Liz Renay’s Washington Post obituary called her a “Cult Actress, Stripper and Mobster’s Girl.” That only touches on what she was. She was also an author, painter, streaker, charm school instructor, and convict. The latter designation came when a federal judge sent her up for perjury committed during the gangster Mickey Cohen’s 1961 tax evasion trial. Cohen was Renay’s boyfriend, and her bad taste and unshakable loyalty cost her more than two years on Terminal Island, years she says permanently damaged her prospects in Hollywood. After her release she became a professional celebrity, more famous for her associations and striking blonde appearance than anything she did, with her cult status reaffirmed by such people John Waters, who put her in his film Desperate Living, and author James Ellroy, who included her in his explosive 1995 novel American Tabloid. The sultry shot of Renay at top, pre-blonde, pre-Cohen, and pre-prison, dates from the mid-1950s. The second is from around 1960, and the one below shows her in 1961 entering the courtroom during Cohen’s trial.
