Meyer Lansky

HAVANA NOCTURNE: How the Mob Owned Cuba ... and Then Lost It to the Revolution, by T.J. English. William Morrow, 416 pp., $27.95. BACARDI AND THE LONG FIGHT FOR CUBA: The Biography of a Cause, by Tom Gjelten. Viking, 422 pp., $27.95. HAVANA BEFORE...

Cuban writer Jose Lezama Lima's description of Havana—"an unnameable feast"—fits the city's last great era like the flawless suits from Pepe Sastre fit the best-dressed mobsters of the glittering casino years. Here was a posh gambling scene...

Las Vegas, a city forged on gambling, booze and flesh, has been strangely reluctant -- and perhaps a little nervous -- to make money off its mob roots. Until now. On a recent drizzly night, a small, white Vegas Mob Tour bus rumbled past aging strip...

Before Tony Soprano or Don Corleone or Tony Montana there was Lucky Luciano -- the real-life patriarch of modern organized crime. Luciano was the Sicilian immigrant who rose to power in the Mafia in the U.S. in the 1920s and transformed it into a...

(R) Andy Garcia's lopsided idyll about the Havana of his boyhood and the Cuba of his dreams. With Bill Murray, Dustin Hoffman, Inés Sastre, Tomas Milian. Written by G. Cabrera Infante. Directed by Garcia. 2:23 (violence). At the Sunshine Cinemas and AMC...

Fans of CBS' Thursday hit "Without a Trace" got a bit of a surprise in the March 9 episode titled "Check Your Head." In a bowling-alley scene at the end of this unusually loopy episode about a missing supposed agoraphobic, Anthony LaPaglia and Enrique...

3 stars (out of four) Throbbing with music, seething with anger and romance, "The Lost City" is a film that breaks your heart, bewilders, alienates and ravishes you by turns. Director-actor Andy Garcia's movie about Cuba, revolution and exile in the...

There was the corrupt sheriff who encouraged gambling houses to flourish, and even held a share in one. Preening gangsters such as Julian "Potatoes" Kaufman, Jimmy "Blue Eyes" Alo and Longy Zwillman strutted about town, pockets filled with ill-gotten...

The correct answers have stars next to them. 1. Who starred in ABC's short-lived "Cupid?" A. Alan Ruck B. Jeremy Piven* C. Martin Mull D. Ayre Gross 2. Who are Cupid's parents? A. Mercury and Venus* B. Nemesis and Aphrodite C. Narcissus and Venus D....

CONTINUED ... To understand their skepticism is to understand that the land is contaminated and people here continue to suffer from the fallout of 1,000 or more nuclear test explosions, the last in 1992. It is to understand that Yucca Mountain, which is...

Walter Hill's "Undisputed," a boxing/prison picture as smart as it is brawny, shows what seasoned Hollywood pros can still accomplish without pretensions and overwhelming special effects. "Undisputed" is a compelling entertainment because of Hill and co-...

Finally, a city seems as intent on using a sports league as shamelessly as sports leagues have used cities all these years. How else to read that when two Marlins officials went to Las Vegas this week its mayor asked if they were married so he could...