Only in the broadest sense. Queenie (Stephanie St. Clair) and Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson were in business together in the numbers racket in New York's Harlem. Quite a few black operators did well in the racket until the Mob moved to subjugate them. Bumpy Johnson actually cooperated with Dutch Shultz and attempted to convince Queenie to go along. She resisted, and he protected her as best he could. Finally she gave in. The real life Johnson was violent, coarse (though he wrote poetry in prison) and hot-tempered. Dutch Shultz was murdered on orders of Charlie Luciano because he planned to kill special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey. Luciano believed that killing Dewey would bring unbearable pressure on the Mob. Dewey nailed Luciano on a Mann Act ("white slavery") charge in 1936.