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Category Archives: 1920s
Of Mobsters and Movie Stars: The Bloody Golden Age of Hollywood
I am excited to announce that you will be able to pre-order my book soon. It is scheduled for a May 14th release. For further details, visit WILDBLUE PRESS. I’ll keep you posted about any new developments–like the cover art.
WILDBLUE PRESS says:
No Hollywood script can compare to the terror of the 37 true tales in OF MOBSTERS AND MOVIE STARS: The Bloody “Golden Age” of Hollywood!
In this gripping historical account, expert crime historian Joan Renner explores the shadowy world of fame and crime during Hollywood’s most glamorous era. As Los Angeles transformed into the epicenter of film, it also became a haven for notorious criminals and mobsters, weaving a complex tapestry of allure and danger that is sure to intrigue.
Renner brings to life stories that are more thrilling than fiction, including harrowing LAPD showdowns, dark dealings behind the studio gates, and tragic fates of luminaries whose off-screen lives were as dramatic as their on-screen personas. She delves into infamous episodes, such as the shocking case of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, accused of “accidentally” crushing to death a young actress beneath his enormous weight as he raped her, and other lesser-known, but equally hair-raising stories of actors brought down by scandal and corruption.
OF MOBSTERS AND MOVIE STARS offers a profound and enlightening look at Hollywood’s dual nature, illustrating how its seductive glitter was deeply entangled with its sinister impulses. This book is essential for anyone fascinated by how America’s “City of Dreams” became a stage for some of the most gripping dramas of the twentieth century.
Step into the Prohibition Era with Joan Renner as she reveals the hidden crimes and undying ambition behind Hollywood’s shimmering façade.
Clara Eunice Barker, Vampire–Conclusion
Grace Munro filed a $50,000 lost-love (alienation of affection) suit against her husband’s young paramour, Clara Eunice Barker. But Clara had a trump card to play; a bundle of love notes written to her by none other than Grace’s husband, Charles. Clara hid the letters in the attic of the Glendale home she shared with Charles while they pretended to be cousins for the benefit of Glendale society. The bundle came as an unpleasant surprise to Charles who believed all the letters were destroyed.
The lawsuit could get steamy, and Angelenos expected a knock-down, drag-out fight between Grace and Clara.
Clara took the stand, and according to the L.A. Times she testified to “bare the sordid romance that she says ruined her young life.” She told the court how she and Charles Munro met.
“I met him at the corner of Montgomery and Front streets, Trenton (New Jersey). I was working in a Trenton pottery and was on my way to the post office to mail letters for the potter. A big automobile nearly struck me. The driver stopped the car and asked me if I was hurt. When I told him no, he kindly offered to drive me home, after ascertaining where I lived. He said it was on his way.”
According to Clara, Charles persuaded her to get into his car.
“He asked me where I was employed, my house address and telephone number. He did not enter the house.”
Charles phoned her every day and finally invited her out for dinner. He said his name was Darrell Huntington Stewart and he lived in Wayne Junction, PA.
For three weeks, the couple dined at the same restaurant every night until Darrell proposed marriage. The generosity and sweetness of her suitor swept Clara her off her feet. As lovers will do, Charles sent two photos of himself to her and he inscribed them on the backs.
“With all my love to my future wife, Clara Eunice Barker. Your own, Darrell.”
Soon after sending Clara the photos, he asked her to accompany him on a business trip to New York, and she agreed to go. Charles gave Clara her own room, which led her to believe his intentions were honorable.
Late in the afternoon on the first day of their trip, Charles came to Clara’s room. She recalled the meeting for the jury.
“He told me there was no harm in his being there, as we were soon to be married. Whatever happened was all right; it would make no difference; we would be married within a week. I believed him.”
A few weeks after the trip, Clara at last became suspicious of Charles. He’d made no move to set a wedding date, and she said that he always seemed to be in Trenton. He never phoned from Philadelphia, where he told her he lived.
The clue to Charles’ real identity came when she overheard some men talking.
“There is only one man in Trenton who owns a brown automobile of a certain make, and that man is Munro.”
Knowing that her lover, the mysterious Darrell, drove a car matching the description of Munro’s, she did a bit of sleuthing.
Clara phoned the zinc works and asked for Charles Munro — when he answered the phone, she recognized his voice as belonging to her fiancée, Darrell.
“I was horrified. I asked him how he could have done such a thing. He said he fell in love with me the first time we met. He said before he met me, he was preparing to run away with another girl, May Pierson, who was his stenographer…now that he had met me, he would not run away with her. He would get a divorce. He said he had a miserable life.”
After his identity was revealed, Charles cajoled, sweet-talked, and threatened Clara to keep her. Clara stayed.
Early in her relationship with Charles, in January 1915, Clara received a telephone call from Grace. Grace described Charles as “a liar and a hypocrite.” She knew her husband well. Clara had every reason to believe Grace, but she would not give him up.
Charles must have had some uncomfortable moments after his wife and mistress spoke to one another on the telephone. It would have served him right if they’d joined forces and fleeced him for every cent. Sadly, they continued to fight over him instead.
