Bessie Starkman

Bessie Starkman (born Besha Starkman; June 21, 1890[nb 1] – August 13, 1930) was a Polish-born organized crime figure in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, in the early 20th century. She and her common-law husband, Italian-born Rocco Perri, established a business in bootlegging after the sale and distribution of alcohol was prohibited in both Canada and the United States.[3] Starkman dealt mainly with the finances of the business.[4]

Bessie Starkman
Born
Besha Starkman

(1890-06-21)June 21, 1890[nb 1]
Poland
DiedAugust 13, 1930(1930-08-13) (aged 40)
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Resting placeOhev Zedek Cemetery, Hamilton, Ontario
OccupationBootlegger
Spouse(s)
Harry Toben
​
​
(m. 1908; separated 1913)​

Rocco Perri
(common-law 1913)
Children2

Early and family life

Bessie Starkman was born in Poland on June 21, 1890,[nb 1] to Shimon and Gello Starkman; she was a Polish Jew.[2] Starkman immigrated to Canada circa 1900, settled in The Ward, Toronto, Ontario with her parents, and married Harry Toben by the age of 18.[2] She had two daughters with Toben, Gertrude and Lilly.[2]

In 1912, Starkman met Rocco Perri, an Italian immigrant, while he lived as a boarder in her family home.[2] The two began an affair shortly after, and when Perri got a job working on the Welland Canal in 1913, Starkman left her family and moved in with him in St. Catharines to begin a common-law relationship.[2][5][6]

When the Canadian government cut funding to the Welland Canal project due to World War I, Perri became unemployed. After working in a bakery, he was hired as a salesman for the Superior Macaroni Company. However, Perri and Starkman found a source of income when the Ontario Temperance Act came into effect on 16 September 1916, which restricted the sale and distribution of alcohol.[2] The couple began bootlegging; using Starkman's business acumen and Perri's connections, they established a profitable enterprise. By this time the two lived in Hamilton, Ontario, and by 1920, moved into a larger home at 166 Bay Street South.[7][8]

In 1918, Perri began an affair with Sarah Olive Routledge, with whom he had two daughters.[5] After his first child was born, Perri had refused to marry Routledge, but he did maintain a home for her in St. Catharines and paid child support.[9] Their affair resumed in 1920.[9] Perri's job as a macaroni salesman required travel across Ontario; he also used those trips to arrange the sale of liquor.[10] Starkman, busy running the finances for their organization, did not question Perri's outings.[5] In February 1922, Routledge was falsely told by Perri's lawyer that he was already married to Starkman. Despondent, Routledge committed suicide by jumping from her lawyer's seventh-story office window of the Bank of Hamilton; her parents took custody of their children.[5][9]

Criminal operations

Perri and Starkman survived financially in the few years after 1915 from his income as a macaroni salesman and their grocery store on Hess Street. After the Ontario Temperance Act was passed in 1916,[11] making the sale of alcohol illegal, the couple started selling shots of Canadian whisky on the side.[12] Their bootlegging was done on a small scale, with their kitchen as the centre of operations.[13] Bootlegging became a much larger and more profitable enterprise when Prohibition was declared in Canada nationwide on April 1, 1918[14] and the Eighteenth Amendment that prohibited sale of alcohol in the United States in 1920.

Through the 1920s, Perri became the leading figure in organized crime in Southern Ontario and was under constant surveillance by police. The government allowed for numerous exceptions, allowing various breweries and distilleries to remain open for the export market.[15] Starkman was the head of operations and the duo's negotiator and dealmaker.[16] Perri diversified into gambling, extortion and prostitution.[17] The couple were also reported to have taken part in drug trafficking as early as 1922, when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) suspected Perri of "dealing in narcotics on a large scale."[18]

"Bessie was a somewhat vain woman who was somewhat ruthless but undoubtedly very smart ... Rocco had the network of men they needed for distribution and enforcement, but Bessie understood business. She advised him, encouraged him and facilitated a lot of what he did. She had an innate understanding of how to take advantage of certain situations ... People have a kind of romantic view that Bessie was responsible for much of what they did in bootlegging, but it’s certainly clear that she was responsible for the narcotics traffic ... That was her impetus, it was her baby."

