Old Hollywood Celebs With Mob Ties

When it comes to old-school Hollywood's mob ties, possibly the last celebrity you'd think of would be Debbie Reynolds. But Reynolds had some complex dealings with the mob — whether she knew it or not.

Vanity Fair notes that Reynolds' second husband, Harry Karl of the Karl's Shoe empire, had been briefly married to Joan Cohn, widow of former Columbia Pictures honcho Harry Cohn. The marriage lasted just a few weeks, and law enforcement theorized it had been arranged by the mob in order to recoup shady investments that Cohn had fronted for them through the studio. The idea was that Karl, as Joan's husband, would control Cohn's estate and be able to pay everyone back without leaving an obvious trail.

In 1960, the same year that Karl married Reynolds, Karl's Shoes transferred ownership of a home to Sidney Korshak, a notorious and powerful attorney in the world of organized crime. Shortly afterward, Korshak made Reynolds a wealthy woman by negotiating a huge payout for her when she made her Las Vegas performing debut. The Mob Museum notes that a few years later, Reynolds and her production company entered a deal to create Scopitone films — essentially early music videos played in a jukebox-like device. The whole business was a front for organized crime, eventually investigated by the FBI and went out of business in 1969. While it seems like Reynolds was unaware of the connections, it's a curious series of coincidences.

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