To keep the two women apart, Charles warned Clara to steer clear of his wife, whom he characterized as a terrible person. He told Clara that Grace was likely to hurl acid into her face.
Charles continued to string Clara along with promises of marriage. The pair moved around, finally arriving in Southern California where, masquerading as cousins, they started a new life in Glendale. Clara grew tired of waiting for Charles to make good on his promises to divorce his wife, and in a fit of despair she swallowed poison.
Charles wrote dozens of letters to Clara, and in each one he declared his undying love for her. But Charles realized Clara might not wait for him.
“I know, darling, you are not made of stone, and that you cannot wait very long, and I am pushing everything to the limit so we can soon be together.”
If Charles’ love talk didn’t work its magic on Clara, perhaps threats would. He wrote to her about a dream he’d had.
“I told you if you were not true, I would kill you. But I changed my mind as I wanted to see you suffer. I woke with the most awful yell, and was laughing. But, oh, what a laugh.”
After a trial lasting nine days, the jury of eleven men and one woman deliberated. It took them fewer than six hours to find Clara “not guilty of the love theft.”
Surprisingly, the battle of Wife vs. Mistress did not end with the verdict. A new trial was granted because a judge determined the judgment in favor of Clara was against the weight of the evidence.
Revitalized by the opportunity for a new fight, and another chance at $50,000, Grace declared Clara was a vampire who had enticed Charles away from his marriage. Grace intended to drive a financial, if not an actual, stake through the heart of her rival.
Grace was victorious in the second trial, but instead of the $50k she’d asked for, the judge awarded her one dollar. Clara must have felt relieved that it cost her only a dollar to be rid of Grace.
The judge did not like Grace, but he also disapproved of Charles and Clara. He said,
“The tie that bound Mr. Munro and Miss Barker was low and degraded.”
Low and degraded, she may have been, but Clara was successful in her lawsuit against Charles. She recovered the “love nest” in Glendale. She also got the furniture, bonds, and other gifts he gave her–about $27,000 (equivalent to $436,000 in current USD).
The Munro’s and their attorneys felt Clara didn’t deserve a penny. They said her hands were not clean, and the property given her was the “price of her sin”. A galling statement coming from Charles. Sounds like he and Grace would have sewn a scarlet letter to Clara’s dress if they could.
Judge Wood did not entirely disagree with the Munros, but he seemed to believe that sin is a matter of degree.
“If I distinguish between the two, she is the lesser sinner.”
And to the lesser sinner, go the spoils.
Clara Eunice Barker–Vampire
The early 20th century witnessed a clash of old and new technologies, as well as a period of rampant civil unrest. The role of women in the new millennium had yet to be defined. In 1919, when this story takes place, women in the U.S. were one year away from celebrating the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave them the right to vote. The hard-won right was a victory, but it was still a man’s world.
On March 2, 1919, the Los Angeles Times reported that Mrs. Grace Munro, the wife of wealthy zinc manufacturer Charles W. S. Munro, filed suit for alienation of affection. She sought $50,000 in damages, which is equivalent to $826,000 today, from Miss Clara Eunice Barker. Clara was Charles’ mistress for five years. Grace’s suit alleged her twenty-three-year marriage to Charles was a happy one until Clara entered their lives.
According to Grace, Clara enticed Charles to leave home with “an offer of money and otherwise.” We can guess what the otherwise referred to. Charles abandoned Grace without means of support; but he purchased a home for Clara and gave her cash. About $30,000 worth.
In the early morning hours of March 5, 1919, with a warrant sworn out by Grace, Deputy Constables Bright and Hayes arrived on the doorstep of 1201 Mountain View Street in Glendale, the home that Charles and Clara shared. They took Charles into custody for a felony statutory offense against Clara. Grace instigated the charge, and she clearly meant to put the screws to Charles. Having him arrested was enough—she dropped the charge.
William’s arrest came as a shock to Glendale society. They thought Clara and Charles were cousins, which was how they introduced themselves at first. They also did not know Charles had a wife and three daughters in Trenton, NJ.
Police wanted to speak with Clara but they could not find her, and Charles refused to talk. They discovered Clara fled to Salt Lake City, Utah, as soon as she got word of Grace’s lawsuit. Anger and outrage fueled Grace, who tracked Clara down and confronted her in a Salt Lake City hotel lobby. Grace walked up to Clara and exclaimed, “So you are the vampire”.
Grace was not accusing Clara of being a blood sucking bride of Dracula. She used the term to imply that Clara was a seductress, a femme fatale, a vamp (ire) of the type made famous by actress Theda Bara in the 1915 film A FOOL THERE WAS.
The Glendale home in which Clara and Charles lived was in Clara’s name. She wanted to keep it, along with the furnishings, an automobile, and any other trinkets that Charles gave her. She filed a countersuit
Clara told reporters, “I am fighting for my honor as well as my legal rights. I have been cruelly mistreated and imposed upon by the man in whom I had implicit faith, and I intend to test the justice of the courts.”