—Trevor Cole, author of the book "The Whisky King", on Starkman's role in Perri's enterprises.[19]

One report estimates that in the mid-1920s, Perri and Starkman were generating C$1 million per year through criminal endeavours and had a hundred employees. In that era, Perri was a "big spender" and the couple lived an opulent lifestyle. Nonetheless, Perri paid only $13.30 in income tax based on employment as a macaroni salesman and his "export/mailorder" business in 1926; Starkman, who claimed to be supporting him, paid $96.43. At about that time, some reports indicated that she had between $500,000 and one million in deposits at various banks.[12] In that same year, Perri faced criminal charges in the death of seventeen people who died after drinking illegal liquor, but was acquitted of the charges.[17]

In 1927, Perri was compelled to testify at the Royal Commission on Customs and Excise inquiry, focusing on bootlegging and smuggling, and also at a hearing on tax evasion charges against Gooderham and Worts. Later that year, at the Gooderham and Worts tax evasion hearing, Perri admitted buying whisky from the distiller from 1924 to 1927. Gooderham and Worts was convicted of tax evasion in 1928 and ordered to pay a fine of $439,744.[20] Perri and Starkman were charged with perjury after their Royal Commission testimony, but in a plea bargain, the charges were dropped against Starkman; Perri served five months of a six-month sentence and was released on September 27, 1928.[20]

Death

On August 13, 1930, Starkman was ambushed at around 11:15 p.m. as she got out of Perri's car in the garage of the couple's home.[16] Perri ran down the street after the assailants before retreating back to Starkman who had been killed with two shotgun blasts.[8] Police found two double-barreled shotguns and the getaway car without fingerprints. The investigation eventually resulted in no criminal charges being brought despite a $5,000 reward offered by Perri.[8][21] However, it was thought that Calabrian compatriot Antonio Papalia, leader of the Papalia crime family and father of Johnny Papalia, played a role in the murder.[22][23]

On August 17, about 20,000 people[16] lined the street for the funeral cortege of hundreds of vehicles; Perri fainted at the gravesite.[21] Starkman's headstone in Hamilton's Ohev Zedek Cemetery, commissioned by Perri, referred to her as "Bessie Starkman – Perri", but the "Perri" part was later removed by persons unknown.[24] Part of Starkman's estate went to Perri, and the rest to her children.[16]

  • In July 2014, the first performance of a one-woman play, Bootlegger's Wife, about Starkman's life was staged at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton. The creator and star was Victoria Murdoch; while the Perri character does not appear, "voiceovers" provide his comments.[25] The play was staged again in mid-March 2019[26] and at intervals between those dates.[27]
  • Bessie Starkman appeared as a character on the CBC Television program Frankie Drake Mysteries in Season 2 (2018), portrayed by Natalie Brown, in an episode titled "Dealer's Choice".[28][29] Another website states that the character runs an "illegal sports betting, and an underground casino" and is described as the "financial brains of the gang".[30]

Notes
  1. June 21, 1890, is the birth date according to her headstone,[1] however, April 14, 1889, is another birth date used.[2]

