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Susan Berman

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Susan Berman
BornSusan Jane Berman
May 18, 1945
Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
DiedDecember 23, 2000(2000-12-23) (aged 55)
Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Resting placeHome of Peace Cemetery
OccupationJournalist, author
LanguageEnglish
EducationUniversity of California, Los Angeles (B.A.)
University of California, Berkeley (M.A.)
GenreFiction, nonfiction
SubjectAmerican Mafia, Las Vegas
Notable worksEasy Street
SpouseChristopher ("Mister") Margulies (divorced)
RelativesDavie Berman (father)

Susan Jane Berman (May 18, 1945 – December 23, 2000) was an American journalist and author. The daughter of mobster David Berman, she wrote about her late-in-life realization of her father's role in organized crime.

In 2000, Berman was found murdered in her home. The case went unsolved for over a decade until real-estate heir Robert Durst, Berman's longtime friend and confidant, was charged with her murder in 2015 and convicted in 2021.

Early life

Susan Berman was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1945, the only child of the former Betty Ewald, a traveling dancer who had adopted the stage name Gladys Evans,[1] and David "Davie" Berman. Berman always maintained that her father — a major Jewish-American organized crime figure who took over Las Vegas' Flamingo Hotel after Bugsy Siegel's 1947 gangland murder — died under mysterious circumstances on an operating table when she was twelve, but all indications were that he died of a heart attack during surgery.[2] She also believed uncertainty surrounded her mother's presumed suicide by overdose a year later.

Berman grew up in Las Vegas and, later, in Hollywood, California, where high school classmates and friends at the Chadwick School[3] included Jann Wenner and Liza Minnelli.[4] Berman received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1967 from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she met American real estate heir Robert Durst. In 1969, she graduated with a Master of Arts in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley.[5] Berman was gradually paid a total of $4.3 million by the Mafia for her father's interests in casinos and other properties.[6]

Career

Berman was a novelist and author of two memoirs, along with a 1971 college guidebook, The Underground Guide to the College of Your Choice. Her first memoir, Easy Street, detailed her life as a mobster's daughter. While representing her in the 1970s, the William Morris Agency talked with several Hollywood producers interested in adapting the book into a screenplay. The movie rights were ultimately sold for $350,000, but no film project ever materialized.[7] For a time, Berman attempted to finance a musical based on the Dreyfus affair, in which Durst declined to invest.[4]

In San Francisco, Berman wrote for media outlets including the San Francisco Examiner,[8] Francis Ford Coppola's City Magazine, the Westinghouse Evening Show on KPIX-TV, and the People show on CBS. She was a contributing writer for magazines such as New York,[9] Cosmopolitan and Family Circle. She also wrote Driver, Give a Soldier a Lift! and Lady Las Vegas, accompanying the 1996 release of an A&E documentary, for which she was a co-writer and nominated for a Writers Guild of America award.[10]

At the time of her death, Berman was working on a project for Showtime with attorney Kevin Norte. Entitled Sin City, it was being planned as Showtime's answer to the HBO hit The Sopranos.

Personal life

Berman lived just off the Sunset Strip on Alta Loma Road in West Hollywood for several years prior to her final residence in Benedict Canyon, a suburb of Los Angeles. Her manager, Nyle Brenner, later told the Los Angeles Times 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 was married to Christopher "Mister" Margulies, in June 1984 at the Hotel Bel-Air; Durst walked Berman down the aisle.[7][11] Margulies died of a heroin overdose in 1986.[12] Berman kept close ties to friends on Alta Loma Road, at the Las Vegas Strip and in New York City, including Durst.

Murder

Berman was found murdered execution style with a 9mm handgun on Christmas Eve 2000 in her rented Benedict Canyon home, and was presumed to have been dead at least a day.[12]

On March 14, 2015, Durst was arrested in New Orleans on a first-degree murder warrant issued out of Los Angeles. Although Durst's presumed victim was not immediately named by authorities, the Los Angeles Times first reported that he had been detained in connection to Berman's slaying.[13] Three days after his arrest, Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey said that if convicted, Durst could face the death penalty in California for "special circumstances of murder of a witness and lying in wait."[14] Durst was transferred to and arraigned in California in early November 2016.[15]

Multiple accounts, including Murder of a Mafia Daughter by author Cathy Scott, have reported possible connections between Berman's murder and the 1982 disappearance of Durst's first wife, Kathleen McCormack Durst. Berman became a confidante of Durst[1] at UCLA in the late 1960s,[12] and came to know McCormack after later moving to New York.[16] In a review of Scott's book, True Crime Zine wrote that "detectives came to suspect one of [Berman's] long-time friends but have never been able to charge him with murder."[17] Durst was also considered a prime suspect in his wife's disappearance and was eventually charged in the case.[18]

Berman initially acted as a media spokesperson for Durst, and is believed to have facilitated his public alibi.[7][8] She supplied a deposition in the case in 1982, which Durst faxed to investigators after her murder.[19] Berman had remained Durst's friend and received two large cash gifts totaling $50,000 from him in the months before her death; she had last written to Durst on November 5, 2000, expressing hope that her financial entreaties would not ruin their friendship.[12][19][20] Earlier in 2000, the New York State Police, at the request of then-Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, had re-opened an investigation into Kathleen's disappearance, and was urged by her friends to contact Berman for an interview.[20] Berman was killed weeks after the re-opened investigation was publicized.[20]

