The department adds its first female officers, called “matrons.” (They wouldn’t be known as “officers” until the 1970s.) More movie stars are moving into Beverly Hills, like actor Jimmy Stewart and comedian Groucho Marx. No doubt they feel extra safe in a town whose police chief is known for being a great keeper of secrets (what speeding ticket?). It’s a good thing the chief insists on discretion, since his staff deals with lots of only-in-Beverly-Hills cases. Like the time they find the “I vant to be alone” movie star Greta Garbo standing alone in her front yard in just a flimsy nightgown. She’s just shimmied down a drainpipe after crawling out of her bedroom window. The strange noises she heard were, indeed, an intruder, who dropped his loot as soon he saw police.
Not only do Beverly Hills movie stars get lots of news attention, so do some odd stories happening here. For example, the one about a stinky good-bye. Chief Anderson and another officer are attending the funeral of a small-time hoodlum, Pauly Gibbons. They want to get a good look at some of the dead man’s acquaintances. The eulogy is underway when suddenly a ragged bum teeters in, hands the mortician a long-stemmed roses box and staggers away. The box looks heavy. Curious, the mortuary owner removes the attached card and reads the note, “To my Pal.” He unties the ribbon, opens the lid and gags. Instead of roses, the box is filled with horse manure. The chief said they never did find out who sent the “condolences.”
Then there’s the time officers are called to a Beverly Hills home because a producer has dropped in. Literally. Eccentric millionaire and maverick film producer Howard Hughes has been trying to land his crippled XF-11 plane at the Los Angeles Country Club, but the aircraft is losing power, falling fast. The wings shear through two homes before the plane crashes into a third house on North Whittier Drive, bursting into flames. Miraculously, Hughes survives after a neighbor pulls him from the wreckage; his injuries are severe and he sustains third-degree burns. A patrolman, going through the rubble at the crash site the next day, finds Mr. Hughes’s good-luck charm, his hat, and returns it to the tycoon at the hospital. Mr. Hughes thanks him with a five-thousand-dollar check.
Chief Anderson delights in nothing more than when his department looks good. Years after Anderson’s death, an officer who worked for him revealed how they used to fudge crime statistics to keep their boss happy. “If ten offices in a building were burglarized, we’d file only one report. If the thief was apprehended, we filed reports of ten cases closed.”
Funny thing about image, so often it’s not what it seems. The world sees 1940s Beverly Hills as glitzy and glamorous, a place where you live when your dreams have come true. Not so for everyone. A pitiable skid row drunk roaming Beverly Hills and Hollywood is an eyesore and a nuisance, talking to herself and begging for money. Little does anyone realize who she is—Helen Lee Worthing, the beautiful Ziegfeld Girl and 1920s international dance sensation, whose subsequent acting career fizzled. After she dies in a shack in the Forties, officers find a thick scrapbook by her side, full of old yellowed clippings extolling her long-gone beauty. “Fame is cruel,” Anderson wrote in his memoir. “In their race to fame and fortune, people forget the most important thing about living, which is to live right.”
Police Chief Clinton Anderson’s 1960 memoir Beverly Hills Is My Beat detailed highlights of a long career
Mobster Pauley Gibbons bullet-riddled car.
Investigators inspect the shiny black Chrysler in which gangster Pauly Gibbons was riding in before he was killed.
Charlie Chaplin starred in The Great Dictator (1940).
Actress Hedy Lamarr confronts robbers who invaded her home.
Once the toast of Broadway, Helen Lee Worthing died drunk and alone.
An oil leak may have cause one the propellers to reverse pitch, resulting in the crash of Howard Hughes’ plane. Hughes reimbursed homeowners for property damage caused by the crash.