Clara alleged there was a conspiracy against her. She accused the recently reconciled Munros, and a few of their friends, of seeking to deprive her of her property.
She demanded damages of $51,500. Some of which were for the Glendale property, the furniture, the car, and $25,000 for damages suffered by the conspiracy and threats she claimed were made against her.
According to Clara, while in Salt Lake City, she was called a vampire and was plagued by mysterious telephone calls, loud knocks on her bedroom door after midnight, and attempts by strangers to “force their acquaintance on her.” These incidents, Clara said, were part of a plan to harass and frighten her.
Grace intended to fight the conspiracy charge and to pursue her alienation suit. She would not back down. “I said she (Clara) is a vampire, and she is.”
Grace claimed she and Charles were happily married for years before Clara entered their lives, but Grace lied. Prior to his affair with Clara, Charles had been involved with his stenographer, Miss Mary Pierson, with whom he had taken an auto trip. Grace was obviously aware of the liaison because she knew where Mary lived. She even appeared on the doorstep with questions for Mary’s landlady. Charles had long possessed a wandering eye.
If Angelenos expected a lurid trial, they would not be disappointed. Wife vs. Mistress was going to be a battle royal.
NEXT TIME: A vampire’s love letters, and the wages of sin in Part 2 of Clara Eunice Barker, Vampire.
The Jokers & a Newsflash from Deranged!
NEWSFLASH! I am very excited to announce that my book, Of Mobsters and Movie Stars: The Bloody Prohibition Era in the Golden Age of Hollywood, is being published by WildBlue Press. The expected release date is the end of May, so it is coming up fast.
The book covers true crime tales from 1919 to 1939, twenty of the most corrupt years in the city’s history. For the next several weeks, I will focus on stories from that era. Some of the posts will be encores, and others will be brand new to the blog.
All I have right now is an edited manuscript and a title. As soon as I get a cover, I’ll post it here to get you in the mood. I will also let you know when I have a firm release date.
Thanks again for following Deranged L.A. Crimes. I appreciate your readership.
Joan
The 1920s were a time of rapid growth in Los Angeles. During Mayor George E. Cryer’s tenure, the population of Los Angeles surpassed 1,000,000, and the city undertook several important civic development projects, such as constructing Central Library.
Estimated at $350,000 to construct, (equivalent to $4.8 million in today’s currency), the Olympic Auditorium ended up exceeding $500,000 because of cost overruns. With seating for 15,300 people, the architects designed the building to be a combination convention hall, exposition building, and boxing arena, making it the largest venue of its kind upon completion.
The Olympic wasn’t just for mugs and pugs. In May 1925, the Los Angeles Times reported that a “…colossal presentation of ‘Aida’ with elephants and camels, a chorus of over ninety voices and a ballet of twenty-four dancers…” would be on stage at the auditorium. I love opera and it would have been a treat to see live elephants and camels at the Olympic.
Of course, now you’re asking “what has civic pride and operatic spectacle got to do with cops behaving badly? Alas, not much except to point out that where there is big money, there is an opportunity for misbehavior.
The auditorium opened to fanfare and sold-out crowds; but there was a problem—at least sixty contractors had not been compensated for their work. Liens totaling $400,000 had to be paid. Newspaper accounts never made it clear why the contractors were stiffed; but the city formulated a plan for restitution.
The process of repayment was a breeze. Sheriff’s deputies collected the box office receipts and secured them in the office vault. Once the deputies deducted taxes and overhead from the gross, they took the balance and applied it to the outstanding claims.
For several months, everything went like clockwork. But on April 16, 1926, Mrs. M. Q. Adams, a bookkeeper in the Sheriff’s civil department, observed that the vault door was partially open. She called to Chief Civil Deputy Arthur Jewell, who discovered the previous night’s deposit of $1182 was missing. Sheriff Traeger decided not to publicize the burglary—making it a need-to-know basis only. Theft of money from his office vault was damned embarrassing.
They assigned Undersheriff Biscailuz and Chief Criminal Deputy Wright to the case. Whoever took the money must have known the combination to the outer door and possessed duplicate keys to the inner door. It was an inside job.
Deputy Karl Wallich (38), one of the few people who had access to the vault, was a suspect. During questioning, Wallich said that after he left the Hall of Justice in the early morning, he had turned back at the Plaza to buy a pack of cigarettes. He couldn’t find a store that was open, so he ended up driving to a small market at Fifth and Spring. Wallich’s story didn’t hold up. Deputy Wright found seven stores between the Plaza and Fifth and Spring Street that were open early in the morning.
Deputy Sheriffs Heller and Johnson dropped in on Karl Wallich at his home to take his statement. They confronted him with his lie about the stores and he caved in on the spot. He was unsuited for a life of crime. He produced half of the missing funds and ratted out his friend and accomplice, Harry Adler (19), a civilian clerk who relinquished the other half.
