New York City, through much of the 20th century, was a place where power operated in the shadows.
The Five Families ruled entire neighborhoods, names like Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and Frank Costello commanded fear and respect in equal measure, and the city’s underworld hummed along with the quiet efficiency of a criminal empire at its peak.
History has documented the men who built that world extensively. The women who shared it with them have largely been left out of the story.
Mob Moll, 1942: She pleads the fifth! Mob moll Smitty White was arrested and held at police headquarters in 1942 after her boyfriend Ralph Prisco was shot and killed by police during a failed holdup. Mob molls are also known as gun molls, or even gangster molls. The term moll is derived from the world “Molly,” a 17th century euphemism for either “whore” or “prostitute.”
They were known as mob molls, or gun molls, a slang term applied to the female companions of mafia members, professional criminals, and mobsters.
The word “moll” itself traces back to 17th-century England, derived from “Molly,” a common euphemism of the era. By the time it reached the streets of New York, it had taken on an entirely different weight.
These were women who moved through one of the most dangerous social circles in American history, and many of them were not passive bystanders. They were active participants.
Mob Moll, 1951: Virginia Hill, also known as the “queen of the gangster molls,” was the girlfriend of Brooklyn-born mobster Bugsy Siegel. Hill was coincidentally out of town when her beau was slain in her home, and shot through the window with a rifle. Here, the mob moll, who claimed to be in the dark about her lover’s criminal connections, testifies at the 1951 Kefauver hearings in an investigation about the extent of organized crime.
Some served as couriers, smuggling cash across state lines and moving funds in ways that kept the men above suspicion.
Others gathered intelligence, extracted information, and acted as trusted intermediaries between crime families.
Mob Moll, 1944: She stands by her man! 19-year-old Virgina Ornmark looks unfazed as she and beau Fred Schmidt, 24, stare blankly at the camera after being arraigned for the murder of a lingerie merchant in 1944.
Virginia Hill, perhaps the most well-known of New York’s mob molls, earned the title of “Queen of the Gangsters’ Molls” for exactly this reason.
Connected to Bugsy Siegel and a trusted courier for the Chicago Outfit, Hill was sharp, resourceful, and fully embedded in the machinery of organized crime.
She even testified before the 1951 Kefauver Committee, the landmark Senate hearings that pulled back the curtain on the true reach of the American Mafia.
Mob Moll, 1959: They start them young! While most people consider the mob to be made up of a bunch of men, that acutally isn’t the case. Here, 15-year-old moll Carmen Martinez doesn’t go down without a fight as she is hauled off by police to Felony Court for the murder of 17-year-old Raul Banuchi.
Then there was Janice Drake, once a beauty pageant contestant and Miss New Jersey, who spent her nights moving through the city’s most exclusive clubs alongside senior figures in organized crime.
Twice, Drake dined with men who were shot dead the following day. Alice Granville, an actress linked to Dutch Schultz’s operation through her hitman husband Pete Donahue, was shot in the arm at a nightclub party in 1931. She told police he had done it to prove his affection.
Mob Moll, 1961: Margo Donohue couldn’t use her feminine wiles to get out of this one! The gun moll was fingerprinted by a narcotics squad after she was found carrying a loaded .38 caliber pistol for her accomplice William Matea in 1961.
These women lived inside a world that offered glamour and danger in roughly equal amounts. Fur coats and late-night dinners existed alongside the very real possibility of violence, arrest, or worse.
Their lives were shaped by the men they stood beside, but also by the choices they made within that world, choices that history has rarely taken the time to examine.
Mob Moll, 1933: Being married to a hitman will almost always get you into trouble, and no one knew that better than Lottie Coll, wife of Irish mobster Vincent ‘Mad Dog’ Coll. Here, Coll holds her scarf to her face as she is arraigned in court in 1933.
Hollywood later romanticized many aspects of Mafia life, but the reality was often far more unstable and dangerous.
Relationships connected to organized crime could quickly become complicated by arrests, betrayal, disappearances, and violence
Mob Moll: 1940s: Janice Drake holds a special place in the roster of women associated with the mob. A one-time beauty pageant contestant in her youth and former Miss New Jersey, she spent countless nights in clubs and restaurants with some of the most senior figures in organized crime, despite being a wife (to rising nightclub comedian Alan Drake) and mother.
