Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood

by William J. Mann

  When King requested to see it, he found the cabinet in Woolwine’s office nearly empty. All that was left was Taylor’s jacket and vest.

  Now King was certain that Woolwine was protecting Mary and her mother.

  And from the detective’s point of view, only the guilty required protection.

  CHAPTER 57

  TRIGGER HAPPY

  The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway steamed through the Great Plains en route to Chicago. In a first-class cabin, Don Osborn and Blackie Madsen were riding in style, smoking cigars and sampling the canapés brought around by porters. They had left Los Angeles on November 28. If everything went according to their plan, they’d be returning very rich men.

  Tucked away in Blackie’s sack were a bundle of letters—letters that were worth a great deal to the man who had written them. Osborn and Madsen were planning to visit this man and make a deal with him in exchange for the letters.

  John L. Bushnell, president of the First National Bank of Springfield, Ohio, did not know they were coming. He was expecting to see his beautiful ladylove Rose Putnam.

  How Osborn despised the man, whose lily-white, delicately manicured hands had once caressed Rose’s flesh. Every time another letter arrived at Beachwood Drive postmarked Ohio, Osborn burned with jealousy. But the correspondence had been necessary for his plan. On orders from Osborn and Madsen, Rose had written to the fifty-year-old banker and rekindled their romance. In reply, Bushnell had sent her little gifts of money. Rose made sure to keep every note the millionaire wrote her, in which he poured his heart out about how “unhappily situated” he was in “relations with his wife.”

  Finally Bushnell had suggested that Rose come east to see him. He offered to set her up in an apartment in Columbus, a little more than an hour’s drive from Springfield. Rose replied that she’d make plans to leave as soon as possible. Bushnell sent her $300 for her trip, which Osborn and Madsen used to float their posh accommodations and Cuban cigars.

  When they arrived in Chicago, the two blackmailers booked a weekend at the stately Monarch Hotel on North Clark Street. From the front desk, Madsen sent several telegrams in Rose’s name, assuring Bushnell that his paramour would soon be in his arms.

  The craggy-faced con artist had a lot of laughs at the millionaire’s expense.

  Blackie Madsen was a very cruel man.

  He was also edgy and hot-tempered, which left Osborn worried. He knew that Madsen was unpredictable. His old revolver, which dated back to the Spanish-American War, was permanently lodged at his hip. A number of unfortunate souls had learned the hard way that Blackie Madsen had an itchy trigger finger.

  Osborn hoped Bushnell wouldn’t be one of them.

  For their plan to succeed, they needed Bushnell alive and cooperative. Osborn could only hope their millionaire banker didn’t get Blackie mad.

  On the afternoon of December 4, 1922, they set out from Chicago for Springfield. It was a cloudy, chilly day. A cold mist stippled the windows of the train as the two blackmailers headed eastward. They sat in different compartments; from now on, they traveled separately. They couldn’t risk being spotted together.

  While Osborn had masterminded the plan, it was Blackie Madsen who’d pushed him into it. Madsen was always nudging Osborn to go bigger, take more risks. Osborn, like Gibby, wanted success and money and nice things. But Madsen, in contrast, simply knew no other way to live. Cheating and swindling were his way of life. Hustling came as naturally to him as eating or sleeping, and he needed it just as much to survive.

  Blackie Madsen was fifty years old. He stood between five six and five eight and was noticeably bow-legged—walking “with his feet out,” as the many police reports written about him over the years usually put it. Recently he’d grown a bushy gray mustache. His dark eyes and dark complexion—some people thought he was perpetually sunburned—had given him his nickname.

  Madsen, of course, was an alias. Hailing from a respectable midwestern family, he was born Ross Garnet Sheridan. His father had been a stock dealer in Iowa, affluent enough to employ a servant to help his wife in the house. “His early youth,” one reporter wrote, “was spent amidst refinement and cultured surroundings.”

  But when Sheridan père died, the family fractured. With too many bills to pay and no money to pay them, Mrs. Harriett Sheridan moved her two sons and one daughter to Independence, Missouri, where eighteen-year-old Ross took a job as an agent for the Midland Accident Insurance Company. His attempt to help support the family turned into a crash course in con artistry. During Sheridan’s tenure, the company was investigated by the state and found to have pocketed half of its advertised capital.

