Category Archives: 1930s

Happy Birthday Aggie Underwood & Deranged L.A. Crimes!

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This month is an important one for the Deranged L.A. Crimes blog. It is the twelfth anniversary of the blog.

December 17, 2012 (the 110th anniversary of the birth of the woman whose career and life inspires me, Agness “Aggie” Underwood) I created the blog. I also authored her Wikipedia page, which was long overdue. I felt it was important to honor her on the anniversary of her birth. I’ve been trying to keep her legacy alive ever since.

Aggie hoists a brew. Perry Fowler photo.

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.

Aggie 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. Aggie accepted the temporary job, meant to last only through the 1926-27 holiday season.

Aggie & Harry [Photo courtesy CSUN Special Collections]

Aggie arrived at the Record unfamiliar with the newspaper business, but she swiftly adapted and everyone realized, even without training, she was sharp and eager to learn. The temporary switchboard job turned into a permanent position.

Marion Parker

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. 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 city editor—one of the first woman to hold the post for a major metropolitan newspaper. Known to keep a bat and starter pistol handy at her desk, she was beloved by her staff and served as city editor for the Herald (later Herald Examiner) until retiring in 1968.

Aggie at a crime scene (not the Dahlia) c. 1940s.

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.”

I have pondered how appalled Aggie would be at what passes for journalism today. During her lifetime, she disdained anyone unwilling to get out and scrap for a story. Today she would find herself surrounded by people who call their personal opinions news, and their writings (multiple misspellings and grammatical atrocities included), reporting.

In a world where oligarchs bend once respected publications to their perverted will, Aggie would be unwelcome.

Don’t misunderstand me—even in Aggie’s day, newspapers were not owned by paupers, and they all had an editorial agenda. But when it came to reporting hard news, it was all about the facts. There was no such thing as fake news or “alternative” facts (what does that even mean?!)

Today we must look hard to find facts. Legacy media has failed us in all of its forms. Losing reliable media puts our country at significant risk.

I suppose my anger, disenchantment, and disgust with the current state of media is why I honor Aggie’s legacy. She represents the best of what reporters once were, and what they could be again if not constrained by fear. The newspaper & TV owners seem to be motivated by a mixture of fear and greed. It is not the way to maintain a free press. We can all do better.

Happy Birthday, Aggie, and Deranged L.A. Crimes!

Best,

Joan

The Human Fly–Conclusion

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In 1943, the court sentenced Carl G. Hopper, the human fly, to fifteen years to life in prison. Of course, the human fly would not be content to sit in Folsom Prison while some of the best years of his life, um, flew by.

Hopper wangled an early parole so that he could join the Army—but if Folsom couldn’t hold him, how could the Army expect to? By late October 1944, he’d escaped from the guardhouse at Camp Roberts.

On October 27, 1944, at 7:50 p.m. someone observed Hopper in a car listed as stolen. A radio patrolman and a military policeman approached him at Third Street near Lucas Avenue. Exiting the vehicle, he approached the officers on foot. He drew a gun and made his escape when the M.P.’s gun jammed as he tried to fire at the fleeing man.

An hour later, Hopper held up John D. Bowman of Downey in front of 1212 Shatto Street. Bowman told cops that the bandit was “too drunk to know how to drive,” so he forced Bowman to start his (Bowman’s) car for him and then he sped away.

Next, he turned up in Beverly Hills, where he accosted Freddie Schwartz and Maude Beggs as they arrived at 514 N. Hillcrest Street for a party. Schwartz complied with Hopper’s demand for money, but he only had a $5 bill which Hopper hurled back at him in disgust, complaining that it was not enough.

At 10:35 pm. Hopper held-up Sherman Oaks residents Mr. and Mrs. Julian N. Cole and Mr. and Mrs. Walter Deutsch on Valley Vista Blvd. He took $25 from Cole and $2 from Deutsch.

Only minutes later, he held up Dorothy Snyder in the 600 block of S. June Street, but he refused to take her money when he discovered she had only $7 in her purse. The fly was a gentleman.

