Irving “Big Gangi” Cohen
Cohen was born in Brooklyn in 1906 and became a low-level member of the notorious, and prolific hit squad known as Murder, Inc. Cohen was a cold-blooded killer, handy with an ice pick and a pistol.
Cohen’s life took a dramatic turn during the murder of a fellow Murder, Inc. member named Walter Sage. Sage had been ordered to be killed because he was skimming profits from gambling operations. On a drive to the Catskill Mountains in July 1937, Cohen grabbed Sage in a headlock from the back seat, while his associate Jack Drucker stabbed the defenseless Sage over 30 times with an ice pick. During the assault, Drucker had also accidentally stabbed Cohen in the arm. Cohen believed this was no accident, and as soon as the driver pulled over to dispose of the body, “Big Gangi” Cohen bolted from the car and wasn’t seen again…until he resurfaced on the silver screen a couple of years later.
It turns out Cohen had made a new life for himself in California using the name Jack Gordon, and he had small parts in a number of films. In 1939, Cohen showed up in a bit part in a Hollywood film entitled Golden Boy. A fellow gangster who had been in on the murder of Walter Sage noticed Cohen in the film and alerted a District Attorney in Brooklyn, hoping to lessen his own sentence. Cohen was arrested in Los Angeles and sent back to the east coast to answer for the murder of Walter Sage.
Cohen sobbed in court and vehemently denied he had anything to do with the murder. Miraculously, the jury believed Cohen’s story and he was acquitted of the murder. Cohen returned to Los Angeles and worked as an actor in small roles for many years. He died in 1976 at the age of 69.