Some mob molls attempted to distance themselves from the criminal world, while others remained loyal to powerful gangsters despite the risks involved.
Their stories became intertwined with some of the most infamous crimes and investigations in American history.
Mob Moll, 1952: Twice Drake dined with men who were gunned down the following day. Here, the moll is photographed in 1952 as police take her into questioning after playboy Garment District boss Nat Nelson was murdered in a mob assassination hours after he was seen out with her…
The vintage photographs collected here offer a rare and unfiltered look at the women behind the mob.
Shot across several decades of New York’s most turbulent criminal history, they capture something that most historical accounts have overlooked: the faces, the moments, and the quiet complexity of the women who lived alongside America’s most notorious gangsters.
Mob Moll, 1937: Showgirl Marion ‘Kiki’ Roberts had ties to the mob being the mistress of the late Prohibition-era gangster John (Legs) Diamond, who was the main distributor of illegal alcohol in Manhattan in the late 1920s. Here, the mob moll, who was once in bed with the mobster while he was shot, plants a kiss on her next victim, actor Jack La Rue!
Mob Moll, 1930s: Gangster molls, like Kiki Roberts seen here circa the ’30s, are not just a thing of the past. The VH1 reality TV series “Mob Wives,” which premiered in 2011, follows the lives of several Staten Island women who have ties to the Mafia. Most of molls’ husbands or fathers are in prison for mob-related crimes.
Mob Moll, 1935: Mob moll Rita Rio, seen here in 1935, denied she ever knew the real identity of boyfriend Louis (Pretty) Amberg, an ally of Dutch Schultz. Amberg was found cremated in his car the same morning that Schultz, one of the most famous mobsters of the ’20s and 30’s, was also shot dead.
Mob Moll, 1932: Gangsta’s Paradise! Some molls are attracted to the dangerous and exciting life being associated with a mobster can bring. Here, Margaret Kelly joins Frank Palumbo as the two are arrested and held for a dance hall holdup and murder in 1932.
Mob Moll, 1961: The secrets this mobster girlfriend must know! As the significant other of a member of the Mafia, Palma Vitale was a pro at putting on a poker face. Here, the mob moll shows no emotion in court after her perjury case was postponed in 1961.
Mob Moll, 1931: Love is pain, right? Actress Alice Granville shows off two bullet holes in her arm at Roosevelt Hospital after she was shot by her hitman husband, lieutenant of Dutch Schultz Pete Donahue, in 1931. The mob moll said Donahue shot her at a nightclub party to prove his affection.
Mob Moll, 1936: A cop brings 17-year-old Nancy Serville into custody in 1936. The mob moll was charged with being the lookout for a holdup gang in Queens.
Mob Moll, 1948: It looks like she will have to search for fun elsewhere! Florence Garrity and five friends were picked up in a police roundup in 1948. The gun moll of hitman George Foley, whom Garrity was living with at the time, said, “Life was no fun till I met him.”
Mob Moll, 1947: Guns are apparently not a suitable purse accessory! Here, Lillian Stang, 23, is questioned by assistant DA James McGrattan after she was caught packing heat in 1947.
Mob Moll, 1933: Though mob molls sometimes do the secret dirty work for their male companions, they don’t always get off scot-free! Here, Marie Baker, also known at the two-gun-girl, weeps in court while being booked at a police station in the Bronx…
Mob Moll, 1935: Though she may look like an innocent young girl, Jean Hantover was anything but as she was arrested for being mobster George Zeller’s gun moll in a Brooklyn holdup in 1935.
Mob Moll, 1943: Mary Duke could pass for a male gangster! The mob moll was clad in baggy slacks as she arrived at Newark police headquarters, with her right arm bandaged, after being arrested following a gun duel in 1943.
Mob Moll, 1933: Lottie Coll, the widow of slain gangster Vincent ‘Mad Dog’ Coll, looks on as she, along with Joseph Ventre and Albert Guarino, are arraigned for killing an innocent bystander during a robbery in 1933.
Mob Moll, 1932: Apparently, she isn’t sorry! Mob moll Margaret Kane smiles as she leaves Ridgewood Court for jail in 1932.
(Photo credit: New York Daily News / Wikimedia Commons).