Adler confessed he had hidden himself in the vault about 10 o’clock Wednesday night, waiting for the auditorium’s receipts to be deposited. Deputy Sheriffs Wallich and Barton came to the vault door about 11:30 p.m., locked up, and left the building. Once he figured everyone had gone, Adler took a screw driver and removed the plate from the combination lock and exited the vault. Nobody saw him leave. He then met Karl in front of the Hall of Records, where they divvied up the cash.
The most surprising thing about their confessions was that both men insisted they hadn’t stolen the money to enrich themselves—the theft was a joke.
According to the merry pranksters, their intention was only to seek revenge on Deputy George Barton, a co-worker who had teased and played jokes on them. The theft was their way of getting even. They figured since Barton was the only person who had keys to the inner vault, it would be his ass in a sling when the money disappeared. The plan was to let Barton twist in the wind for a bit, then return the cash to the vault, but then “things got so hot” they couldn’t see their way out of the mess.
Wallich and Adler’s little stunt didn’t amuse Sheriff Traeger. He covered the full $1182 loss out of his own pocket until the thieves returned the money.
Wallich and Adler lost their Sheriff’s Department jobs. Adler pleaded guilty at his arraignment. He spent ninety days in a sheriff’s detention center and upon his release and the court granted him three years of probation. Wallich first entered a not guilty plea, but then he changed his mind and entered a guilty plea and requested probation. There was no follow-up story in the newspaper, but Wallich expected probation.
I wonder if the men stayed friends or if their criminal misadventure ended it. I like to think that with their penchant for pranks, the guys opened a brick-and-mortar joke shop—the kind that sold whoopee cushions, rubber vomit, joy buzzers, and fake dog poop.
NOTE: Many thanks to my fellow crime historian, and curator of the Sheriff’s Department Museum, Mike Fratantoni, for introducing me to this tale.
P.S. This is an encore post from 2013.
The Red Lipstick Murder
Born in a small New Mexico town in 1902, Jeanne Axford came of age during the Roaring ‘20s. Perfect timing for the free-spirited girl. At 17 she married David Wrather, and they had a son, David, Jr.
JEANNE’S EARLY YEARS
In 1922, after training in New Mexico, Jeanne worked as a nurse in Amarillo, Texas. According to Jeanne, David abused her. She and David divorced in 1924; she won custody of their son.
In 1925, Jeanne married again. That marriage, too, failed. Rumors have circulated that Jeanne appeared in a film, yet she remains absent from the Internet Movie Database, even under an alias. She may have appeared in uncredited roles. Whether she appeared in movies, Jeanne had an interesting Hollywood connection. She worked as a private nurse for Marion Wilson, Rudolph Valentino’s last date, maybe his last love. Known as the “Woman in Black” for many years, Marion put flowers on Valentino’s grave each year on the anniversary of his death.
Sometime between 1925 and 1931, Jeanne learned to fly and earned the moniker, “Flying Nurse.” She worked for a large oil company in South America, flying from one oil field to another, caring for workers. She became a member of the Women’s Air Reserve, and the 99 Club, an organization of women aviators.
Either an optimist, or a glutton for punishment, Jeanne married for a third time in Dallas, Texas on October 8, 1931, two days after her 29th birthday, to Curtis Bower. It took the couple five weeks to realize their mistake. The dissolution of her marriage earned Jeanne another nickname, “air-mail divorcee.” The divorce papers, prepared by her attorney, Allan Lund, went via air to Juarez, Mexico for filing. A new law in Mexico provided for a final decree by proxy. Neither Jeanne nor Curtis needed to appear in court.
WHERE IS JEANNE?
On July 5, 1932, Jeanne’s mother, Oma Randolph, went to police to file a missing person report. Jeanne left home the morning of June 27 to drive to the Mexican border, where she planned to board a private plane for Mexico City.
The week following the missing person report, Jeanne cabled her mother from Mexico City. “I can’t understand the worry I have caused in the United States by flying to Mexico. I am flying back for the Olympics. I assure everyone that I am okeh.”
By the mid-1940s, Jeanne had unspecified medical issues, possibly a hysterectomy. In pain, she turned to alchohol and drugs.
Jeanne kept a low profile for the next several years. She married in 1944 for the fourth and final time to a former Marine, Frank French.
ANOTHER LOS ANGELES WOMAN IS MURDERED
On February 10, 1947, less than a month after housewife Betty Bersinger found Elizabeth Short’s bisected body in a Leimert Park vacant lot, Hugh C. Shelby, a bulldozer operator, found the battered, nude body of a woman in a field near the Santa Monica Airport. The Herald put out an extra edition with the headline, “Werewolf Strikes Again! Kills L.A. Woman, Writes B.D. on Body.”
Within hours, police identified the victim as forty-five-year-old Jeanne French of 3535 Military Avenue. Near her body they found a black plastic purse, like the one Elizabeth Short carried. Inside was a lone penny, some hairpins, and handwritten notes.
The area where they discovered her was a type of Lover’s Lane, situated seven miles from the location on Norton Street where they found Elizabeth Short.