Hopper’s one-man crime wave continued.

A about half a block away from where he’d encountered Dorothy Snyder, he held up Dr. Rudolph Mueller, getting away with $65.

After robbing Dr. Mueller, police officers, S.W. Stevenson, and K.M. Aitken observed Hopper driving at a high rate of speed. They pursued him until he crashed into a palm tree on Second Avenue near Santa Barbara Street. The fly fled on foot between.

About ten minutes following the car crash, Hopper committed another hold-up. This time he robbed C.B. Kaufman of his sedan and $55 near 43rd Street and Western Avenue.

Then the fly disappeared.

At the Mexican border near Tijuana, Hopper got caught when his attempt to shoot a U.S. Customs Service inspector, who had stopped him for routine questioning, was thwarted. The inspector, Richard McCowan, wasn’t entirely satisfied with Hopper’s answers to his questions and ordered him to wait. Hopper responded by pulling out a .38 caliber revolver and jamming it into McCowan’s abdomen. Hopper may have seen too many western movies. He tried to discharge the weapon by fanning it, but failed to pull the hammer back far enough. Police took him into custody.

Hopper admitted his identity and boasted of how he led police in Los Angeles on a merry chase. He denied committing any of the crimes laid at his feet. He said, “they are just trying to pin something on me.”

The police did not have to pin anything on him. When they busted him, he had a gasoline ration book and a driver’s license made out to C.B. Kaufman, the man he had robbed of $55 and his sedan.

During the couple of days he conducted his one-man crime wave, Hopper committed six robberies, netting him $147. He stole three automobiles, one of which was a police car.

Authorities returned Carl to the Los Angeles County Jail, where they booked him on suspicion of the various crimes committed during his escape from Camp Roberts. They set his bail at $10,000.

The court tried, convicted, and then sentenced Hopper to life in Folsom Prison.

On December 12, 1946, only three years after his escape from the Hall of Justice Jail in Los Angeles, Hopper attempted to break out of Folsom. He slugged a guard, ran to the top cell block, broke a skylight, and made his way to temporary freedom over the roof, and down the ladder of an unmanned guard tower. Then he took a 12-foot leap from a wall. Hopper got no further than the prison yard when he discovered the American River, swollen by recent rains, was far too dangerous to cross.

When guards found Hopper, he said that he was “cold, wet and hungry.” They returned him to his cell.

The ordinary housefly lives from 15 to 30 days. The human fly never reached old age. On June Jail in Los Angeles, twenty-nine-year-old Hopper hanged himself with a bed sheet tied to a piece of plumbing in his solitary cell in Folsom Prison.

Film Noir Friday on Saturday Night: I’ll Name the Murderer [1936]

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Welcome! The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open! Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat. Today’s feature is I’LL NAME THE MURDERER (1936), starring Ralph Forbes and Marion Shilling.

The Puritan Pictures Corporation released this film. Puritan Pictures was founded by Sam Katzman, who was also the founder of Victory Productions, in 1935. In fact, Katzman ran both companies at the same time.) It was considered one of Hollywood’s “Poverty Row” studios. Also, like most small filmmakers, Puritan distributed other studios’ output as well. They were more successful in distribution, and by 1936 had abandoned filmmaking completely to concentrate on distributing Excelsior, C. C. Burr, Fanchon Royer and Sentinel pictures. Puritan was history by 1938; Katzman went on to greater renown at Monogram.

Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

When nightclub singer Nadia Renee is murdered in her dressing room at Luigi’s, Broadway gossip columnist Tommy Tilton sets out to find the killer. The suspect with the most obvious motive is Tommy’s college friend, Ted Benson, who had a youthful liaison with Nadia, but is now engaged to the wealthy Vi Van Ostrum. Nadia had intended to wreck Ted’s marriage by publishing his old love letters, unless he paid her $10,000. 

Of Mobsters and Movie Stars: The Bloody Golden Age of Hollywood

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I am excited to announce that OF MOBSTERS AND MOVIE STARS: THE GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD is available as an audio book It is narrated by award nominated Lee Ann Howlett.

