Susan Berman

Author Susan Berman (1945-2000) was murdered execution style with a 9-millimeter hand gun on Christmas Eve 2000 in Benedict Canyon, California.

Biography

Berman's father was mob figure Davie Berman, who had replaced Bugsy Siegel in Las Vegas at the Flamingo Hotel after Siegel's murder by the mob. Berman always maintained that her father died mysteriously on an operating table when she was 12. Berman also believed her mother Gladys' overdose suicide a year later was also under mysterious circumstances.

Susan Berman was known affectionately as a "Jewish Mafia Princess." In 1981, Berman published the memoir "Easy Street (book)" about her father. Susan Berman was represented in the 1970s by the William Morris Agency, who talked with several Hollywood producers interested in adapting Berman's book into a screenplay. The movie rights were purchased from Berman, but the film project never got off the ground. Many industry experts believed it became overshadowed by the best-selling novel and box office blockbuster "The Godfather".

Various published accounts have speculated about possible connections between Berman's murder and the 1982 disappearance of Kathie Durst—the wife of Berman's college friend and heir to a New York real estate fortune Robert Durst. Durst was considered a prime suspect in his wife's disappearance, along with another person of interest, but he was never charged in the case. Berman remained a friend of Durst after the disappearance of his wife, and Durst gave large cash gifts to Berman in the months before Berman's death. [Lisa DePaulo " [http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/crimelaw/features/4459/index.html Who Killed the Gangster's Daughter?] "New York Magazine", March 12, 2001.] Almost two decades after Kathie Durst's disappearance, New York State Police, at the request of Jeanine Pirro, the district attorney in New York's Westchester County, contacted Susan to interview her about the Durst case. She was killed within a few days of the query.

Berman lived right off the Sunset Strip on Alta Loma Road in West Hollywood for several years prior to moving to her last residence in Benedict Canyon. Nyle Brenner, Berman's manager, said to the "Los Angeles Times" days after the murder that "many details of Ms. Berman's personal life are unclear" and added "she had been married once in the 1980s, and later helped rear the two children of a boyfriend." Berman's relationships were layered, often deep and mysterious. She kept close ties to friends on Alta Loma Road, where she once lived, the Las Vegas Strip and in New York City, including Durst.

Berman was a published author and a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles with a master's degree in journalism from University of California, Berkeley. She was a staff reporter for the "San Francisco Examiner" and also wrote for Francis Ford Coppola's "City Magazine", the Westinghouse Evening Show on KPIX and the People show on CBS. She was a contributing writer for "New York magazine", "Cosmopolitan" and "Family Circle". Berman wrote "Driver, Give a Soldier a Lift!" and "Lady Las Vegas," which accompanied the release of an A&E special for which Berman was a co-writer.

At the time of her death, she was working on a project for Showtime with attorney Kevin Norte. The title of the project was "Sin City" and was being planned as a Showtime's version of the HBO hit "The Sopranos."

"(NOTE: Susan Berman the writer is not to be confused with Susan Berman the actress who starred in Susan Seidelman's underground film, "Smithereens". They are two different people and unrelated.)"

References

* Cathy Scott [http://www.lasvegascitylife.com/articles/2004/02/25/cover_story/cover.txt Cold Case: Who Killed Susan Berman?] "Las Vegas CityLife," February 2004.

External links

* [http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22susan+berman%22+mafia&ei=UTF-8&fr=sbc-web&fl=0&x=wrt/ Links to articles on Susan Berman]
* "This American Life" [http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=681 episode 76: "Mob"] ; linked RealAudio file includes a reading by Berman from "Easy Street".

Further reading

*Cathy Scott, [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1569802386/ "Murder of a Mafia Daughter: The Life and Tragic Death of Susan Berman", 2002]