Velez appeared in more than forty films, including a comedy with Laurel and Hardy.
The Mexican-born beauty preferred death to unwed motherhood.
Lupe Velez committed suicide in her bedroom.
“I asked her to marry me” claimed lover Harald Ramond.
Lupe left a hastily penned suicide note for her lover, Harald.
Velez’s dogs Chips and Chops.
Harald Ramond gazes as Lupe lies in a silk-lined casket.
1946
The Borrowed Baby Bank Robbery • Newlyweds Arrested
Clearly, the good-looking young couple robbing the bank was not experienced. Their handwritten ransom note had some grammatical errors, and they had taken the time to cross out the mistakes and correct them. But what these newlyweds and first-time criminals lacked in expertise, they made up for with ingenuity: they “borrowed” a four-year-old boy and used the little guy as a miniature hostage in a brazen mid-day robbery on November 30, 1944.
The bandit husband, Thomas Loritz, a Marine on medical discharge, held the child in his arms as he handed the bank manager the note, which read, “This child in my arms is not my own…its life depends solely on your willingness to do as told. Refrain from giving any alarm or you will be killed first, then the child. One quiver of your lips and it will be your last warning.”
The manager quickly counted out the ransom demand, three thousand dollars, and gave the money to the couple. With cash in hand, the pretty redheaded bride, named June, and her handsome husband left the bank. They returned the child to his mother, checked into a swank hotel nearby and then took off for an afternoon at the racetrack.
How did they even get the child in the first place? Hard to believe, but they simply drove into a neighborhood, saw a mother playing with her pre-schooler in the front yard, walked up to the mom and told a whopper of a lie. June Loritz tearfully confided that their son had just died of an illness, and he had looked just like this little boy, Dougie. Would the mother mind if they took him for ice cream? They promised to be back in ten minutes. “Oh you poor things,” consoled the mother, allowing them to take her little boy for a treat.
At least the mother wasn’t completely oblivious to the oddity of their actions; she wrote down the couple’s license plate number as they drove off. She waited for Thomas and June to bring her baby back, growing more nervous with each passing minute. After an hour, just as the now-terrified mother was about to call police, the couple returned and dropped Dougie off. The relieved mother hugged her son. “Man play cowboy,” Dougie told his mom as the couple drove away. She had no idea what he meant, until she read the newspaper report the next day about the “Baby Burglary.” She immediately called police.
The four-year-old child gave police valuable clues, telling them he was at a place that had a swimming pool. Armed with that information and the license plate info from the mom, the cops tracked down the Bonnie and Clyde wannabes at a local hotel and arrested them. Turns out the couple had been married for just two weeks and had only met six weeks before; they’d never had a child. June was the twenty-two-year-old daughter of a wealthy plantation owner in Hawaii. Her new husband was an unemployed twenty-six-year-old Lothario who had swept her off her feet by promising her a lifetime of adventures
A second note threatened, “I have the bead on you as you read this!”
Thomas Loritz and his bride June were charged with kidnapping and robbery.
Mom Mildred Gray, child in hand confronts June Loritz.
1947
Who Killed Mobster Bugsy Siegel? • Casanova Mobster Slain
Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel liked to think of himself as a classy guy, which is why he hated his nickname, one that stuck because it described his rage-filled outbursts—he would “go bughouse.”
Siegel, a gangster from Hell’s Kitchen in New York, was sent to Los Angeles by his East Coast crime bosses to tap into the West Coast’s lucrative vice market. He moved to Beverly Hills with his wife and two kids and began living a double life, hobnobbing with movie stars at fancy parties one day and, allegedly killing mob man “Big Greenie” Greenberg the next. Siegel hired big-gun attorney Jerry Geisler to defend him, and the murder charge was dismissed. Only one charge (out of dozens filed against him) ever stuck: a conviction for illegal gambling at a Miami hotel. He was fined one hundred dollars.