WildBlue Press says this about the book:

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.

Whether you read it or listen to it, I hope you enjoy the book. I loved writing it so much that I am working on a second volume. I am covering Los Angeles crime and corruption from 1940 to 1949. It is still in the the research phase, so it will be a while until publication, but I’ll keep you posted.

Thank you so much for your support.

Joan

Death of a Brute

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During the 1910s, over two million Italians immigrated to the United States; among them, Rosario Trovinano from Sicily.

Rosario’s family arranged a marriage for her with Alberto Ciani, a barber, several years her senior. She and Albert married in Syracuse, New York on June 16, 1913. Rosario gave her age as 18, she was 16. Unlike most arranged marriages, the couple never reached a place of mutual respect and affection.

Rosa & Albert Ciani

Over twenty years of their married life, Albert beat her and their children—especially the girls whom he seemed to loathe. According to Rosa, Albert “tried to destroy” the girls when they were born. He took them to the beach and pushed them into deep water. Once, when she was pouring milk to feed their youngest child, Gloria, he caught her and threw the milk away. Then he sat down and ate two steaks and a half-dozen eggs while his hungry wife and children looked on.

The couple argued constantly. Florence, their eldest daughter, left home in 1931 to become a beauty operator. She said she often heard her mother and dad “scrapping.” The argument centered on which one of them gave the other one a “dreaded disease,” likely syphilis. The final straw for Florence was when Albert attempted to murder her when she tried to intervene in one of their arguments. The D.A. dropped the charges against Albert when Rosa, afraid of the consequences, declined to testify.

On Sunday evening, September 10, 1933, after another bitter fight, Albert told Rosa she need not finish the preserving she was doing because she would not be there long, and neither would the children. Would he make good on his threats to kill them? Albert went to the bedroom to sleep. In her nightgown, Rosa slipped into the kitchen, heated some coffee, and poured a large measure of olive oil into a pot. She waited. When the oil reached the boiling point, she took the pot into the bedroom and poured the contents into Albert’s eyes.

Screaming in agony, Albert stumbled around the room. Rosa picked up the axe she had purchased with $1.50 Florence gave her. Raising the heavy blade above her head, she struck. The first blow cleaved Albert’s back and punctured a lung. The second strike sliced his shoulder, almost completely severing an arm.

As their children, Catherine, Susan, and Samuel, looked on in horror, Rosa continued the attack. The children pleaded with her to stop. She quit only when Albert fell unconscious to the floor after she hacked his legs out from under him.

Lincoln Heights Jail

Answering the horrified calls of neighbors, Detective Lieutenants Connor and Patton arrived at the Ciani home at 10464 South Hoover Street. They rushed Albert, who was on the brink of death, to the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital, where he succumbed within minutes.

The police found Rosa outside the home. She kissed her children goodbye, then surrendered to the police outside the home. They transported her to Lincoln Heights Jail. Later, from her cell, a defiant Rosa said, “I’m glad I did it. I’d kill him even now to protect my children and myself!”

The coroner’s jury found she had killed Albert by pouring four gallons of boiling oil on him and hacking him with an axe. Public defender John J. Hill was assigned to represent Rosa.

In December, three alienists, Drs. Paul Bowers, Victor Parkin, and Edwin Wayne reported to Judge Fletcher Bowron. They agreed Rosa was sane when she killed Albert. They explained the crime, saying she was “driven to distraction” by her husband’s brutality. Judge Bowron granted Hill’s request for a continuance and set the trial for January 25, 1934. Hill hinted Rosa might change her plea to guilty.

On January 25, 1934, over the objections of her daughter Florence, Rosa pleaded guilty to manslaughter before Judge Burnell. The judge delayed the sentence until the following day. Rosa’s family and friends would testify to the mitigating circumstances that caused her to snap.