1940
Beverly Hills Athletic Club Scandal • Trump Card-Murder
Jovial businessman Elmer Perry had a great reputation in Beverly Hills. If you needed a room for a big event, he’d give you a great deal at his place, the Beverly Hills Athletic Club on South Roxbury Drive. But what many upstanding citizens and customers didn’t know was that Perry moonlighted as a professional gambler, running a covert gaming operation out of the back room of the club where gangsters like Bugsy Siegel loved to play. Perry was also in cahoots with Tony Cornero, the king of the wildly popular floating casinos like the Lux and the Rex, that were anchored several miles offshore in Santa Monica Bay, floating just outside the reach of the law.
But Perry’s luck ran out one night when two gamblers from the back room walked into the front room to poach an annual dinner meeting of a civic organization with wealthy members. They mingled and charmed the guests into playing a “friendly” game of craps. The swindlers then ran the tables. Unhappy guests called police, and the morning headlines on February 5, 1940 read, “Detectives Smash Door to Reach Games; Poker Chips Taken from Tables.”
Perry was found guilty of running an illegal gaming operation and paid a fine but apparently didn’t learn his lesson. He continued to play hide-and-seek gambling games with the cops, all the while complaining loudly and publicly that police were harassing him. “I am,” he insisted, “a gracious and philanthropic host.”
Once, when police tried to shut down yet another illegal gaming event and get Perry’s liquor license revoked, they were outmaneuvered. The smooth operator flooded the State Board of Equalization with glowing letters of support from civic groups, rabbis, and priests who all had received reduced rental rates for charity events at the club. The notes praised Perry’s kindness and the club’s “atmosphere of refinement.” Perry won that legal round and kept his liquor license. Chief Anderson was dismayed. “Once again the Perry affair demonstrates…how smooth-talking con men can hoodwink many reputable citizens, who then personally vouch for them as character witnesses.”
Perry eventually sold the club but never got to enjoy retirement.
He was found dead in a car parked near the La Brea Tar Pits a few months later, shot twice in the head. Police said it was a gangland-style slaying. The killers were never caught.
Clark Fogg’s Analysis:
Perry was consistently trying to cover his tracks, not only with the police and federal authorities, but also with organized-crime figures. Those gambling ships were probably the main reason for his downfall. A number of reliable sources stated that Perry was not only getting a share in the profits from these floating “money machines,” but he was also skimming additional funds. Perry’s murder, conducted in a typical mob fashion, also sent a clear message to all: do not to skim monies from the higher-ups. As for the local gaming halls—they were small stuff, used primarily to bolster his fancy lifestyle and give him an appearance of legitimacy with community leaders.
Gambling Gangster Elmer Perry profited handsomely from covert gaming operations on land and sea.
The Rex was anchored off the coast of Santa Monica.
Patrons gambled aboard the Rex.
1942
Charlie Chaplin Paternity Scandal • Is He the Dad?
Charlie Chaplin was the world’s biggest star of the silent movie era—the internationally loved “Little Tramp” with the too-small suit, the too-big shoes, and that twirling cane. But his reputation was tarnished by another starring role: a real-life drama that exploded into the biggest celebrity scandal of the decade involving babies, blood tests, and big problems for the Beverly Hills Police Department.
On December 23, 1942, twenty-three-year-old aspiring actress Joan Barry (nee Joan Berry; Chaplin Studios changed her name to Barry in 1941) arrived at fifty-four-year-old Chaplin’s Summit Drive mansion with a gun. She broke into his home and cornered her former lover. He’d promised Barry a part in his new movie, called Shadow and Substance (it was never produced), but had been ignoring her for weeks—no more acting lessons, no more private dates. Plus, she’d heard rumors he had a new g
irl. Barry was furious, demanding answers, wildly waving her gun. (Chaplin, she would later claim, was turned on by the sight, telling her he liked this new “wrinkle” in their love life.)
