Sean Penn Cast as Brentwood’s Mickey Cohen in Current “Gangster Squad†Movie

Westsiders from Brentwood and Santa Monica will be flooding the movie theaters to see “Gangster Squad†featuring the late Mickey Cohen, who was a celebrity of their era in his day. Sean Penn, a graduate of Santa Monica High School, is featured as Cohen. Cohen lived for many years in a luxurious home on Moreno Drive near Sunset Boulevard in Brentwood. He was not at home when his enemies installed bombs and other fireworks in his Moreno Drive home. After Cohen’s death, the Moreno house was bought by the late Jack Marcowitz who helped his brother, Harry, to operate Marbros, their men’s and women’s clothing store in Santa Monica. It was located across the street from Campbell’s which was operated by Joe Campbell and Frank Wire. “Clothes horse†Cohen was cited at both stores over the years. Cohen also owned an ice cream parlor in Brentwood across from the parking lot, which is now Whole Foods. For many years Westside parents took their children to Cohen’s ice cream parlor, telling them about the notoriety of the owner.

Florabel Muir, columnist for the now defunct Los Angeles Mirror (owned by the Los Angeles Times) wrote sarcastically about the Los Angeles Police Department which had dozens of unsolved murders on their books and was the laughing stock of the freewheeling Cohen era.

Cohen was a contemporary of Bugsy Siegel of Murder Incorporated and of Jack Dagna, who posed as a banana importer while he ran many of the Los Angeles rackets. Cohen was a dapper former boxer who had a cafe on North La Brea and a paint store equipped with phones to take bets. He came to town as a “muscle man†for Bugsy Siegel, but soon embarked on his own racket trail. Cohen and his “gang†were never convicted of any murders by the inept police force, but he was finally jailed a second time for tax evasion.