Judge Charles Burrell sentenced Rosa to San Quentin for manslaughter; but stated he wished he could give her probation. He requested the state board of prison terms and paroles to show compassion for the defendant in an unexpected move. He said for years Rosa had endured cruel treatment at Albert’s hands, including repeated beatings, choking of her children, and the willful withholding of food, while he feasted in front of them. Judge Burnell supported her attorney, John J. Hill. Hill urged for Rosa’s immediate release and recommended that Governor James “Sunny Jim” Rolph grant executive clemency.

The Governor listened, and on April 26, 1934 he commuted Rosa’s sentence to time served.

Elizabeth Short-Centenary

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ELIZABETH SHORT

Today, July 29, 2024, marks the centenary of Elizabeth Short’s birth. Born in Boston, Beth, as she often preferred to be called, was the middle child of Cleo and Phoebe Short. She had four sisters: Virginia, Dorothea, Elnora, and Muriel.

Cleo held various sales jobs over the years. The miniture golf craze of the 1920s captured his imagination. He opened a course, but in 1930, the business tanked. Rather than face the loss, and his responsibilities to his family, he positioned his car close to a bridge to create the appearance of suicide. A houseful of women has its comforts, but Cleo’s abandonment appears to have profoundly affected Beth.

Miniature golf was all the rage in the 1920s and 1930s.

A few years later, Cleo wrote to Phoebe and asked for forgiveness. She refused. At least Beth knew Cleo was alive. She hoped for a relationship. She found him in California. Rather than a loving father, he was a mean drunk, looking for a housekeeper, not a daughter. Their reunion failed.

Cleo Short

In 1943, she worked at Camp Cooke, now Vandenberg Air Force Base, where they voted her “Camp Cutie. On September 23, 1943, she got arrested for underage drinking at the El Paseo restaurant in Santa Barbara. The jail matron gave her money for a bus ticket back to Medford, Massachusetts.

Because of her asthma, Beth would regularly escape the harsh Massachusetts winters to work as a waitress in Florida.

Major Matt Gordon, a decorated fighter pilot, met Beth in Miami, Florida while on leave in 1944. He may have been on leave after sustaining injuries in a plane crash in February. A photo of them together shows him smiling, and Beth with stars in her eyes, and a proprietary hand on his arm. The handsome pilot was everything the twenty-year-old wanted.

Matt Gordon

Matt’s death in a plane crash near Kalaikunda in West Bengal, India, on August 10, 1945, was a cruel twist of fate. It happened just one day after the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, and only weeks before the war ended. Matt’s loss devastated Beth.

After August 1945, she never worked again. She drifted from Medford, to Chicago, Florida, and to Los Angeles—chasing a ghost.

She lived in Long Beach, California, during the summer of 1946. While there, friends nicknamed her the Black Dahlia. By the end of the year, she was couch surfing at the home of Dorothy and Elvera French in San Diego. While in San Diego, she met a traveling salesman, Robert “Red” Manley, when he offered her a ride.

Beth and the married salesman, a fact he no doubt concealed from her, corresponded for a month or two before she asked him if he would drive her back to Los Angeles in early January 1947. He agreed.

Matt Gordon and Beth Short

Red picked her up at the French’s on January 8th. They drove up the coast and stayed the night in a motel before arriving in Los Angeles on January 9th. Beth checked her luggage at the bus depot. Red refused to leave her in such a sketchy neighborhood. He took her to the Biltmore Hotel, where she told him she was meeting her sister, Virginia. It was a lie. Virginia lived hundreds of miles north in Oakland.

Red stayed with her in the hotel lobby for a long time before he left. Beth, now on her own, left the hotel lobby, turned right on Olive, and vanished.

On the morning of January 15, a Leimert Park housewife, Betty Bersinger, discovered Beth’s body while out running errands. Where was Beth for those missing days? No one who knew her saw her during that time. The thought of her being held captive by her killer is horrifying.

Once police established her identity, reporters saw it as an opportunity to pry into every detail of Beth’s life. The dead lose their right to privacy. Speculation filled column after column in the newspapers. The prevailing attitude was that nice girls do not get murdered. Yet Beth had done nothing, good or bad, worthy of note. At 22-years-old, she never got the chance.

