Shakeel is right. And anyway, there's nothing new about the mob romancing the film industry. It's happened wherever there's been organised crime. We all know when the chips are down the mob chips in.
What better example than Hollywood's fatal attraction to the mob? Lana Turner and her daughter were involved with Johnny Stompenado, a member of the Hollywood mob. This uncomfortable arrangement came to a tragic end when Turner's daughter stabbed the mobster to death. The cruel Sam Giancana was linked to Marilyn Monroe and even suspected to have had a hand in her death. Frank Sinatra's mob connections were the worst-kept secret in America. Ol' Blue Eyes might have been singing silly love songs, but the FBI had this fat unpleasant file on Sinatra which never made it to a grand jury. Our Mandakinis and Monica Bedis look tame in comparison.
Then there were mobsters in love with Hollywood. Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel, immortalised in Warren Beatty's film, was a spiffy mafioso who moved from his sleazy Brooklyn slum roots to Hollywood and became America's first celeb gangster. Bugsy became a term of endearment or honour in mob circles, much like 'bhai' in Bollywood. Then there was Mickey Cohen, an ex prize-fighter and Bugsy groupie, who moved to Hollywood and made tonnes of money. Or John Roselli, part of the New York mob, who squeezed Hollywood till his conviction in 1944. More recently, there was John Gotti, who took over the Gambino—one of Big Apples' five criminal organisations of Italian-American descent—crime family in 1985. On a surveillance tape, he and his associates critiqued a TV re-enactment of a mob hit in Manhattan that propelled him to power. (Remember Chhota Shakeel in the latest tapes is also very particular in ensuring the reel life enactment of his hits filmed by his Bollywood hireling should be realistic!) And then there was the legendary Universal Studios head Lew Wasserman, who began life in a mob-owned nightclub and went on to fund the Clinton campaign.
So what's the big deal? Truth be told, today Bollywood owes more to the mob than what the mob owes to Bollywood. Not only does Bollywood chase mob money to make their flops, now they chase the crooks for stories, clothes and plots too. All that an eminence grise like Chhota Shakeel gets in return is a tee. Look at poor Vardarajan Mudaliar—did he ever get royalties for Parinda, Nayakan, Dayavan and sundry clones? Look at Dawood Ibrahim—did he get royalty for Company? Mob estates should begin suing Bollywood. They have nothing to fear. As Puzo's 'old world' capo would say, Sanjay and friends, anyway, ain't got no class.