Chaplin didn’t call the police that night, but he did about a week later, on New Year’s Eve, when his former protégée-turned-stalker showed up again, this time scantly clad in men’s clothing, sitting in her car, refusing to leave. Officers arrived, and, at the star’s request, arrested the redhead for vagrancy. Barry pled guilty, was put on probation, and taken to the train station by a Beverly Hills police officer who gave her a ticket out of town and one hundred dollars from one of Chaplin’s “people.”
But Barry wasn’t done with Chaplin yet. In May of 1943, she walked into gossip columnist Hedda Hopper’s office and confided that she was pregnant with the superstar’s baby, and that he had tried to “float” her out of town with the help of the Beverly Hills police. For the next three years, Chaplin was embroiled in a riveting legal drama. Not only did Barry slap Chaplin with a paternity suit after the birth of baby Carol Ann, but Chaplin and his “people,” including that officer who put Barry on the train, were also indicted for conspiring to violate her civil rights. Those federal charges were eventually dropped, but his fan base was rapidly diminishing, especially when Chaplin romanced, then married, yet another young woman, eighteen-year-old Oona O’Neill, during the trial. (He courted O’Neill with the promise of the lead in that same movie he’d offered to Barry.)
The paternity suit ended on a dramatic note. Chaplin had voluntarily taken blood tests that his attorney said proved he wasn’t the father, but the results were inadmissible in court. So in the climactic final moments, Chaplin was asked to stand next to the toddler so the jury could compare profiles. They decided he was the father, and Chaplin was ordered to pay child support. He unsuccessfully appealed the case all the way to the California Supreme Court.
More drama followed the sensational trial. In 1952, when Chaplin was in London for the premiere of his movie, Limelight (1952), he was denied re-entry into the United States because of alleged Communist sympathies. Chaplin and Oona moved to Switzerland in self-imposed exile, where they raised eight children, the last was born when Chaplin was seventy-three. Chaplin did make one trip back to Beverly Hills after twenty years of living overseas. He accepted a special honorary award at the 1972 Academy Awards, where he was greeted with thunderous applause and a standing ovation. The Chaplin marriage lasted thirty-five years, until Chaplin’s death of natural causes at the age of eighty-eight. Oona Chaplin survived her husband by fourteen years, struggling with alcoholism before dying of pancreatic cancer at the age of sixty-six.
One final scandal occurred after Chaplin died. His body was stolen by grave robbers who dug up his 325-pound oak coffin from a Swiss cemetery a few months after his burial. Two suspects were arrested. Chaplin’s body was reburied, this time with six feet of concrete poured over the top of his casket.
As for Barry and her daughter Carol Ann? After a failed attempt at a singing career, Barry had a breakdown, and a legally appointed guardian raised her child. Time magazine reported in 1953 that Barry, then thirty-three years old, was institutionalized after she was found walking the streets barefoot, carrying a pair of baby sandals and a child’s ring, murmuring, “This is magic.”
Clark Fogg’s Analysis:
If today’s technology had been around, there probably would never have been a Chaplin paternity trial. DNA results are so conclusive that the case would have been resolved out of court. It’s also interesting to note that this kind of seduction story repeats itself throughout history. We had a similar case in 2007 (detailed in a later chapter) involving a clothing designer who also preyed on young girls. The method of seduction, or “grooming,” is the same: the men use their power and promises of fame to lure their prey. The big difference these days, however, is the increase in the use of date-rape drugs, such as GHB, Rohypnol, and ketamine that are secretly put into drinks or food. In a recent case, a supplier was arrested with over 800,000 tablets destined for distribution throughout Los Angeles.
Curious spectators line the halls as an FBI agent escorts Joan Barry into court.
Joan Barry told the court she and Chaplin became intimate two weeks after she signed his acting contract.
Chaplin’s fourth wife, Oona O’Neill, was the daughter of famed playwright Eugene O’Neill, who was outraged over the marriage.
The alleged “Chaplin Baby” in court.
Chaplin smiles with several of his children. Does his son to the left resemble Barry’s baby Carol Ann?
Chaplin submits to being fingerprinted, with attorney Jerry Geisler at his side.