As time passed with no solution, the case grew cold. Other murders captured headlines. It was not until decades later, following a couple of books, and a mid-1970s made-for-TV movie, that Beth’s story became news again.

It is understandable that the case is known in Los Angeles, but what I find most interesting is that the 77-year-old Los Angeles murder mystery has drawn global interest. What is it about Beth’s murder that resonates with people even today?

It may be the supposed Hollywood connection.

Most contemporary articles erroneously describe Beth as an aspiring actress, or starlet. Such characterizations make her murder the ultimate Hollywood heartbreak story with a violent twist.

Still, two distinct narratives about Beth co-exist. One is the myth of the Black Dahlia, a fictional character based on Beth’s life.

The second story, and the one I believe is true, is that of a depressed, confused, and needy young woman seeking marriage and stability in the chaos and uncertainty of the post-war world.

Each of her sisters married and had children. By the time of Phoebe’s death in 1992, three daughters, thirteen grandchildren, twenty-one great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandson survived her. If Beth had lived, she would undoubtedly contributed heirs.

Beth’s funeral in Oakland, California

We have lost sight of the troubled young woman who came to California to connect with her father—not to break into the movies.

The tragedy of Beth’s life is not that she failed to achieve Hollywood stardom, she never sought it.

Beth was looking for what most people her age wanted—marriage and a home. She pursued a romantic vision of a husband in uniform with shiny bright brass buttons, and a bungalow with a white picket fence.

Judging by an undated letter she received from Lieutenant Stephen Wolak, she did not hesitate to press a man for marriage. Wolak’s letter reads in part, “When you mention marriage in your letter, Beth, I get to wondering. Infatuation is sometimes mistaken for true love. I know whereof I speak, because my ardent love soon cools off.”

Wolak’s response to Beth’s letter is a frank assessment of their relationship—which, in his estimation, was not serious. You can gauge her desperation from his response.  

How many other men in uniform received letters from Beth suggesting marriage? 

A depressed and lonely young woman with daddy issues looking for love is not necessarily the stuff of bestselling books or blockbuster movies.

The pathos of Beth’s real life can make us uncomfortable, so we perpetuate the myth of the Black Dahlia. It is the epic tale of a beautiful young woman seeking stardom who meets a brutal end at the hands of a depraved killer that mesmerizes us.

I imagine in the years to come—no matter what may be revealed; we will continue to hold fast to the myth.

Coming May 14, 2024–Of Mobsters and Movie Stars: The Bloody “Golden Age” of Hollywood

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This gorgeous cover is the winner of the WildBlue Press cover contest. It evokes the glamour of old Hollywood, yet suggests the dark side of the city and the era.

Of Mobsters and Movie Stars is available for pre-order on Amazon for release on Tuesday, May 14, 2024. You will also be able to purchase the book in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and, coming soon, audiobook, on the Amazon and WildBlue’s websites.

My connection with many of you inspired me to tackle a book project. I can’t thank you enough for your support over the past 12 years. I’m looking forward to many more years here (and a few more books!) I’ll let you know about any book signings and interviews, so stay tuned. I’ve created some content for my author page on WildBlue, so please visit me there and sign-up to receive updates.

There are 37 stories in Of Mobsters and Movie Stars, including an early killer couple who went on a spree while Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were still in grammar school. One of the most shocking tales is about a man who plotted to kill his wife using two Diamondback rattlesnakes named Lighting and Lethal.

Many people have asked if Los Angeles had a mob. The answer is they had two. The earliest was headed by Joe “Iron Man” Ardizzone, an old-school gangster straight out of Central Casting. The other mob, orders of magnitude more powerful and insidious than Ardizzone’s, was the Hollywood studios. Using hired thugs called “fixers,” the studios wielded power over actors and politicians. When choreographer Busby Berkeley killed three people while driving drunk, the studio came to his aid. When director, and husband of Jean Harlow, Paul Bern, died under suspicious circumstances, the studio intervened.