Police speculated her attacker stripped Jeanne naked in a parked car and then beat her. He struck her multiple times after she staggered from the vehicle. Then he dragged her body into the field, some feet from the highway, where he then wrote his obscene message on her torso. Afterwards, he stomped on her chest so hard he left a clear shoe print behind.
He threw her clothing on top of her. A powder blue coat trimmed with fox fur and a burgundy dress. Except for her bra, they did not find any underwear. She wore no stockings.
Her slayer arranged her shoes, one on either side of her head, about 10 feet from her body.
Someone savagely beat Jeanne. She suffered blows to her head administered by a metal blunt instrument—a socket wrench or tire iron. As bad as they were, the blows to her head were not fatal. Jeanne died from hemorrhage and shock due to fractured ribs and multiple injuries caused by her killer stomping on her. Heel prints marked her chest. One of her ribs pierced a lung. It took a long time for Jeanne to die. The coroner said she gradually bled to death.
Jeanne was probably unconscious after the first blows to her head, so she may not have witnessed her killer take the deep red lipstick from her purse, or feel the pressure of his improvised pen as he wrote on her torso, “Fuck You, B.D.” and “Tex.” Police looked for a connection between Jeanne’s murder and Elizabeth Short’s death; but they found nothing.
On the night before she died, Jeanne visited Frank at his apartment and they’d quarreled. She and Frank recently separated. Frank said they planned a 6-month trial separation to see if they could work out their problems. Jeanne arrived drunk at Frank’s apartment and he said she started the fight, then hit him with her purse and left.
Jeanne’s twenty-five-year-old son, David Wrather, came in for questioning. As he left the police station, he saw his step-father for the first time since he’d learned of his mother’s death. David confronted Frank and said, “Well, I’ve told them the truth. If you’re guilty, there’s a God in heaven who will take care of you.” Frank didn’t hesitate. He looked at David and said, “I swear to God, I didn’t kill her.”
Both Frank and David had a history of abusing Jeanne. Neighbors heard violent arguments between Jeanne and David, as well as with Frank. Neither of them treated her with kindness or respect.
Jeanne’s neighbors knew her as a hard partying, mouthy drunk. The local bars she frequented confirmed Jeanne’s belligerence. Loud, profane, and promiscuous, Jeanne hung out with a rough crowd. The men she knew took advantage of her. She courted danger, and according to Frank, she feared nothing and no one. Her alcoholism and drug use suggest she was committing suicide, one drink and one needle at a time.
Despite his declaration of innocence, police booked Frank for murder. Then, as now, a woman is most likely to be killed by her husband or a lover. The forty-seven-year-old former Marine gunnery sergeant was arrested days earlier for viciously beating Jeanne, resulting in blackened eyes and a broken arm. Police cleared him when his landlady confirmed he was in his apartment at the time of the murder; and his shoe prints failed to match those found on Jeanne’s chest.
Police traced Jeanne’s whereabouts for part of the night. Ray Fecher, the operator of a drive-in café at 11925 Santa Monica Blvd., told detectives Jeanne came in between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m. Sunday. She drank coffee and chatted with Fecher. “She said her husband was sadistic. She said he liked ‘dark things,’ and had beaten her several times. Then she raised a pair of dark glasses she was wearing to show me a couple of black eyes she said he had given her.”
After she left the drive-in, Jeanne entered a bar at 10421 Venice Blvd. According to Earl Holmes, the bartender, in a loud voice, she announced her plan to commit Frank to the neuropsychiatric ward at the Sawtelle Veterans Hospital the next day. She had threatened Frank with hospitalization before, and he beat her. As abusive as their relationship was, Frank was not her killer.
Jeanne was last seen seated at the first stool nearest the entrance of the Pan American Bar on West Washington Place. The bartender told police Jeanne took a stool next to a smallish man with a dark complexion. The bartender assumed they were a couple because he saw them leave together at closing time.
Jeanne did not drive herself to the place of her death; someone took her there. Police found her cut-down 1929 Ford roadster in the parking lot of a drive-in restaurant, the Piccadilly at Washington Place and Sepulveda Blvd. Witnesses said the car was there at 3:15 on the morning of the murder, and a night watchman saw a man leave it there. The police never accounted for Jeanne’s whereabouts between 3:15 a.m. and the time of her death.
Even though Jeanne was not sexually assaulted, police rousted scores of sex degenerates. The brutality of the crime and the fact that she was found naked led the police to infer a sexual motive. None of the men rose to the level of a serious suspect. Officers also checked out local Chinese restaurants after the autopsy revealed that Jeanne ate a Chinese meal before her death.
THE RED LIPSTICK MURDER GOES COLD
Jeanne’s slaying became known as the “Red Lipstick Murder” case. Like the Black Dahlia case, it went cold.
Three years later, following a Grand Jury investigation into the many unsolved murders of women in L.A., the District Attorney assigned investigators from his office to re-investigate the case.
Frank Jemison and Walter Morgan worked on Jeanne’s murder for eight months, but they never closed it. They found a few suspects. One of the most promising suspects was a man who was seen with Jeanne on the night of her death. The man submitted to a lie detector test, but the examiner told detectives the subject was one of a small percentage of people who could beat the test. They never cleared the man, but neither did they arrest him.
