Willie Bioff: Labor Racketeering in Hollywood's Golden Age

This week on the Outfit, we head to La La Land, hot on the trail of a Chicago Outfit thug with stars in his eyes. Amidst the palm trees and swimming pools, Dan and Alana journey to the dark side of 1940s Hollywood, rife with tyrannical studio heads, corrupted unions, and the stark threat of mob violence. Plus, what happens when Mickey Mouse goes union busting.

Sources

The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation's Golden Age by Jake S. Friedman

The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America by Gus Russo

Shadow of the Racketeer: Scandal in Organized Labor by David Witwer

The Hollywood Connection : The True Story of Organized Crime in Hollywood by Michael Munn

Time Magazine, Reader's Digest, Omaha World-Herald, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Chicago Daily News, Los Angeles Times, Kansas City Times, Associated Press, The Birmingham News, Tulsa World, San Francisco Examiner, Chicago Tribune, The Daily Worker, Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, U.P., Los Angeles Daily News, Long Beach Independent, Los Angeles Mirror.

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The Outfit is a production of Higher Ground and Headgum.

Hosted by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Executive Produced by Dan O’Sullivan and Alana Hope Levinson

Produced by Julia Murray

Production Assistance by CJ Archerd and Franchesca Diaz

Sound Design and Engineering by Ryan Kozlowski and Andrew Eapen

Show theme is Bittersweet Defeat by OTE

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