References
  1. "Hamilton's Rocco Perri became the 'king of the bootleggers' during prohibition era". Hamilton Spectator. 12 August 2019. Archived from the original on 7 June 2020. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  2. "Bessie Starkman". Canadian Encyclopedia. 13 March 2020. Archived from the original on 7 June 2020. Retrieved 7 June 2020. she was born in Poland on 14 April 1889, but her tombstone says 21 June 1890. She arrived in Canada with her parents, Shimon and Gello Starkman, around 1900.
  3. "Cross Country, Ontario". Toronto.com. 21 April 2017. Retrieved 7 June 2020. Author Trevor Cole ... new book "Whisky King" (Harper Collins)
  4. Edwards, Peter (2012). The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime. Random House. ISBN 9781551996882.
  5. Nicaso, Antonio (2004). Rocco Perri: The Story of Canada's Most Notorious Bootlegger. Toronto: John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd. ISBN 978-0470835265.
  6. "Nation's first woman crime boss went out with a bang". thesudburystar.com. 26 April 2016. Archived from the original on 12 February 2019. Retrieved 10 February 2019.
  7. Manson, Bill (2003). Footsteps In Time: Exploring Hamilton's heritage neighbourhoods. North Shore Publishing Inc. ISBN 1-896899-22-6.
  8. Their Town: The Mafia, the Media and the Party Machine. James Lorimer & Company. 15 March 2016. p. 77. ISBN 978-1459409460. Archived from the original on 8 June 2020. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  9. The Hamiltonians: 100 Fascinating Lives. James Lorimer & Company. 23 October 2003. p. 126. ISBN 1550288040. Archived from the original on 7 June 2020. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  10. Schneider, Stephen (15 December 2017). Canadian Organized Crime. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press. p. 168. ISBN 978-1773380247. Archived from the original on 7 June 2020. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  11. "Nation's first woman crime boss went out with a bang". Sudbury Star. 26 April 2016. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
  12. Their Town: The Mafia, the Media and the Party Machine. Lorrimer. 15 March 2016. p. 76. ISBN 978-1459409460.
  13. "Hamilton's Rocco Perri became the 'king of the bootleggers' during prohibition era". St. Catharines Standard. 3 January 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
  14. Bumsted, J.M. (2008). The Peoples of Canada: A Post-Confederation History, Third Edition. Oxford: University Press. pp. 218, 219.
  15. "Prohibition's Hangover -- Ontario's Black Market in Alcohol". Archived from the original on July 24, 2008.
  16. "STARKMAN, BESHA (Bessie) (Tobin) (also known as Bessie Stark, Bessie Perri (Perry), and Rose Cyceno)". Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15. 30 June 2005. Archived from the original on 7 June 2020. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  17. "GUNNED DOWN: A moll dies". Hamilton Spectator. 28 October 2009. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  18. Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada. John Wiley & Sons. 27 April 2009. p. 172. ISBN 978-0470835005.
  19. "Hamilton's Boardwalk Empire". CJN. 2 July 2019. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
  20. "Rum runners and whisky cargoes: Toronto during Prohibition was anything but dry". thestar.com. 3 May 2015. Archived from the original on 10 November 2018. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  21. Houghton, Margaret (22 October 2003). The Hamiltonians: 100 Fascinating Lives. Toronto: James Lorimer & Company. p. 119. ISBN 1550288040. Archived from the original on 6 June 2020. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  22. "7 CANADIAN GANGSTERS". torontomagazine.com. 11 January 2012. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
  23. "The murder of Bessie - part 4". 6 January 2005. Archived from the original on 1 August 2017. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  24. "Hamilton's Rocco Perri became the 'king of the bootleggers' during prohibition era". Hamilton Spectator. 12 August 2019. Archived from the original on 7 June 2020. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  25. "Fringe play explores life of legendary Hamilton mob wife". Raise the Hammer. 23 July 2014. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  26. "This Rocco Perri play just doesn't work". Hamilton Spectator. 19 March 2019. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  27. "Toronto: The final run of "The Bootlegger's Wife" in Toronto is September 26-28". Stage Door. 1 September 2014. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  28. "Season 2, Episodes, Dealers Choice". CBC. 13 April 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
  29. "Bessie Starkman Starkman in Pop Culture". Canadian Encyclopedia. 13 March 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
  30. "Two New Fascinating Additions To The Frankie Drake Mysteries Cast". WGBH TV Boston. 9 August 2019. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
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