Like the murder of Elizabeth Short, there have been no leads in Jeanne French’s case in decades. Their killers took their bloody secrets to their graves.
Aggie & Leona
I first encountered Agness “Aggie” Underwood while researching crime in Los Angeles. Aggie’s name appeared many times in various accounts, which piqued my curiosity. I had to know more about one of the few women reporters working in the field during the 1930s and 1940s.
Aggie’s 1949 autobiography, NEWSPAPERWOMAN, was a revelation. Here was a woman who reported on the major crime stories of her day, including the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia.
Agness May Wilson was born to Clifford and Mamie Sullivan Wilson in San Francisco in 1902.
Her sister, Leona, followed four years later. By 1904, the family had moved to Belleville, Illinois, and it was there Mamie, 25 years old, died of rheumatism of the heart. Before she died, she had Aggie promise to care for Leona. That is a heavy burden to place on the shoulders of a little girl.
Aggie’s father, Clifford, was a glassblower who traveled for work. After Mamie’s death, he passed Aggie and Leona to relatives. Eventually, relatives placed them in separate foster homes. Aggie fought to keep Leona with her, but her best efforts were no match for the adults who tore them apart. The sisters lost touch.
Aggie’s life in the foster home was hard. She struck out on her own in her early teens. Eventually landing in Los Angeles, she worked at the Pig ‘n Whistle downtown. Things looked up when Harry Underwood, a soda jerk at the Pig, proposed to her when a greedy relative threatened to report her for working underage—unless she turned over her entire paycheck. Aggie gratefully accepted Harry’s timely proposal.
We characterize the 1920s as a free-wheeling time when liquor and money flowed. It didn’t hold true for everyone. The Underwoods, like many other families, struggled financially. By 1924, they had two children, Mary Evelyn, and George Harry. They realized they could not make it in Los Angeles, so they traveled out-of-state, seeking new opportunities. During their travels, Aggie located Leona, and they reunited.
The Underwoods returned to Los Angeles, and Leona moved in to the family’s home on the city’s east side. Even with Harry and Leona working day jobs, money was tight. At least Aggie had achieved her dream of having a family. What more could she ask for? How about a pair of stockings?
By October 1926, Aggie grew tired of wearing Leona’s hand-me-down stockings. She went to Harry and asked for the money to buy a pair of her own. He told her they couldn’t afford them.
Incensed, Aggie said if he wouldn’t buy them for her, she’d get a job and buy them herself. It was an empty threat. She hadn’t worked outside the home in several years. What could she do to earn a living?
Before she could turn to the want ads, Evelyn Conners called. She and Aggie had remained close since meeting at the Salvation Army Home several years earlier. Evelyn worked at the Los Angeles Record and got Aggie a temporary job at the switchboard. Evelyn knew Aggie was qualified because they once worked together at the telephone company.
Aggie enjoyed being at the Record, and she hoped to stay through the New Year. She got lucky. Gertrude Price was the women’s editor and wrote an advice column under the name Cynthia Grey. Each year, Gertrude organized a food drive for the city’s poor, and she needed help to fill and deliver the baskets. She asked Aggie if she would stay and help. Without hesitation, Aggie accepted; it meant seven or eight more weeks of steady work.
Aggie assumed she would return to her housewifely chores at in January 1927, but Gertrude had other plans.
Her conscientiousness had not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. Gertrude offered Aggie a part-time job as her assistant. It didn’t pay as well as the switchboard, only five dollars per week. Once she did the arithmetic, Aggie realized she wouldn’t net a dime after she paid a babysitter to watch her kids. Why did she stay if she wasn’t making any money? Aggie didn’t know it yet, but she was in love with the newspaper business.
Throughout 1927, Aggie tackled each task that Gertrude handed her with enthusiasm. In return, Gertrude became her mentor and confidante.
By the time the 1928 holiday season rolled around, Aggie was a fixture at the Record. She again assisted Gertrude Price with the Christmas baskets program. The Underwoods’ financial woes were far from over; but if their holiday was lean, so be it. She felt fortunate to be surrounded by her family.
Ironically, even though Aggie cherished family life, she revealed few details about hers in her autobiography. In fact, she never mentions Harry by name, only referring to her unnamed husband. The reason is simple, she and Harry were divorced a few years before the publication of NEWSPAPERWOMAN. Aggie chose to highlight her professional achievements.
Aggie’s omissions make sense when you consider her position at the time. She was still only a couple of years into her city editorship at the Herald. Personal details might negatively impact her career. I think perhaps the most important thing for Aggie was he desire never to be a “sob sister.” She didn’t want to tug at people’s heartstrings in the copy she wrote for the paper, and especially not in her autobiography. That said, I really wish she had made good on her plan to author a more complete autobiography in her retirement. She never got around to it.
It is no surprise she never wrote about an event that must have devastated her—the death of her sister, Leona, on December 6, 1928. Without Aggie’s input,, we can only speculate on what happened, and what impact it had on her.
