only Best Picture Oscar nominee was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay.

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Director Barry Levinson wanted Michelle Pfeiffer for the lead role, but she chose to make Frankie and Johnny (1991) instead. Ellen Barkin and Geena Davis were also considered for the female lead.

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James Toback wrote the screenplay with the intention of directing it.

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In 1974, Universal announced that producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown were planning a Bugsy Siegel biography with Peter Bogdanovich directing.

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Some scenes, particularly the moment Annette leaves the Flamingo in her ball gown, reveal her condition.

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The cast includes three Oscar winners: Warren Beatty, Sir Ben Kingsley and Barry Levinson; and four Oscar nominees: Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel, James Toback and Elliott Gould.

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A Bugsy Siegel biopic starring Tony Curtis was announced in 1967.

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This marks the first time James Toback and Harvey Keitel collaborated solely as writer and star. Toback had previously written and directed Fingers (1978), Exposed (1983) and The Pick-up Artist (1987), all starring Keitel. Although Toback wrote the script intending to direct it, Barry Levinson became the one making the decisions.

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It was the only Best Picture Oscar nominee that year also nominated for Best Costume Design.

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Del Webb, the contractor who built the Flamingo, was a part-owner of the New York Yankees baseball team from 1945 to 1964.

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