Dutch Schultz
Shortly before his death, fearing that he would be incarcerated due to Dewey's efforts, Schultz commissioned the construction of a special air-tight, waterproof safe, into which he placed $7 million USD in cash and bonds. Schultz and Rosencrantz then drove the safe to an undisclosed location somewhere in upstate New York and buried it. At the time of his death, the safe was still interred; as no evidence existed to indicate that either Schultz or Rosencrantz had ever revealed the location of the safe to anyone, the exact place where the safe was buried died with both men. Gangland lore held that Schultz's enemies--including Lucky Luciano--spent the remainder of their lives searching for the safe; as of 2007, the safe has never been recovered. [2]
Annually, treasure hunters meet in the Catskills to search for the safe. One such congregation was documented in the documentary film "Digging for Dutch: The Search for the Lost Treasure of Dutch Schultz".
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In popular culture
Schultz's life has been the basis of numerous novels and feature films, most of which have taken substantial dramatic license with the facts such as the The Last Words of Dutch Schultz, a novel-cum-screenplay by William S. Burroughs. The most famous of these works is novelist E.L. Doctorow's Billy Bathgate, a PEN/Faulkner Award winning novel which dramatizes the last three months of Schultz's life, as seen through the eyes of a young boy who briefly becomes his protégé. In the 1991 film adaptation of the book, Schultz is played by Dustin Hoffman.
- In 1984, Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club featured Shultz, played by James Remar. The film is a fictional retelling of the Harlem rackets and the relationship between Dutch and Owney Madden, owner of the Cotton Club, played by Bob Hoskins. One of the final scenes in the film shows the shootout at the Chophouse.
- The 1997 film Hoodlum centers upon Harlem numbers kingpin Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson during Schultz's time there, and the bloody turf war fought between the two men before Schultz's death. Johnson is played by Laurence Fishburne, Schultz by Tim Roth. The film is only very loosely based on the real Dutch Schultz, and several incidents involving him are largely fictionalized (such as Schultz being shot during broad daylight in the bathroom of a deserted restaurant by one of his best friends).
- On television, Schultz was portrayed by Lawrence Dobkin on three episodes of the 1959-1963 ABC crime drama The Untouchables. John Dennis portrayed the him on ten episodes of the 1959-1961 NBC crime drama The Lawless Years. Both shows gave highly fictitious accounts of Schultz's career.
- In music, Coil's "Circles of Mania" from the 1986 album Horse Rotorvator references Schultz's death directly; the incident is also hinted at in the song's delivery - an increasingly hysterical, stream-of consciousness rant.
- In music, during live shows, Scott Schultz from Happy Hour (Grand Rapids, MI), often summons the power of Dutch Schultz, a possible ancestor.
- In music, the avant-garde jazz-rock band Baseball Bat performed and recorded live the free-form opera "A Boy Has Never Wept, Nor Dashed a Thousand Kim" (with libretto by historian and author Scott Allen Nollen) in 1990.
- In music, the Boston native rapper Guru (rapper) mentions Dutch Schultz's name in the song JFK 2 LAX with the line "Im like the black Dutch schultz when you get me upset"
- In music, The True Last Words of Dutch Schultz (1994) , a new music opera. Collaboration of director and writer Valeria Vasilevski and composer Eric Salzman, featuring co-creator Theo Bleckmann as Dutch Schultz for a tour of opera houses throughout the Netherlands. Dutch Schultz was played by Dirk Weiler in the American Concert premiere of the piece at Symphony Space, New York in May 2007,directed by Grethe Barrett Holby. This was the first time the opera was performed in the United States.
- In the Illuminatus! novels, Schultz' assassination is a key event, tying together the characters of Robert Putney Drake, Don Federico Maldonado, John Dillinger, and Dr. Charles Mocenigo (whose father was a fictional third assassin). Schultz's last words are portrayed as a series of coded messages revealing Illuminati secrets; Drake, who had been studying the transcript for a psychology class, deciphers their hidden meaning and uses them to leverage himself into a position of power in both the Illuminati and organized crime.
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External links
- The Last Words of Dutch Schultz
- Kill the Dutchman!: The Story of Dutch Schultz by Paul Sann
- FBI files on Arthur Flegenheimer (FBI's Freedom of Information Archive)
- Gangster City Profiles: Dutch Schultz
- Dutch Schultz Biography at J-Grit: The Internet Index of Tough Jews
| Preceded by Casper Holstein and Stephanie St. Clair |
Policy racket in New York City circa 1932-1935 |
Succeeded by Michael "Trigger Mike" Coppola |
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