Like most families, the Underwoods had a work week routine. December 6 was a Thursday, so Leona dropped her niece and nephew off at the babysitter, as she usually did. While the rest of the family was out for the day, Leona consumed ant paste.
The principal ingredient is arsenic. Ant paste was a common poison found in most households. At twenty-two years old, Leona may have believed that taking poison would be a quick and easy death. She could not have been more wrong. Death by arsenic poisoning is excruciating. Depending on the dose, it can take hours or even days to kill.
Aggie’s established routine was to swing by the babysitter after work, pick up the children, and then go home. When Aggie arrived home, she found Leona. I cannot imagine how Aggie felt. Records show they transported Leona to Pohl Hospital on Washington Boulevard. They admitted her at 3:25 p.m. By 4:00 p.m. her body was in the county morgue. Why did Leona take her life? Her death certificate gives two reasons: “Love affair & financial difficulties.”
Leona’s death notice appeared in the Los Angeles Times the next day. The brief notice said they would hold funeral services on Saturday, December 8, 1928, in the chapel of Ivy H. Overholtser on South Flower Street.
Without input from Aggie, it is difficult to calculate the impact that Leona’s death had on her, but it must have been enormous. Did she feel guilty about failing to honor her mother’s dying wish for a second time? As tragic as Leona’s death was, with two children and a husband to care for, Aggie had no choice but to turn her attention toward the living.
NOTE: The holidays are not a joyous time for everyone. If you or someone you care about is in a crisis, please call 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at (800) 273-8255 to talk with a caring, trained counselor. It is free, confidential, and available 24/7.
Aggie and the Los Angeles Record
Exterior view of the Los Angeles Record building (top, middle of photo), located next to the Pacific Electric Railroad tracks. Building has three large arched windows on the second floor. Photo dated: September 12, 1933.
Aggie’s newspaper career began at the switchboard of the Los Angeles Record in October 1926. The Record was at 612 Wall Street near the Pacific Electric station at Sixth and Main. The streetcars rumbled past the building providing an industrial soundtrack for the “weird wonderland” of men pounding away on old typewriters. Aggie enjoyed the ambient hum, occasionally punctuated by the shouts of reporters as they called out phone numbers for her to dial.
Gertrude Price, the woman’s editor, approached Aggie when her temporary job at the switchboard was almost over. Price wrote a column under the pseudonym Cynthia Grey. Each year at Christmas, she organized a food and gift basket program for the needy. Hundreds of letters poured in from donors and the poor alike. The job of putting together the baskets was an enormous one, and Gertrude asked Aggie to assist.
At the end of the 1926 holiday season, Aggie contemplated her return to domestic life when Gertrude surprised her with an offer of a part-time job. Price asked Aggie if she would work two hours a day taking phone messages and handling Cynthia Grey correspondence. Aggie gratefully accepted the offer.
Gertrude Price became Aggie’s friend and mentor. One of the most important lessons she learned about the newspaper business came near her twenty-fifth birthday. Los Angeles reeled from the kidnapping and mutilation murder of 12-year-old schoolgirl Marion Parker. Authorities identified William Edward Hickman as the killer. He became the subject of the biggest manhunt in Los Angeles’ history. Aggie saw a United Press flash announcing Hickman’s capture in Oregon. She was so excited she telephoned her husband and shared the news with him.
Price overheard the call and warned Aggie about discussing a story before it circulated on the streets. At first, she felt ashamed because she’d disappointed her mentor. Then she realized Price was instructing her on a fundamental principle of the news business. She would not make the same mistake again.
Aggie couldn’t stay at her desk while the bulletins of Hickman’s capture continued to flood the newsroom. She finally committed the “unpardonable sin” of hovering over the shoulder of Rod Brink, the city editor. Brink said to her, “All right, if you’re so interested, take this dictation.” In that instant Aggie realized she wanted to be a reporter.
His Girl Friday & The Front Page
Deranged L.A. Crimes celebrates reporter Agness “Aggie” Underwood this month in honor of the 121st anniversary of her birth on the 17th.
Aggie liked His Girl Friday (1940), in which Rosalind Russell portrayed a female newspaper reporter. I would love to show the film, but it is not in the public domain. Instead, listen to the 1941 Screen Guild radio version with Rosalind Russell, Cary Grant, and Ralph Bellamy reprising their movie roles.
Even though I can’t show the film version of His Girl Friday, I will show the 1931 version, The Front Page, based on the 1928 stage play.
I love the 1940 film for casting Russell as Hildy Johnson–a role originally written for a man–but the 1931 film is also excellent. Billy Wilder remade it in 1974, casting Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the starring roles.
Here is what TCM says about The Front Page (1931).
Chicago’s ace reporter Hildy Johnson wants to quit newspaper work and get married, but his editor, Walter Burns, is determined to keep him on the job. Hildy refuses to talk to Walter, knowing his persuasive powers, so Walter sets off a fire alarm outside the apartment of Hildy’s fiancée, Peggy Grant. Unable to resist, Hildy runs to the street, after which Walter corners him and takes him out for drinks. While the two men drink, Walter reminisces about the great stories that Hildy covered and paints a boring picture of married life. Hildy manages to escape, and drops in on the press room at the courthouse, where the reporters are waiting for the hanging of Earl Williams.