Siegel was quite the ladies’ man, despite the fact he was married. His entrée into the social world of Beverly Hills was not only his charm, but also his relationship with hot-blooded Countess Dorothy Taylor di Frasso, an heiress and world-famous socialite who was jaded by her wealth, bored with her husband, and longing for adventure. First, the countess bedded bad-boy Bugsy, then she squired him around town. She loved having a real-life mobster in her social circle. Their adventures were epic, like the time she took Bugsy to Europe to meet her friend, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. The countess was trying to interest Mussolini in buying Atomite, a new explosive material Dorothy had invested in, thanks to Bugsy’s advice. A test of the explosive failed, producing just a puff of smoke.
Another expensive disaster was funded by the countess: a wacky treasure-hunting cruise for buried gold on Cocos Island off Costa Rica. It began with a wedding on deck. (Jean Harlow’s stepdad married his new girlfriend on board; Bugsy and the countess were best man and maid of honor.) Once the motley crew reached the island, they dug for a few days, found nothing, then retreated to sit in the shade on board. They sipped exotic drinks as they watched a determined, but unsuccessful, Bugsy nearly blow up the island in search of the elusive fortune.
Siegel’s next conquest was Las Vegas, where he built the city’s first luxury casino, the Flamingo, with the help of mob investors. Construction costs spiraled out of control. Siegel was deep in debt, by about three million dollars. The Flamingo was a flop. His investor pals in the syndicate wanted their money back, especially once they heard the rumors that Siegel was skimming money from the building budget for personal use.
On the night he died, June 20, 1947, Siegel went out with pals for a trout dinner, then he and his friend Al Smiley returned to the house of Siegel’s current girlfriend, Virginia Hill, on North Linden Drive around 10 p.m. (She was out of town, allegedly having been alerted to leave “for her health.”) Siegel settled into the pillows on the sofa and started reading the newspaper. Suddenly, shots rang out; bullets from a .30-caliber Army carbine came smashing through the living room window. Smiley ducked, unharmed. Siegel was killed almost instantly—two bullets to the head, two to his body. An eyeball reportedly flew across the room like a Superball.
It was a perfectly staged execution. Bugsy Siegel was dead at the age of forty-one. As the Daily News put it, “Bugsy had too much lead in his head to get up off the couch that night.” No one was ever arrested for Bugsy’s murder, despite about a dozen “confessions” from attention seekers that all proved to be false. A deathbed confession from Eddie Cannizzaro was intriguing—but his information on the getaway route didn’t match the facts. So theories linger: who killed Bugsy and why?
Perhaps the most accurate version comes from former Beverly Hills officer Dick Clason, who was on the force when a mob insider came into the station and told an officer what may be the real story of how Siegel was murdered. The informant said Tony Brancato and Tony Trombino were the killers, hit men hired by Joe Adonis, a crime boss who was supposedly mediating Siegel’s troubles with the East Coast mob. Reportedly, when Adonis learned Siegel was stealing money from the mob, Adonis arranged for the “Two Tonys” to kill him.
Lending credence to the “Two Tonys” theory: a few years after Bugsy was executed, the two Tonys were found in the front seat of a car on a dark street in Los Angeles, each with a single bullet in the back of his head. As for Siegel, the Casanova mobster became a legend in death, but at his funeral, only a few family members and a rabbi showed up. None of his fancy Hollywood pals, not even the countess, could make it; they sent their regrets instead.
&
nbsp; Clark Fogg’s Analysis:
After looking at all the evidence, including morgue photos like the one where Bugsy’s eye sockets have been filled with cotton, I believe it’s quite possible there were two sharpshooters standing by the rose trellis outside the living room the night Siegel was killed. Perhaps both Tonys were “drawing a bead” (aiming) at Bugsy. It would have been nearly impossible for just one gunman to nail both eyes so precisely; the mobster’s head would have turned upon impact from the first bullet. No hit man is that great. Most likely you had two guys outside; one guy said, “I’ll take the left eye; you take the right.”
Before: Siegel was as handsome as any movie star.
After: Siegel as he appeared in the morgue.
Bugsy’s business card was found in his wallet the night of the murder, along with $408 in cash.