Chaplin seduced Barry at his Beverly Hills home, 1085 Summit Drive.
Joan Barry admitted in court that she wrote this note.
1944
“Mexican Spitfire” Kills Self and Unborn Child • Tragic Goodbye
Whenever I see a man, there is something in here which must make me wrinkle my eyes at him. I cannot help myself any more than you can help yourself from breathing. Sometimes I say I will never flirt again. I sit around. I grow sick. When I cannot flirt with some mens, I get a fever.
—Actress Lupe Velez, also known as the “Mexican Spitfire”
Lupe Velez loved and lived for high drama. She died that way, too, at her 732 North Rodeo Drive home. Just thirty-six years old, the actress was found dead on December 14, 1944, reportedly lying under a silk coverlet in her movie-star-worthy bedroom decorated with white carpets, white satin drapes, and lush velour seating. She had surrounded herself with rose petals; an empty bottle of sleeping pills and two suicide notes were nearby.
The successful actress— who’d had many love affairs with leading men like Gary Cooper and a failed marriage to Tarzan star and Olympian Johnny Weissmuller— was pregnant. She wanted the father, actor Harald Ramond, to marry her. He wanted to wait. The couple had a fight, and Velez shoved the younger twenty-seven-year-old lover out of her house. Then she killed herself.
Her first suicide note read: “Harald, may God forgive you and forgive me, too, but I prefer to take my life away and our baby’s before I bring him shame or kill him. How could you, Harald, fake such a great love for me and our baby, when all the time you didn’t want us? I see no other way out for me, so goodbye and good luck to you. Love, Lupe.”
A senseless tragedy, especially because it may have been the result of a language barrier. Like Velez, English was not the Austrian Ramond’s first language. He said he was willing to marry Lupe, but he wanted to wait until his career was stable, telling friends he didn’t want to depend on Lupe’s money.
“I loved Lupe,” he confided to reporters. “I told her we could announce a ‘fake marriage’—but it was not wise to use that word.” Velez, he said, flew at him in a wild rage, unwilling to listen to his explanation that they would have a legal ceremony at a later date.
No doubt Velez would have loved all of the attention paid to her even after her death. After viewing the actress’s open casket at the funeral, gossip columnist Louella Parsons wrote in the Los Angeles Examiner, “Lupe was never lovelier [than] as she lay there, as if slumbering…a faint smile, like secret dreams…looking…like a good little girl.”
Then, after Velez’s funeral, there was a final moment of drama at an auction of her belongings. Silver trays, love seats, and her collection of expensive colognes were selling at a brisk pace when, suddenly, the bidding came to a screeching halt. Velez’s seven-foot-square, silk-covered suicide mattress was on the auction block. After several minutes of awkward silence, one of the auctioneer’s assistants bid seventy dollars, and the auction continued.
Velez’s second suicide letter, written to her secretary, read: “To my faithful friend. Say good-bye to all my friends and the American press that were always so nice to me. Take care of Chips and Chops” [her dogs].
Clark Fogg’s Analysis:
A famous urban myth surrounds this story: that
Lupe Velez died in her bathroom, head in toilet, while vomiting a combination of sleeping pills and her last, spicy Mexican dinner. We have nothing in our files that supports or disproves that theory. But there could be some truth to it. People respond differently to overdoses. Quite often, in fact, these suicide-by-pill incidents are accompanied by vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea, foaming of the mouth, confusion, sleepiness, even comas—all dangerous if the person breathes (aspirates) vomit into the lungs. With Lupe, I believe she didn’t want to vomit in the bed, since she was all dressed for the occasion. So I wouldn’t be surprised if there was vomit in the toilet, thus the rumors. We’ll probably never know exactly where she was when she died. Interestingly, this is one of the only cases in our files with no scene photos showing the deceased.
Beverly Hills Confidential : A Century of Stars, Scandals and Murders Page 6