Durst's 2015 arrest warrant mentioned a previously undisclosed typewritten letter, mailed from New York on January 9, 2001 to a West Los Angeles police station, titled, "Possible motive for Susan Berman murder." The letter said Berman suspected Durst was involved in his wife's disappearance,[21] and specified that Durst was planning to visit her in late December.[19] Berman biographer Scott told the New York Post in February 2017, before witnesses were to testify against Durst in a pre-trial hearing, that the evidence pointed to his guilt in Berman's murder.[22] Durst was ultimately convicted of Berman's murder on September 17, 2021, and sentenced to life in prison. Four months after his conviction, Durst died in prison.[23]

Berman is interred next to her father at Home of Peace Memorial Park in East Los Angeles, California near The Three Stooges including former Stooges Shemp Howard and Curly Howard.[24]

Books

Nonfiction

  • The Underground Guide to the College of Your Choice (Signet, 1971), ISBN 0451078373
  • Easy Street: The True Story of a Mob Family (The Dial Press, 1981), ISBN 978-0385271851
  • Lady Las Vegas: The Inside Story Behind America's Neon Oasis (TV Books, 1996), ISBN 978-1575000206

Fiction

In the 2010 film All Good Things, the character Deborah Lehrman, portrayed by Lily Rabe, is inspired by Susan Berman. The film depicts Lehrman being murdered by the character Malvern Bump, who is inspired by Morris Black. It is implied that Bump murders Lehrman on the orders of David Marks, inspired by Durst, in order to prevent her from revealing incriminating information about Marks.

The story of Susan Berman's suspicious death and suspected murder was covered by a CBS News Productions documentary series 48 Hours, Season 29, Episode 19, "Murder 90210", release date 30 January 2016 (USA).

The case was the basis for the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Maledictus."

References

  1. ^ a b Paul Walsh (March 18, 2015). "Robert Durst confidante Susan Berman was only child of Twin Cities mobster". Star Tribune. Retrieved March 19, 2015.
  2. ^ "Minnesota history: Recent arrest brings to life a Minneapolis mobster". startribune.com.
  3. ^ Scott, Cathy (16 June 2019). Murder of a Mafia Daughter: The Life and Tragic Death of Susan Berman. Barricade Books. ISBN 9781569802380 – via Google Books.
  4. ^ a b Ned Zeman (February 2002). "The Fugitive Heir". Vanity Fair. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  5. ^ "Susan Berman". Online Nevada Encyclopedia. 2009-03-20. Retrieved 2012-12-14.
  6. ^ Tom Hawley. "Video Vault - Murder of a Mafia Daughter, Part 1". mynews3.com. Archived from the original on 2015-03-21.
  7. ^ a b c Carolyn Kellogg (March 17, 2015). "The literary life (and death) of Susan Berman, alleged Robert Durst victim". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  8. ^ a b Kevin Fagan (March 16, 2015). "Durst case slaying victim had titillating Bay Area history". SFGate. Retrieved March 19, 2015.
  9. ^ Susan Berman (November 14, 1977). "Bess Myerson Is One Tough Customer". New York. Retrieved March 18, 2015.
  10. ^ "Mobster's Kin Killed: Writer was daughter of Bugsy's partner". 5 January 2001. Retrieved 2012-12-14.
  11. ^ Charles V. Bagli, Vivian Yee (March 15, 2015). "On HBO's 'The Jinx,' Robert Durst Says He 'Killed Them All'". The New York Times. Retrieved March 15, 2015.
  12. ^ a b c d DePaulo, Lisa (March 12, 2001). "Who Killed the Gangster's Daughter?". New York. Archived from the original on July 17, 2006.
  13. ^ Richard Winton, Matt Hamilton and Shelby Grad (March 15, 2015). "Robert Durst arrested in slaying of L.A. writer". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 15, 2015.
  14. ^ John Bacon and William M. Welch (March 17, 2015). "Prosecutors charge Durst with murder; death penalty possible". USA Today. Retrieved March 18, 2015.
  15. ^ "Robert Durst arrives in L.A. to face murder trial; first court appearance is Monday". Los Angeles Times. November 5, 2016.
  16. ^ Book Probes New Evidence in Mob Daughter's Murder | Psychology Today
  17. ^ Susan Berman book: Murder in Beverly Hills by Cathy Scott | True Crime Zine
  18. ^ "Robert Durst indicted in 1982 murder of wife Kathie Durst". NBC News.
  19. ^ a b c "Search Warrant for Robert Durst's Houston Home". Los Angeles Times (link to online public document). March 18, 2015. Retrieved March 20, 2015.
  20. ^ a b c Andrew Gumbel (March 29, 2015). "Did Robert Durst's nemesis ignore clues before following his trail to California?". The Guardian. Retrieved March 29, 2015.
  21. ^ Andrew Blankstein and Hannah Rappleye (March 18, 2015). "Robert Durst Had Latex Mask, Fake ID and $42,000 Cash When Arrested". NBC News. Retrieved March 19, 2015.
  22. ^ Johnson, Richard (7 February 2017). "Friend of Robert Durst's alleged victim is certain he'll be convicted".
  23. ^ "Robert Durst, real estate heir, dies in prison at 78". Associated Press. January 10, 2022 – via NPR.
  24. ^ Lisa DePaulo. "Who killed the gangster's daughter?". New York Magazine. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
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