One of the ugliest incidents of studio power was the attempted cover-up of the brutal rape of a young actress at a studio hosted event. The victim refused to be silent and, as far as I’m concerned, is the Godmother of the #metoo movement.

I posted excepts from Mobsters and Movie Stars on WildBlue. Below is one of them.

Excerpted from The Torso Murder

“William Pettibone, Ray Seegar, Floyd Waterstreet, and Glen Druer explored the muddy river bank for hidden treasures on May 18, 1929. The boys noticed something that looked like a turtle shell or strange prehistoric fish 150 feet from the bridge in the city of Bell. One boy took a stick and poked it into an end of the bony structure and held it aloft for the others to gape at. The boys spent a few minutes before realizing their treasure was a human skull.

With the head impaled on a stick, the boy ran up to the roadway. He waved it around until a female motorist stopped. The horrified woman kept it together long enough to drive to a public telephone where she called Bell’s Chief of Police. Chief Smith and Motor Officer Steele met the woman and the group of boys near the river. The woman declined to give her name. Smith’s officers told Captain Bright about the grisly find. Bright accompanied Deputies Allen, Brewster, and Gompert to the scene. While deputies searched the area, an enormous crowd of curious on-lookers gathered.

The initial autopsy yielded nothing which could identify the deceased. At least the skull still had several extant teeth, which made an identification possible. Local newspapers printed the photos and drawings of the teeth and distributed them to dentists.

With limited remains, the experts needed to perform a miracle. Amazingly, they did just that.”

Of Mobsters and Movie Stars: The Bloody Golden Age of Hollywood

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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.

The Face on the Barroom Floor

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During Prohibition, people drank whatever they could get their hands on—often poor-quality juice. Shady characters distilled booze in basements and warehouses. They cared about nothing but money. Manufacturing overnight whiskey made from “…refuse, burned grain or hay or any old thing that will sour” posed a danger to people’s physical and mental health. After several cocktails containing a noxious blend of chemicals, a person might be capable of anything.

A native New Yorker, Edward P. Nolan came to Los Angeles to make his fortune in the budding film industry. He was luckier than most Hollywood hopefuls. During 1914 and 1915, he appeared in short subjects with Charles Chaplin, Mabel Normand, and Marie Dressler. His most noteworthy appearances were in The Face on the Barroom Floor and Between Showers (1914). He may not have worked in film between 1915, appearing in Hogan’s Wild Oats and 1920, when he appeared opposite Leatrice Joy and James O. Barrows in Down Home.

What Nolan did for a living during the five years between acting gigs is anyone’s guess, but by 1922 he was in the LAPD and had risen to the rank of Detective Lieutenant. Law enforcement was not a reach for him. After all, he played a policeman in several movies.

On June 16, 1931, Nolan made a dramatic arrest of an extortionist, George Freese. Freese sent anonymous death threats to A. H. Wittenberg, president of the Mission Hosiery Mills. Pay $700, or die.

Freese instructed Wittenberg to hand the pay-off over to a taxi-cab driver-messenger who would then deliver the cash to him.

When the extortionist phoned with details, Nolan took notes and planned. He prepared a dummy package, and when the cab driver appeared outside the Wittenberg home, Nolan concealed himself in the auto and told the driver to proceed to the rendezvous point. Detective Lieutenants Leslie and McMullen followed in a police car.

Freese waited at the corner of First Street and La Brea Avenue to collect the money. As he accepted the dummy package, Nolan grabbed him.

Freese confessed without hesitation. He held a grudge against Wittenberg because six months earlier, Wittenberg turned him down for a salesman’s job. Freese said he needed the money because his family had fallen on hard times. A common predicament for people during the Great Depression.

The next day, Nolan and his 36-year-old divorced girlfriend, Grace Murphy Duncan, celebrated Nolan’s success in the Wittenberg case at the Hotel Lankershim. The couple spent a lot of time at the hotel while Nolan sought a divorce from his wife, Avasinia. Once the divorce was final, Duncan, and Nolan planned to marry.

