Magic City - Character Profiles

IKE EVANS
(Jeffrey Dean Morgan)

Ike Evans is the king of 1959 Miami Beach. Ike worked his way up from hotel cabana boy to building and owning the Miramar Playa Hotel, the most glamorous spot in America’s favorite playground. Creating his showplace has consumed Ike for years. Ike is a star, charismatic and convincing but beneath his easy charm and gracious manner lie secrets, buried deep.

Ambition, drive and vision go a long way toward making his dream real but Ike knows reality also requires cold hard cash. He has done, will do, whatever he must to keep his family safe and his dream intact… Ike is a good man who will make some bad choices for what he believes are the right reasons. The worst, most life-threatening choice was going into business with mob boss Ben "The Butcher" Diamond. Now, six years later, The Butcher is back in Miami Beach and looking for his pound of flesh.

Ike’s first wife Molly shared Ike's dream of the Miramar Playa and her family wealth and connections, made much of it possible. Her death from cancer left Ike a widower with three children. Lost and reeling, Ike met gorgeous Tropicana showgirl Vera in Havana. Now Ike and Vera Evans are the movie star-perfect couple at the helm of the glorious Miramar Playa.Ike Evans, the good and glamorous king of 1959 Miami Beach, stands atop his palace built on sand.

VERA EVANS
(Olga Kurylenko)

Vera Evans is Ike's wife and the center of his life. A long-legged beauty born of a Romany Gypsy father and Dutch mother, Vera grew up living in the extreme deprivation of occupied Holland during World War II. After losing her family in the war, Vera boarded a ship with other orphans bound for the States that ended up docking in Cuba.

Vera parlayed her childhood talent for dancing and heart-stopping looks into a career as the celebrated “Vera Cruz,” the star of Havana’s famed Tropicana nightclub. One night she locked eyes with Ike Evans from the stage and two weeks later found herself in Miami Beach, the stepmother to his three children, and the queen of the Miramar Playa Hotel. The transition hasn’t been easy, there is suspicion and distance from Ike's two grown sons and resentment from Ike's twelve year-old daughter. Vera is strong, soulful and a survivor. She loves her man and knows in her heart that he loves her too. Vera is determined to make a meaningful place for herself in Ike’s world and as a woman in 1959 America.

STEVIE EVANS
(Steven Strait)

Stevie Evans, Ike’s older son is a sleek and charming "bad boy" who manages the Miramar Playa’s sultry Atlantis Lounge. He is the Prince, cat-nip to women and hand-picked and groomed by his father to one day rule the Miramar Playa. Stevie learns the little things from Ike that keep the hotel humming – from arranging escorts for well-heeled guests to catering to players in the high-stakes cabana poker game. Stevie seems easy and natural in these dark waters but he courts danger and risk. He’s fiercely loyal to Ike, and simultaneously baffled by yet admiring of his straight-arrow younger brother. Stevie’s relationship with his gorgeous stepmother is… complicated. But devotion to his family comes first, until he meets the woman who will put everyone he loves in jeopardy.

DANNY EVANS
(Christian Cooke)

Danny Evans, Ike’s younger son, resembles his mother in both patrician good looks and sweet personality. A recent graduate of Tulane University, Danny has come home again to start his first year of law school at the University of Miami. Ever the diligent idealist, Danny will eagerly sign up to lead the charge into John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier.

Returning to the Miramar Playa has not only brought Danny closer to his family but also led to a reunion with Mercedes Lazaro, daughter of hotel general manager Victor and a friend of Danny’s since childhood. When he’s not hitting the books, Danny can often be found keeping Mercedes company on her housekeeping rounds at the hotel and trying to nudge their years of acquaintance into more romantic territory.

BEN DIAMOND
(Danny Huston)

Ben Diamond is Miami’s ruling king of the underworld. After a Dickensian childhood in an Orthodox Jewish orphanage in Philadelphia, Ben made his bones with the Chicago mafia, earning his nickname – “The Butcher” – along the way. Ben swings from breezy charm to brutality in a blink. Ben murders with a smile. He has strange and terrifying sexual appetites that he feeds without conscience. His two wives died in surgery while he watched. Ben Diamond has the crazed, blood-lust elegance of a Roman Emperor.

