Larry Fay (1888 – January 1, 1933) was one of the early

rumrunner Rum-running or bootlegging is the illegal business of smuggling alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law. Smuggling usually takes place to circumvent taxation or prohibition laws within a particular jurisdiction. The ...

s of the

Prohibition Era Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacturing, manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He made a half a million dollars bringing whiskey into New York from Canada. With his profits he bought into a taxi cab company and later opened a nightclub, the El Fey, on West 47th Street in Manhattan in 1924, featuring

Texas Guinan Mary Louise Cecilia "Texas" Guinan (January 12, 1884 – November 5, 1933) was an American actress, producer and entrepreneur. Born in Texas to Irish immigrant parents, Guinan decided at an early age to become an entertainer. After becoming a st ...

as the emcee and a floorshow produced by

Nils Granlund Nils T. Granlund (September 29, 1890–April 21, 1957) was an American show producer, entertainment industry entrepreneur and radio industry pioneer. He was a publicist for Marcus Loew who formed Loews Theatres and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). ...

. In the 1920s, he married Evelyn Crowell, a

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

showgirl. Fay, who had a record of forty-nine arrests but no felony convictions, was involved in several enterprises in the ensuing years, and was said to have amassed and lost a fortune. He was made a partner of the Casa Blanca Club, where he was fatally shot after a 1932 New Year's Eve celebration by the club's doorman Edward Maloney who had just learned his pay was being reduced by Fay to accommodate a new employee. After his murder his wife discovered he was broke. On December 15, 1960, ''

The Untouchables (1959 TV series) ''The Untouchables'' is an American crime drama produced by Desilu Productions that ran from 1959 to 1963 on the ABC Television Network. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalized experiences of Ellio ...

'' during its second season did The Larry Fay Story. This episode (the 37th for the series) starring

Sam Levene Sam Levene (born Scholem Lewin; August 28, 1905 – December 28, 1980) was a Russian Empire-born American Broadway, film, radio, and television actor and director. In a career spanning over five decades, he appeared in over 50 comedy and dr ...

as milk racketeer Larry Fay, an associate of Al Capone, dealt with Larry Fay's activities in New York City milk price-fixing case.The Untouchables; The Larry Fay Story on the

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0737815/) Also, Fay's life served as the basis for

James Cagney James Francis Cagney Jr. (; July 17, 1899March 30, 1986) was an American actor, dancer and film director. On stage and in film, Cagney was known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing. He ...

's character, Eddie Bartlett, in the 1939 gangster film, ''

The Roaring Twenties ''The Roaring Twenties'' is a 1939 American crime thriller film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring James Cagney, Priscilla Lane, Humphrey Bogart, and Gladys George. The film, spanning the periods between 1919 and 1933, was written by Jerry ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fay, Larry 1888 births 1933 deaths Businesspeople from New York City Deaths by firearm in New York City 1933 murders in the United States 20th-century American businesspeople