  Meanwhile Harriett launched a career for herself as a journalist, writing for Chicago newspapers and becoming “highly respected” in her field. But much of her time was spent despairing over Ross, who at twenty-five was constantly finding himself in minor skirmishes with the law. When the United States declared war on Spain in April 1898, Ross signed up for a three-year stint in the army. It wasn’t a good fit. Sheridan never liked being told what to do, and less than a year into his service, he was dishonorably discharged.

  Bitter at the government, Sheridan at least got to keep his gun.

  A few years later, that proved dangerous.

  Thrown over by his ladylove, the beautiful Clara Williams, Sheridan watched in fury as she attached herself to one Arista “Writ” Berkey, a barber from Geuda Springs, Kansas. “It was known that the two men were jealous of each other,” a reporter wrote, “and the tales that were carried back and forth by their friends only fanned the flame of jealousy.” Sheridan learned that Berkey had vowed to “do” him if he ever spoke to Clara again.

  Ross Sheridan was not someone who walked away from a threat like that.

  On October 28, 1901, Sheridan was lurking on the streets of Independence, waiting for his quarry. Late in the afternoon, he spotted Berkey and Williams strolling up Osage Street, a parasol shielding Clara’s pretty head from the sun. At a safe distance, Sheridan followed them to the depot of the electric trolley that ran to nearby Kansas City.

  “I did not intend to shoot him,” Sheridan would later explain. “All I wanted to do was to call him down.” His pride was at stake. He could not let Berkey think that he had scared him off.

  But when Sheridan approached the couple, Berkey reacted defensively. He seemed to reach for his own gun. Instinctively, Sheridan grabbed his and fired.

  The bullet blasted through Berkey’s right arm, smashing into his side and lodging near the fifth rib. The street erupted into screams. Bleeding profusely, Berkey ran across the street with Clara to take refuge in an ice cream parlor. Sheridan tried to flee, but was quickly surrounded by citizens, who backed him against a wall. They would have lynched him right there, stringing him from a lamppost, but he held them off with his gun until the marshal arrived.

  Charged with felonious assault on an unarmed man, Sheridan was held for six months at the old Jackson County jail, clinging to a plea of self-defense. But finally he realized such a plea was useless: Berkey’s friends all insisted he’d had no gun. Sheridan pleaded guilty, and on April 19, 1902, he was sentenced to two years in prison.

  When he was released, he got his gun back.

  He headed west, eventually joining his mother and his law-abiding younger brother Hugh in Los Angeles, where they had relocated after the Berkey scandal. The family lived first at 720 South Westlake Avenue, and then moved to 725 South Alvarado Street.

  After a while, the ever-restless Sheridan bolted for San Diego, where his young hophead girlfriend, May Ryan, made him forget all about Clara Williams. May’s arrest record for drugs and prostitution was almost as long as Sheridan’s for bunco jobs and counterfeiting. Sheridan was “one of a bunch of three that have been trimming suckers on a match game,” a 1916 arrest report noted. A year later he was written up as “a known bunco” who “had a phony roll on his person.” Sheridan went by a variety of aliases, including Cole and Ashton.<
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  He finally became Blackie Madsen after returning to Los Angeles about a year earlier. The move back was likely occasioned by the death of his brother Hugh in June 1921. Madsen was pretty coldhearted, but he had a soft spot for his mother, who’d shed so many tears over him. Now that she was alone, Blackie would at least be nearby. He and May moved into the Louvre Apartments on East Washington Street, but their primary social life was up in the hills of Beachwood Drive with Don and Rose.

  What a celebration they’d have if he and Osborn came back with the kind of payola they anticipated from Bushnell.

  So long as the banker didn’t pull any fast ones on him, like that damn Writ Berkey.

  In Springfield, Osborn registered at the Shawnee Hotel at the corner of Main and Limestone Streets; Madsen checked in at the Arcade at High Street and Fountain Avenue. Once again, Bushnell’s money paid their way.

