The real life American Hustle - a crumpet factory boss' daughter from Watford

The real lives that inspired Christian Bale's Irving Rosenfeld and Amy Adams' Sydney Prosser were Mel Weinberg and Watford girl Evelyn Knight

The con is on: Christian Bale ad Amy Adams

Gliding into the New York restaurant in a figure-hugging cocktail dress, Evelyn Knight gripped the arm of her new man. Scanning the room through a fug of cigar smoke, the ambitious girl of 24, freshly arrived from Britain, had no idea the men turning to stare at her were among the most dangerous crooks in America. Nor did she know that her lover, flamboyant fraudster Mel Weinberg, was on first-name terms with most of them.
In fact he was a key associate of the Mafia lieutenants crammed into the dim booths of the restaurant, helping them dream up scams and protection rackets. And a few years on from that night in the late 1960s, Evelyn, daughter of a crumpet factory manager from Watford, Herts, would be arrested in the FBI’s biggest-ever sting operation?–?the inspiration for Oscar-tipped movie American Hustle.
The story of the Abscam sting, in which politicians were tricked into receiving bribes from a fake Arab sheikh, has already earned £104million at the box office. It is up for 10 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Supporting Actor, Best Actress and Supporting Actress, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Sydney Prosser, the role played by Amy Adams, is loosely based on Evelyn, who is now 71 and living quietly in a coastal retirement community in Titusville, Florida, where few neighbours know about her colourful past.
Evelyn married Mel in 1982 but they have since divorced. Despite a storm of publicity for American Hustle she is avoiding the limelight. He, however, talks fondly of his first dates with Evelyn while he was still married to second wife Marie.

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The real hustle: Mel Weinberg

 Now 89, he recalls: “I first saw Evelyn at a swimming pool and I called her up. The first time I took her out I took her to a wiseguys place where they served a big Porterhouse steak with French fries and spaghetti. She had just come to this country. She finished her steak then asked me, ‘Have you finished yours?’ I said no, so she ate mine too!
“She was a very pretty girl. I told her I couldn’t take her home but gave her 20 dollars for a cab. A few days later she handed me the 20 back. I couldn’t believe she was so honest. Where I was from guys would cut your throat for 20 bucks.
“She had obviously been raised properly and didn’t lie about anything, unlike the people I hung out with. This is how honest she was: One day it was freezing cold. I said, ‘Here’s a couple of hundred bucks – go buy a coat’. She bought a plain, grey coat for 40 bucks, and gave me back the rest! I couldn’t believe it. She was not the type of girl that guys like me had seen before. What I liked most about her was her honesty.”
Which was ironic. As a career criminal, Weinberg was friends with hitmen working for feared mob boss Carlo Gambino. He had graduated from selling jackets with no back and smashing windows to boost trade for glaziers to scams where his mobster associates would stage shoot-outs with fake bullets and he would charge people $5,000 to make the “body” disappear. Then he began conning people with bad credit into applying for loans with a non-existent company called London Investors in return for an advance fee. The loans were always turned down but the fees were non-refundable.
One of the victims was singer Wayne Newton and, when the scam was discovered in 1977, the FBI arrested Weinberg for mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy. Evelyn was accused of being his accomplice, allegedly posing as “Lady Evelyn”.

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'Nothing like that chick in the movie': Evelyn

 No charges were brought and the case never reached court –because Weinberg agreed to go undercover for the FBI.
“I told them I’d cop a plea if they let her off,” he says. “I expected to serve time. Then the FBI asked me to help them with four other cases. She was indicted with me but she was never involved. I would never talk business in front of her.
They didn’t really have anything on her, but she couldn’t take the pressure. Once I had set up the cases for the FBI all the charges were dropped.”
The plot of the film, starring Christian Bale in the Weinberg role , centres on Abscam, a fake firm used to lure politicians known to be corrupt. Agents posed as emissaries of an Arab sheikh offering suitcases of cash in return for favours.

Several congressmen and a mayor were among those snared in the sting, which secured 19 convictions. But the conman’s mistress in the film is an ex-stripper from New Mexico who only pretends to be a Brit.

Evelyn, who moved to the US in 1967, says on the phone from her Florida home. “The movie is strictly fiction. They just took parts of the real story.”
She refuses to be drawn further, especially not about Weinberg, who she finally married after 17 years as his mistress. It was less than a month after his wife Marie committed suicide.
“Eve is and was a one of a kind,” Weinberg says. “I have never known a prettier girl. You could say she was the love of my life. She very English, very headstrong and she liked to do as she pleased.”

The ex conman, who co-operated in the film’s production, is philosophical about how their relationship fell apart.
“We got divorced in 1998 and now she hates my guts,” he says matter-of-factly. “I guess I was never really affectionate enough. She hated the fact I dragged her into all this. She was nothing like that chick in the movie.”
Weinberg says that after the couple divorced Evelyn found work with NASA, looking after the monkeys that had been sent to space in their rockets.
“She loved those things for some reason,” he adds. “About six years ago she moved back near me. But she don’t talk to me no more – she’s very bitter over this. She is still real angry with me, but then she had to deal with all my crap so I don’t blame her.
“She hasn’t seen the movie yet... and I don’t think she ever will.”