Jack Diamond

See Jack Diamond (Canadian businessman) about the Canadian businessman and philanthropist.

Jack Diamond (1897-December 18, 1931) also known as Legs Diamond and Gentleman Jack, was the alias of New York gangster Jack Moran. A bootlegger and close associate of Arnold Rothstein, he survived a number of attempts on his life between 1919 and 1931. In 1930, Diamond's nemesis Dutch Schultz remarked to his own gang, "Ain't there nobody what can shoot this guy so he don't bounce back?"

Diamond entered crime as a member of a gang called the Hudson Dusters . Hired by "Little Augie" Jacob Orgen to murder an enemy, Diamond became Augie's personal bodyguard. He was shot twice when Louis Buchalter, seeking to move in on the labor rackets that Orgen was running in the garment district, shot and killed Orgen.

Diamond then went to work for Buchalter overseeing bootleg alcohol sales in downtown Manhattan. That brought him into conflict with Dutch Schultz, who planned to move beyond his base in Harlem. Diamond was shot five times on one occasion when Schultz's men surprised him at a private dinner and three times on another, when Schultz gunmen opened up with machine guns, killing two bystanders.

On December 18, 1931, Diamond's enemies finally caught up with him, shooting him after he had passed out at a hideout in Albany, New York.

The first of William Kennedy's Albany series, "Legs", follows Diamond to his death.

Diamond was also the subject of director Bud Boetticher 's 1960 film The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond starring Ray Danton and Warren Oates as well as a 1988 broadway musical later based on the movie.

Further reading

Gary Levine, Anatomy of a Gangster: Jack "Legs" Diamond, Purple Mountain Press, 1979, paperback, 159 pages

External links

Jack "Legs" Diamond