Whoever killed Bugsy Siegel crept up to a rose trellis by a window at this house at 810 North Linden.
Bugsy’s sudden death
A total of nine shots were fired; some shattered a statue before puncturing the wall and the painting.
Girlfriends Virginia Hill, mistress to many notorious mobsters, moved to Austria and never spoke to investigators about the murder.
Bugsy’s wife Esther Siegel told reporters, “Bugsy was a good husband.”
Mistress Countess Dorothy di Frasso introduced Siegel to “the swells” at a birthday party for William Randolph Hearst.
This newspaper montage about Bugsy featured a .30-caliber rifle, which had a magazine that typically holds 15 rounds. It’s possible one shooter could have reloaded, or that two rifles were used.
The car radio was still playing when police arrived to discover the “Two Tonys” had each taken two bullets to the head, gunned down on North Ogden Street in Hollywood.
The coroner’s office affixed identifying toe-tags to Tony and Tony after they were executed, gangland style.
Trials and Tragedies
The 1950s
If you had to pick one decade of classic decadence and debauchery in Beverly Hills, the 1950s would be a good choice. Seems the whole world is watching and gossiping about the celebrity shenanigans going on in this town that all but glitters with stardust.
“She should be spanked!” screams a British tabloid headline, reporting with disdain that the beautiful eighteen-year-old “junior star” Elizabeth Taylor broke off two engagements quite suddenly before marrying twenty-three-year-old Conrad Hilton Jr., son of the famous hotel millionaire. The young couple’s over-the-top wedding ceremony at the Church of the Good Shepherd causes so much fanfare that the city is shut down for a few hours. Just eight months later, the local papers unleash this juicy tidbit: “The Hero and Heroine of Hollywood’s Gaudiest Wedding—Separated!”
It’s not the only high-profile marriage to fizzle fast. Over on Palm Drive, police have been called out for crowd control at Marilyn Monroe’s house. The press has arrived en masse, anxious to ask the blonde beauty for a comment at an impromptu press conference. Her marriage to baseball-great Joe DiMaggio has lasted less than a year. Monroe approaches the microphones, attorney by her side. The actress is losing it, barely holding on. She tries to say something but can’t speak. This reaction to her shattered marriage is no act. Monroe’s attorney gives a terse explanation, “The divorce is the result of a conflict of careers.”
The tabloids are in their glory—actresses nearly collapsing make for great headlines. Stars getting drunk in public make for even more exciting copy. Every week it seems as if there’s a new incident. The police department acquires a new weapon called the “Drunkometer,” a portable device that lets officers check blood-alcohol levels on site as soon as they pull over suspected drunk drivers. One of the first actors to get nabbed is actor Cesar Romero. Romero is arrested for drinking and driving and crashing “in the wee small hours,” as the newspaper reports.
But it’s not just the stars behaving badly; now, it’s their children too, who are all grown up. Charlie Chaplin Jr., in his early thirties, is hauled into court on a DUI charge. The press snaps a photo as he enters the police station. He’s holding a cigarette, facing the cameras with an odd look on his face: should he smile or look contrite?
John Barrymore Jr., son of the famous actor John Barrymore Sr., strikes a similar pose with cigarette in hand when he’s in court for a felony hit-and-run, drunk driving offense. This working actor’s chiseled good looks make it seem more like a photo op than an incoming-inmate picture.
The ladies of the silver screen aren’t exempt from the drunken dramas, either. Dora Dodge, a bit actress who, at twenty-eight, married fifty-one-year-old auto heir Horace Dodge Jr., is jailed on charges of intoxication and battery. Big mistake to spit on and slug the officers who are detaining you. “I spit fire,” she admitted in an interview. “I always have and I always will.”
“The Body,” singer and actress Marie McDonald, is in trouble too. Her career isn’t much to talk about, but her personal life sure is. Married seven times and a former mistress of Bugsy Siegel, she can obviously get a man, but when it comes to movie parts—not so easy. The actress tries to generate some publicity by staging her own fake kidnapping. The next time she’s featured in the papers, it’s for driving drunk; she smashed her car into three parked cars and rear-ended a fourth at a stop sign. When the cops arrest her, Marie bites one of the officers, then tells the press through crocodile tears that she has been the victim of police brutality. “Absolutely false—she staged a one-woman riot in our jail,” clarifies the police chief, who demands, and receives, a public apology from McDonald.
