The Peculiar Truth about the Al Capone of LA

• Los Angeles, the mid-1930s: Guy McAfee took up residence at the ritzy Biltmore Hotel. Movie stars stayed at the upscale establishment. It was the place to be seen in downtown LA.

• McAfee, however, wasn’t an actor. He wasn’t in the movie business at all. He worked for the Los Angeles Police Department.

• Some newspaper reporters wondered how a member of the LAPD could afford to live in such an upscale hotel. Savvy newsmen, however, knew the source of McAfee’s income. They even printed stories about him in their newspapers.

• Guy McAfee wasn’t just an ordinary beat cop. He headed the Hollywood Vice Squad. Their assignment was to shut down all of the hundreds of gambling dens and whorehouses along Sunset Boulevard.

• But the man assigned to shut down gambling and prostitution actually owned several casinos and brothels. They made McAfee rich.

• Newsmen knew the truth but could do nothing about it. Nobody could. His influence ran all the way to LA City Hall and made McAfee untouchable.

• The press coined a name for him. They dubbed him the Al Capone of Los Angeles.

• From the start of the Roaring Twenties through the Great Depression, the population of greater Los Angeles effectively tripled. The new motion picture industry turned the orange growing farmlands into a city of big business. As a result, LA became awash in corruption.

• Guy McAfee had arrived in Southern California from Kansas and began his career as a fireman. He then joined the police and walked a beat in the Hollywood district.

• Although Prohibition had been repealed in 1933, gangsters still ran illegal gambling dens and prostitution. Those criminal enterprises thrived in Hollywood. A few entire apartment buildings on and around the Sunset Strip were notorious whorehouses. They operated at the pleasure of the movie studios to accommodate their male stars and movie executives.

• McAfee was a crooked cop who signaled to the criminals when a police raid was about to happen. They paid him well for the tipoffs. He in turn became so wealthy that he bought up their operations.

• Through political corruption, McAfee was selected to head up the Hollywood Vice Squad. The reason was simple. Instead of eradicating the crime, McAfee controlled it. The politicians and policemen who put him there wanted a piece of the action, too. The money trail led all the way to the office of LA Mayor Frank Shaw. His brother became the bag man between McAfee and City Hall.

• McAfee didn’t hide in the shadows. Instead, he could sometimes be seen out on the town, especially with his second wife, a smalltime movie actress from the Midwest named June Brewster. They married in 1936, after which her career was effectively over.

• McAfee’s eventual third wife, Kathleen, had been a madam who ran one of his Hollywood brothels.

• Clifton’s Cafeteria was a Downtown Los Angeles staple for most of the 20th Century. The first restaurant opened at the beginning of the Depression with the motto ‘Pay what you wish, dine free unless delighted.’ Its owner was a liberal-minded man named Clifford Clinton. He saw people suffering from the hard economic times and wanted to make a difference. So he let customers pay whatever they could afford. Despite that business model, his cafeterias flourished.

• Clinton also saw the rampant corruption happening throughout the city. He got assigned to the county grand jury and tried to persuade his fellow jurors to seek indictments against the many criminal elements, including Guy McAfee. That was a tough sell. So he formed a consortium of concerned local businessmen to fight back and named Mayor Shaw as a key figure in the corruption.

• Threats were made against Clinton’s life. A bomb exploded at his home. His private investigator nearly died from a car bomb.

• The bombings were eventually traced to a cop who answered directly to the Mayor.

• 1938: Due to Clifford Clinton’s efforts, Mayor Shaw was recalled from office and forced to resign. A new mayor took charge.

• Guy McAfee saw the writing on the wall. He knew his good thing in LA was about to end. So, instead of waiting to get arrested, he pulled up stakes and headed to Nevada.

• 1939: McAfee bought a casino on Highway 91 in Las Vegas, which later became the Frontier Club. In time, he bought more casinos and became one of the best known men in Sin City.

• He was credited with naming the Las Vegas Strip - so called after his old cop beat on the Sunset Strip.

• Guy McAfee, the former corrupt Vice Squad cop known as the Al Capone of Los Angeles, thrived in Vegas for two decades until his death in 1960. Unlike his namesake, he got away with his crimes.