  Within hours of their arrival, Osborn put their plan into action.

  The day was cold and blustery, so different from Southern California. Osborn walked the half block from his hotel to the First National Bank, on the first floor of the Bushnell Building. The five-story Beaux Arts structure, ornamented with lions’ heads, anthemions, and cherubs, had been built by Asa S. Bushnell, the fortieth governor of Ohio and the father of Osborn’s intended patsy. Every morning on his way into work, the younger Bushnell walked beneath his father’s initials, carved in a circle like those of a king on top of his building.

  Osborn made his way inside.

  Asking to see the president, he gave his name as H. L. Putnam. When asked if Mr. Bushnell knew him, Osborn replied that he was the brother of Rose Putnam. He was certain that Mr. Bushnell would make the time to see him.

  He was right. Osborn was quickly ushered into Bushnell’s private office.

  The banker’s appearance was austere and patrician. He had a high forehead, a prominent chin, and gray hair parted in the middle and slicked back. At five-seven, he had to crane his neck to look up at the six-foot-three Osborn.

  How different the two men were.

  On the wall of Bushnell’s office hung his diploma from Princeton. In addition to the bank, he was also president of the Champion Construction Company and the Springfield, Troy and Piqua Railroad, built by his father. He’d just gotten back from the spectacular National Horse Show in New York, where Reginald Vanderbilt’s stallion Fortitude had won the top honors and Bushnell had been elected to another term on the board of directors. He lived with his wife, three children, and an army of servants in a home described in city catalogs as “one of Springfield’s most beautiful and luxurious residences.”

  The two men studied each other.

  Bushnell asked where Rose was. Osborn went into his act, feigning fear and concern. He said that Rose was being held by federal agents in the town of Lima, seventy miles away. The agents had been shadowing them ever since they’d left Los Angeles, Osborn said. They were investigating the trip Rose had taken with Bushnell more than a year earlier to New Orleans. The agents believed that Bushnell’s actions had violated the Mann Act.

  In that moment, the bottom dropped out of Bushnell’s privileged world.

  The White Slave Traffic Act, better known as the Mann Act, had been passed in 1910 to prohibit the interstate transport of women for “immoral purposes.” Its intent was to combat prostitution rings, but its ambiguous language was frequently used to criminalize consensual sex. If convicted, Bushnell would face prison time, as well as personal and financial ruin.

  But Osborn offered him a way out. The agents holding Rose might drop their investigation if Bushnell was willing to “put up something.” Bushnell asked how much money the agents wanted. Osborn pretended ignorance, explaining that he’d have to ask an agent to meet them and make an offer. They arranged to meet later that day at the Shawnee Hotel.

  Shortly thereafter, a coded message was left at the Arcade for Madsen, who then went into his own act.

  He met Bushnell and Osborn at the appointed time and place, wearing a gray suit with red pinstripes. Madsen introduced himself as Robbins, “a special agent and inspector of the United States Department of Justice.” He tried to set Bushnell’s mind at ease. He wasn’t anxious to prosecute the case, he said, and suggested he “might be able to arrange things.”

  Bushnell, cutting to the chase, asked how much money he wanted. Ten thousand dollars, “Robbins” replied. In exchange, he’d give Bushnell all the letters and telegrams he’d sent to Rose. The banker accepted the deal. He told them to meet him the next day outside the Pennsylvania train station.

  At their respective hotels that night, Osborn and Madsen kept their fingers crossed that their scheme would work.

  Bushnell showed up as promised. Snapping open his briefcase, he revealed the money wrapped in paper. Ten thousand dollars in various denominations. As “Robbins” took the cash from him, the banker noticed the blue star tattooed on his wrist. Wasn’t it odd for a government agent to have such a tattoo? Then he demanded the return of his letters.

  Madsen handed over a bundle of papers. Bushnell didn’t need to go through them to know his letters weren’t all there. He became angry. This wasn’t what he’d been promised!

  Madsen snarled at him to calm down. Another agent had the remainder of the correspondence in Chicago, and he’d send it to him in the mail.