Some sad and bizarre cases pop into the headlines. The sad cases include a tragic ending for aging actor Lewis Stone. He dies of a heart attack on his front lawn while chasing neighborhood kids who were throwing rocks at his garage. Among the bizarre is the wacky story of “The Ink Attack” at a Beverly Hills movie theater. A jealous thirty-eight-year-old wife, Leona Levenson, walks in and starts casing the aisles, looking for her cheating husband. She finds him sitting with his older mistress, fifty-year-old Fritzie. The wife pulls out jars of ink and hurls them at the covert couple. Not only does she douse her spouse, but she also slimes everyone sitting nearby. Leona is arrested and admits to police that she is also the person who poured molasses all over the couple at a ballgame about a month earlier. “Next time,” she threatens, “I think I’ll use a ball bat.” The couple is soon divorced, and no more attacks are reported.
Temptation means trouble for many in Beverly Hills. Vice officers get a tip about an underground strip club operating at a private hall just around the corner from the Beverly Hills Pawn Shop on Wilshire Boulevard. More than 150 guys pile into the makeshift club anxious to see the show. But instead of exotic dancers, that night’s entertainment features undercover officers who take center stage and announce, “This is a raid. Hands up —everyone.” Ten people, including two strippers, are taken into custody.
Stories of broken dreams in this beautiful city continue to draw press attention, but the poster child of failure during this decade is Marshall “Mickey” Neilan, one of the most talented and witty actors-turned-directors of early motion pictures. Neilan drinks too much and squanders his fortune, estimated at over eight million dollars. He is arrested repeatedly for writing bad checks. “I was making fifteen thousand dollars a week one year—the next, I couldn’t get fifteen cents.”
Although he dies almost penniless in 1958, his colleagues in the industry rally for him at the end, sending him to the Motion Picture and Television Country Home and Hospital, a special facility funded by Mary Pickford and other actors to “take care of their own.” It is a bittersweet ending to a fabulous life, and a sometimes fabulous decade.
Marilyn Monroe hounded by the press after her divorce from Joe DiMaggio is announced.
Frank Levenson
Thirty-eight year old Leona Levenson admits to police she sloshed ink at her philandering husband, Frank, and his mistress.
The uniforms of the st
ylish meter maids, known as the “Parkettes” were designed by the famed Parisian couturier Christian Dior.
Elizabeth Taylor married Conrad “Nicky” Hilton in 1950.
Charles Chaplin Jr., posed for a mug shot.
1950s
Charity Scammer’s Tragic End • The Vivian Lingle Lies
When it came to getting money from the rich in Beverly Hills, Vivian Lingle was the best fundraiser in the city. But unbeknownst to society matrons and superstars (like singer Bing Crosby), Vivian was a world-class scam artist who launched some of the most ingenious war-themed scams police had ever seen.
Her story has an ugly ending, but it began quite innocently. Lingle worked her way up the Beverly Hills social ladder with a legitimate fundraising group called The Women’s Emergency Corps. Once she saw how easy it was to get people to donate money for causes that helped war veterans, she started hatching schemes for her own benefit. The Emergency Corps disbanded right after the war, but Lingle usurped the name and used it as the perfect cover to finance the good life she craved.
When Vivian wanted a new place to live, she came up with this plan: find a luxury rental apartment and get other people to pay the bill. The scheme worked like a charm. She raised money by convincing romance-starved society wives and friends to donate money to rent and furnish an apartment that would serve as a special welcome-back spot for returning war vets reuniting with their wives. The money poured in. Vivian moved in. Then she held Champagne and caviar parties to show off the luxury digs, raising even more money to keep the scam going.
Beverly Hills Confidential : A Century of Stars, Scandals and Murders Page 7