HOTEL LANKERSHIM c. 1925

At 6:30 pm on the evening of June 17, 1931, Mrs. Helen Burleson, visiting from San Francisco, left her upper floor room, and headed to Nolan’s room on the second floor. She wanted to consult with him on a private matter. When she stepped into the room, she saw Nolan and Grace. Drunk. The lovers quarreled. The shouting reached a crescendo, and Nolan shoved Duncan out of the room. Then threw her coat into the hallway after her.

Grace and Helen went to Helen’s room, where they discussed Nolan’s violent behavior. Grace wanted to inform on him to the LAPD brass, but Helen talked her out of it.

While Grace and Helen talked, a trio of traveling salesmen, Robert V. Williams, Dan Smith, and Jimmy Balfe, went up to Robert’s room to catch a ball game on the radio. Robert said, “After a while, the lights went on in a room across the light well and we saw two women enter the room. Smith said he recognized Mrs. Burleson, and he telephoned to her room and asked her if she wanted to come over and listen to the radio. Mrs. Duncan was with her, and I don’t believe the two were in the room five minutes before Nolan burst in.”

“The ball game had ended, and I had dialed some music. It was about 10:30 o’clock. Mrs. Duncan and I were dancing. Nolan walked right up to her and said, ‘What do you mean by making up to this fellow?’ He pushed her over on the bed. Then he turned to me and said, ‘I saw you kissing her.’ Then he hit me. I staggered back into the bathroom.”

In a drunken rage, Nolan shoved Williams onto the bathroom floor.

Nolan shouted obscenities and waved his service weapon around. Williams stayed in the bathroom and locked the door. The other occupants of the room fled into the hallway, where they watched through the doorway as Nolan beat and kicked Grace. The woman’s screams were loud enough to bring Floyd Riley, a bellboy, up to the 8th floor. He didn’t want to confront Nolan, either. He said, “He looked like a wild man to me. His eyes gleamed, and he cursed incoherently. I could smell liquor on his breath.”

Grace rolled over onto her stomach, but the beating continued. At one point, Smith yelled at Nolan to stop, but was told to, “mind your own business.” Addressing no one in particular, he declared, “I’ve done everything for this woman. I’ve paid for her room, bought her food, and paid installments on her car.”

In his mind, his financial contributions entitled him to beat her. The terrified witnesses watched as he drew his revolver and beat her over the head until she stopped moving. Then he fired two shots into the floor. Grace did not flinch. She was dead.

Once Nolan’s rage subsided, Wilson, Balfe, Smith, and Riley cautiously approached him. He allowed himself to be escorted to his second-floor room. He muttered the entire way that he loved Grace, but her battered body told a different story—one of uncontrollable jealousy, rage, and bad booze. After arriving at his room, he downed several more glasses of gin, then he passed out on the floor.

Nolan was charged with murder.

Grace’s two daughters, Edna (17) and Mary Jane (14) visited “Daddy” Nolan in jail. Sobbing in grief or self-pity, Nolan wrapped his arms around the girls. The girls told officers he was always good to them. A judge denied Nolan permission to enter an insanity plea, and jury selection began on November 9th. With several eye-witnesses to the fatal beating, it didn’t seem Nolan had much of a chance to beat the rap. Helen testified Nolan was in a frenzied rage when he cornered Grace.

Attorneys for Nolan tried twice more to get permission to enter an additional plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, but the judge denied the motions. When the insanity plea went nowhere, Nolan took the stand and said that he had no memory of anything after he threw Grace out of his room.

Following four hours of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced Nolan to life. He was lucky; the prosecution wanted him to hang.

Nolan entered San Quentin on January 9, 1932. He gave his profession as prop man. Disgraced cops are not welcome If he was smart, Nolan never mentioned his decade on the Los Angeles Police Department to his cellmates.

On February 1, 1932, the State Board of Prison Terms and Paroles denied Nolan’s request for release. The Board informed him he would have to serve 10 calendar years before they would review his application again.

They released Nolan in early March 1942. He did not enjoy his freedom for long. He died on July 20, 1943 in a VA facility in San Francisco.