Happy Birthday to Aggie Underwood, and Deranged L.A. Crimes!
This is a big month for the Deranged L.A. Crimes blog. On December 17, 2012, the 110th anniversary of the birth of the woman whose career and life inspires me, Agness “Aggie” Underwood, I started writing this blog. I also authored her Wikipedia page, which was long overdue.
By the time I began, Aggie had been gone for twenty-eight years. I regret not knowing about her in time to meet her in person. But, through her work, and speaking with her relatives over the years, I feel like I know her. I have enormous respect for Aggie. She had nothing handed to her, yet she established herself in a male-dominated profession where she earned the respect of her peers without compromising her values. She also earned the respect of law enforcement. Cops who worked with her trusted her judgement and sought her opinion. It isn’t surprising. She shared with them the same qualities that make a successful detective.
This month, I will focus on Aggie. I want everyone to get to know and appreciate her. She was a remarkable woman.
Agness “Aggie” Underwood never intended to become a reporter. All she wanted was a pair of silk stockings. She’d been wearing her younger sister’s hand-me-downs, but she longed for a new pair of her own. When her husband, Harry, told her they couldn’t afford them, she threatened to get a job and buy them herself. It was an empty threat. She did not know how to find employment. She hadn’t worked outside her home for several years. A serendipitous call from her close friend Evelyn, the day after the stockings kerfuffle, changed the course of her life. Evelyn told her about a temporary opening for a switchboard operator where she worked, at the Los Angeles Record. The job was meant to last only through the 1926-27 holiday season, so Aggie jumped at the chance.
Aggie arrived at the Record utterly unfamiliar with the newspaper business, but she swiftly adapted and it became clear to everyone that, even without training, she was sharp and eager to learn. The temporary switchboard job turned into a permanent position.
In December 1927, the kidnapping and cruel mutilation murder of twelve-year-old schoolgirl Marion Parker horrified the city. Aggie was at the Record when they received word the perpetrator, William Edward Hickman, who had nicknamed himself “The Fox,” was in custody in Oregon. The breaking story created a firestorm of activity in the newsroom. Aggie had seen nothing like it. She knew then she didn’t want to be a bystander. She wanted to be a reporter.
When the Record was sold in January 1935, Aggie accepted an offer from William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper, the Evening Herald and Express, propelling her into the big leagues. Working for Hearst differed entirely from working for the Record. Hearst expected his reporters to work at breakneck speed. After all, they had to live up to the paper’s motto, “The First with the latest.”
From January 1935, until January 1947, Aggie covered everything from fires and floods to murder and mayhem, frequently with photographer Perry Fowler by her side. She considered herself to be a general assignment reporter, but developed a reputation and a knack for covering crimes.
Sometimes she helped to solve them.
In December 1939, Aggie was called to the scene of what appeared to be a tragic accident on the Angeles Crest Highway. Laurel Crawford said he had taken his family on a scenic drive, but lost control of the family sedan on a sharp curve. The car plunged over 1000 feet down an embankment, killing his wife, three children, and a boarder in their home. He said he had survived by jumping from the car at the last moment.
When asked by Sheriff’s investigators for her opinion, Aggie said she had observed Laurel’s clothing and his demeanor, and neither lent credibility to his account. She concluded Laurel was “guilty as hell.” Her hunch was right. Upon investigation, police discovered Laurel had engineered the accident to collect over $30,000 in life insurance.
Hollywood was Aggie’s beat, too. When stars misbehaved or perished under mysterious or tragic circumstances, Aggie was there to record everything for Herald readers. On December 16, 1935, popular actress and café owner Thelma Todd died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage of her Pacific Palisades ho9me. Thelma’s autopsy was Aggie’s first, and her fellow reporters put her to the test. It backfired on them. Before the coroner could finish his grim work, her colleagues had turned green and fled the room. Aggie remained upright.
Though Aggie never considered herself a feminist, she paved the way for female journalists. In January 1947, they yanked her off the notorious Black Dahlia murder case and made her editor of the City Desk, making her one of the first woman to hold this post for a major metropolitan newspaper. Known to keep a bat and startup pistol handy at her desk, just in case, she was beloved by her staff and served as City Editor for the Herald (later Herald Examiner) until retiring in 1968.
When she passed away in 1984, the Herald-Examiner eulogized her. “She was undeterred by the grisliest of crime scenes and had a knack for getting details that eluded other reporters. As editor, she knew the names and telephone numbers of numerous celebrities, in addition to all the bars her reporters frequented. She cultivated the day’s best sources, ranging from gangsters and prostitutes to movie stars and government officials.”
They were right. Aggie dined with judges, cops, and even gangster Mickey Cohen. I hope you will enjoy reading about Aggie, as much as I will enjoy telling her stories.
Joan