George Raft Casino London
Micky Fawcett chatted at the May Fair Hotel this afternoon
- “Yes,” said Micky. “I’ll tell you their full connection with the Mafia. There was a club in London which was run by the Mafia – The Colony and Sporting Club – in Berkeley Square. This was in 1966/1967. The Hollywood actor George Raft was the front man.” “He,” I said, “got banned from Britain by the Home Secretary, didn’t.
- In the 1960s, the elderly Raft became a star of the London scene, playing the operator of the Colony Sports Club, a sort of Rick in a real-life Casablanca. (Raft ironically was the pre-Bogart choice for the part). The Colony was a plush place, controlled by Lansky and his frequent associate in casino operations, Dino Cellini.
- 1967 - George Raft's Colony Club London George Raft's Colony Club. Gaming tokens dated 1967 produced by the Franklin Mint. Raft was barred from re-entering Britain by Home Secretary Roy Jenkins in February 1967.
So, this afternoon, I had tea with Micky Fawcett, former close associate of gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray.
George Raft (born George Ranft; September 26, 1901 – November 24, 1980) was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s.
“They’re going to make another film about the Twins,” he told me.
“Not another one!” I said.
So far, we have had The Krays (1990), The Rise of The Krays (2015), Legend (2015) and The Fall of The Krays (2016).
“This new one,” said Micky, “is by the same people who made The Fall of The Krays and the same two guys who played the Twins in that are playing them in this. They’re claiming the previous film made a lot of money, which it probably did. David Sullivan – the pornographer – is the backer of it all.
“What is this new one called?” I asked.
“At the moment, The Krays and The Mafia,” Micky told me.
“Well,” I said, “that is going to be a very short film.”
Micky’s book on his days with the Krays and much else besides in his ‘unusual’ life
“Yes,” said Micky. “I’ll tell you their full connection with the Mafia. There was a club in London which was run by the Mafia – The Colony and Sporting Club – in Berkeley Square. This was in 1966/1967. The Hollywood actor George Raft was the front man.”
“He,” I said, “got banned from Britain by the Home Secretary, didn’t he?”
“Yeah,” said Micky. “They were doing OK, the Mafia.”
In his book, Freddie Foreman – The Godfather of British Crime, Freddie Foreman writes: “The Colony’s patrons included Frank Sinatra and Robert Ryan, Dino and Eddy Celini ran the casino and the real owner was the MD of American crime Meyer Lansky. The Colony went on for a couple of years and was a good earner. George Raft, who had Mafia connections, wanted us to keep a low profile, though. He didn’t want faces to frighten away guests. In those areas, it was not the done thing.”
I asked Micky Fawcett today: “The Krays were not actually involved in the club?”
“No,” he told me, “but the Krays were going in there and unsettling people. They didn’t do anything very much, but one example was when there was an argument among a Jewish family in the club and Ronnie Kray jumped up and was going to make an impression – he thought it would impress the Mafia. But they went: Ron, Ron, Ron. This is not how we do things.
George Raft (centre) with Ronnie (left) and Reggie Kray
“And, shortly afterwards, George Raft said: Reg, I can see you’re not doing very well and would like to make a small gift to you. I want to give you £300 a week. So they agreed this. What I’m going to do, George Raft told Reg, is I’m going to give you an advance of £3,000.
“I don’t think Reggie had ever seen £3,000 before. So he took the £3,000 and split it between Freddie Foreman – he gave him £1,000. He gave £1,000 to the Nash family. And that left him with £1,000 to split with his brothers Ronnie and Charlie. And, when he’d done that, that was the money gone.
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“Then the fight happened at Mr Smith’s in Catford and the Americans all got out of the country quick and couldn’t get back in – George Raft was banned from re-entry by the Home Office because his continued presence in the United Kingdom would not be conducive to the public good – and that was the end of the story of the Mafia and the Krays.”
“Why,” I asked, “did the Mafia get out of he country quick?”
“Because they didn’t want to be associated with people shooting each other.”
The Colony Sports Club was a London gambling casino operated by American Cosa Nostra mobsters Meyer Lansky and Philadelphia crime family boss Angelo Bruno, through front man George Raft, and low level English gambler Alfred Salkin, who Cellini had met at another large London casino, and was used as the English front man during the 1960s.
George Raft Casino London Ont
Following the end of syndicate gambling operations in Havana by the Castro government in 1959, Lansky sought to expand his operations elsewhere. With the legalization of gambling in Great Britain, Lansky opened a number of high class gambling casinos with Bruno, including the Colony Sports Casino, throughout London during the early 1960s.
However, following an investigation by Scotland Yard, a number of casino employees including American actor George Raft, New York mobster Dino Cellini, Joey Napolitano, Boston Cosa Nostra mobster Richard Castucci and others were deported after finding evidence of rigging games as well as their ties to organized crime figures in New York.
George Raft Casino London England
References[edit]
- Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN0-8160-5694-3