  The banker glared at Madsen. This was starting to seem fishy. As a federal agent, Bushnell asked, wasn’t he afraid to take a bribe?

  Madsen didn’t reply. He didn’t like being confronted.

  For a moment, hostility crackled between the two men. No doubt thinking of the gun on Blackie’s hip, Osborn tensed.

  Bushnell continued to provoke. How would “Robbins” explain the case being dismissed to his superiors in Washington? The banker moved aggressively close to Madsen’s face. He needed assurances that this whole deal was final.

  Osborn watched Madsen anxiously. Would he pull his gun? Would he blow Bushnell away for pushing him too far?

  But Madsen checked his anger. He told Bushnell not to worry, that “they had a way of explaining these things.” Bushnell finally backed off.

  Now it was Osborn who pushed things. Feeling greedy, he told the banker he was going to need some cash to get Rose home. Bushnell opened his wallet and handed him fifty bucks.

  They hurried off their separate ways.

  On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe to Los Angeles, Osborn and Madsen whooped it up. They were rich! Ten thousand smackers!

  Back in Tinseltown, they couldn’t help bragging to all the locusts about their scheme. What a patsy Bushnell was! It was like taking candy from a baby—right down to that last fifty bucks. Rose called Bushnell a cheapskate for thinking he could get in good with them for a lousy fifty bucks.

  Best of all: there was more where that came from. They still had several letters from Bushnell—the makings for a second shakedown after they blew through this first ten grand. Gibby told him not spend it all; she wanted Osborn to invest some of it in her new production company. She’d make him a famous director, she promised.

  As his ex-wife had said, though, Osborn wasn’t the sort of man who liked to work. If he could make this much money by squeezing millionaires, who needed a studio job?

  The parties at Beachwood Drive grew bigger and louder. Hot jazz, cold hooch.

  But one locust had finally had enough.

  At last one man’s conscience was stirred. The time had come, he decided, to put an end to Don Osborn’s parties.

  CHAPTER 58

  A COLD-BLOODED BUSINESS

  But where was Mabel? Nobody seemed to know.

  As the holidays approached, Mabel was supposed to be in Hollywood, but she wasn’t. Since returning from Europe, she’d pretty much become incognito. Though she was expected at the Sennett studio the first week of December to start work on her new picture, she hadn’t shown. Nor was she at the Ritz, her usual New York haunt.

  No one thought to look for her in a little art
ist’s studio in Greenwich Village, where she’d been hiding out for several weeks, shopping for herself and making her own meals. Until the weather got too cold, Mabel had been dirtying her hands in the neighborhood garden where local artists “planted, sowed and reaped together.” She’d loved every minute of it.

  More than a dozen years earlier, when Mabel first left Staten Island, she’d lived in little Manhattan ateliers not so different from this one. Moving among painters, poets, and musicians, she’d been happy. Maybe if she had remained in New York, working as an artist’s model, instead of chasing after Sennett to Hollywood, she would have remained happy. Living in a community of free spirits like herself, she might have become a writer instead of an actress. A poet, even. Mabel rather liked the image of herself as a Greenwich Village bohemian.

  Ever since she’d returned from Europe, Mabel had been a changed person. Her priorities were different. She had seen the world, as her father had encouraged her—and she had discovered that not everything revolved around production budgets or press releases. Not everyone was preoccupied by the latest Hollywood scandal. From London to Paris to Rome she had traipsed, encountering history and culture and real people living real lives. In the process, Mabel had come alive herself.

  Her luck, Mabel believed, had changed. And she proved it in the casinos of Monte Carlo, where everything she touched had “turned into gold.”

  When she got back to New York, she had settled into a friend’s apartment in Greenwich Village. Ever since, she’d lived simply. She read books. She gardened. She took walks. Reporters were looking for her, but no one knew where she was. Mabel liked that.

  Still, she knew she’d have to go back to Tinseltown eventually. How she wished she could hop on a ship instead and sail back across the Atlantic. To a friend she’d met in London, Mabel wrote on December 10: “You all made me so wonderfully happy and welcome. Many times I’m rather lonesome and wish I could have that glorious day all over again.”