He’s also Ike Evans’ business partner. When Ike needed more money for the construction of the Miramar Playa, savvy Ben saw an opportunity and became a silent investor. Their completely hidden arrangement has suited both fine for years, but now Ben wants more. Political upheaval in Cuba has done expensive damage to the mafia’s casino business there, and Ben’s under increasing pressure from Chicago to find new revenue streams. So Ben has returned to Miami, with a beautiful young wife in tow, determined to squeeze every penny he can from the Miramar Playa. With or without Ike Evans.

LILY DIAMOND
(Jessica Marais)

Lily Diamond is a sultry and seductive beauty. The third Mrs. Diamond – for Ben’s first two wives died under strange yet strikingly similar circumstances – first entranced her now-husband while swimming as a "mermaid" at popular tourist stop Weeki Wachee. Lily and Ben are still newlyweds. As with Ike and Vera, this was love, or in Ben's case lust at first sight. But Lily can’t simply be dismissed as a gold-digger, for after spending time with the deadly Ben Diamond, any pretty girl would know there are easier ways to make money. Lily has an agenda that is all her own and the risky habit of following her heart, even when it leads her down a treacherous path.

JUDI SILVER
(Elle Satine)

Judi Silver is a temptress with survival instincts second to none. A platinum-blonde escort who frequently holds court in the Miramar Playa’s fashionable Atlantis Lounge, Judi also does jobs for Ike and Stevie when they need the kind of expertise – and incriminating evidence – only she can provide. Beneath her tough exterior, Judi hides a soft spot for the Evans men, and the feeling is mutual as both Ike and Stevie strive to protect Judi, sometimes simply from herself.

MEG BANNOCK
(Kelly Lynch)

Meg Bannock is Ike’s former sister-in-law, the older sister of his first wife Molly. A Grace Kellycool blonde, Meg has the class and sophistication only old family money can buy. Twice divorced, Meg lives life on her own terms and has a business savvy that in a different era would’ve made her a mogul to be reckoned with. But in this life, she’s engaged in an increasingly complicated dance with Ike – as a constant reminder of his beloved first wife, a source of funds that could buy freedom from Ben Diamond, and a keeper of secrets that could destroy Ike’s close-knit family.

BEL JAFFE
(Michael Rispoli)

Bel Jaffe is a cigar-chomping bookie who’s been installed by Ben Diamond at the Miramar Playa, doing business from the back room of the hotel’s Sea Breeze Lingerie shop. With a criminal record going back to his youth, Belvin Jaffe has been in the game long enough to know all the angles. While he likes Ike, Bel works for Ben, and he’s smart enough to stay on The Butcher’s good side with a constant stream of hot gossip, a few lucky cards at his cabana poker game, and ready assistance with whatever else needs doing.

VICTOR LAZARO
(Yul Vazquez)

Victor Lazaro is the hard-working Cuban general manager of the Miramar Playa Hotel and Ike’s most trusted lieutenant. Victor and Ike came up together in the hotel business and, after so many years, are more like brothers than friends. A loving and protective father to daughter Mercedes, Victor’s world is ripped apart when his adored wife Maria is trapped in Cuba after Havana falls to Fidel Castro. In crisis Victor will discover a steel within himself and a surprising, shadowy new world.

MERCEDES LAZARO
(Dominik Garcia-Lorido)

Mercedes Lazaro is Victor’s pretty daughter and a childhood friend of Stevie and Danny Evans. While working part-time as a housekeeper at the Miramar Playa, Mercedes is also in training to be a Pan Am stewardess. Seeking adventure and eager to see the world, Mercedes will reassess her dreams after her mother becomes trapped in the chaos of Castro’s revolution and as her “friendship” with Danny evolves into something more.

ARTHUR EVANS
(Alex Rocco)

Arthur Evans is Ike’s widower father. Decidedly non-religious, Arthur is a Russian Jew who has never been inside Temple a day in his life, not even when his beloved wife of 52 years died. These days, Arthur keeps company with curvaceous nurse Inez but misses his wife more with each passing year. Arthur ran a little sports book in his younger years and is wise to the ways of the world. His pride in Ike’s accomplishments with the Miramar Playa is tempered only by his knowledge that there’s more to the story, despite Ike’s protests.

JACK KLEIN
(Matt Ross)

Jack Klein is the State Attorney for Dade County – Miami’s DA. This charismatic crusader has a holstered gun at his side and an impressive track record putting away criminals. His ultimate catch is Ben Diamond, but right now Ike Evans is in his sights, and young Danny Evans’ legal aspirations may give Klein just the in he needs to start unraveling the web of Miami’s organized crime.

Source: Starz

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