“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.”
— Mark Twain
from my sketchbook: olive borden
Olive Borden (a distant relative of Lizzie Borden) knew she could make it. As a teenager, she persuaded her mother to move from their native Richmond, Virginia to Hollywood, where she knew she could be a star. The family made ends meet by running a candy store until Olive’s star took off.
And soon it did.
Olive, with her jet-black hair and striking features, became one of producer Mack Sennett’s Bathing Beauties (a springboard for future stars like Mabel Normand, Carole Lombard and Marie Prevost). Olive also appeared in a number of Hal Roach short subjects. In 1925, Olive was signed by Fox Studios for a whopping $1500 per week. She starred in eleven films for Fox and worked with pre-fame directors like John Ford and Howard Hawks.
Olive developed a reputation for being temperamental and difficult to work with. In 1927, Fox attempted to reduce her salary and a furious Olive walked out on the studio. She managed to land roles at rival Columbia and RKO Studios. However, with talking pictures gaining popularity, Olive was passed over for parts because of her prominent Southern accent. Her career began to fizzle in the early ’30s. She made her last screen appearance in Chloe, Love Is Calling You in 1934.
Despite her large salary at the height of her career, Olive was broke by the 1940s. She worked briefly as a post office clerk and nurse’s assistant, but health problems and alcohol abuse made working a struggle. She spent her final years scrubbing floors at the skid-row Sunshine Mission, a home for destitute women in Los Angeles. She died of pneumonia at 41. Her only possession was an autographed photo of herself.
In 1958, Olive was randomly selected as one of the first eight celebrities to receive a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
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from my sketchbook: john list
John List was faced with a dilemma. He had lost his job as an accountant. He was months behind on the mortgage payments for his nineteen-room mansion in Westfield, New Jersey. Burdened with heavy financial debt and accumulating bills, he could either force his family to accept government-sanctioned welfare or he could send them to Heaven and have God take care of them. He chose the latter.
On November 9, 1971, after his three children left for school, John List shot his wife Helen in the back of the head. He then shot his mother, who lived in an apartment in the family’s attic. When Patty and Frederick, two of the List’s three children arrived home, John shot them each in the back of the head, as well. Then, he made himself lunch. When he finished his meal, he went to watch his son, John Jr., play soccer.
After the game, John drove his son home and, upon entering the house, shot the fifteen-year-old. Later investigation showed that the teen obviously did not die immediately and was shot nine more times. John dragged all of the bodies to the home’s central ballroom and laid them on sleeping bags. He attempted to clean up the massive amounts of blood, but the task was overwhelming. He left bloodied towels and newspapers strewn about various rooms. John mailed letters to his children’s schools, informing them that the family would be traveling to North Carolina for an extended stay. He wrote a lengthy confession to his church pastor, explaining that he saw too much evil in the world and he decided to save the souls of his family. John turned all of the lights on in the house, tuned the house-wide sound system to a Christian radio station and left. His car was found in the long-term parking lot at Kennedy Airport, but there were no indications that he had boarded a flight. John List had disappeared.
Nearly a month later, neighbors alerted police that lights were burning out in the List house and, although the family was reclusive, no one had been seen entering or leaving for quite some time. Police broke into the locked residence and discovered the grisly scene.
In June 1989, almost eighteen years after the murders, John List was arrested in Richmond, Virginia, after a neighbor had seen his picture on an episode of the television program America’s Most Wanted.
John had moved to Denver, Colorado in 1972. He assumed the identity of Robert Clark and found work as an accountant. A decade later, he relocated to Midlothian, Virginia, where he met and married Delores Miller. When authorities in Virginia came for him, he fervently denied the accusations. When fingerprints, military records and crime scene evidence were presented, John List confessed.
At trial, John displayed a minimal amount of remorse. He blamed his actions on post-traumatic stress disorder, mental imbalance and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. The jury wasn’t buying any of it. He was convicted on five counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to five consecutive life terms. He passed away, in jail, from pneumonia at the age of 82.
In a 2002 interview, news correspondent Connie Chung asked John List why he didn’t kill himself after murdering his family. He answered, “I felt suicide would keep me out of Heaven.”
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IF: energy
“Listen, you pointy-eared bastard — the blasted dilithium crystals can’t regenerate! Now, hand me that bottle of Johnnie Walker Black… I need some energy!”
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from my sketchbook: bea benaderet
Bea Benaderet worked and worked and worked.
Early in her career, Bea appeared on countless popular radio shows in various character roles – telephone operators, landladies, sales clerks and most often “the neighbor.” Her keen knack for vocal inflection and dialects allowed her to portray several characters in one show, unbeknown to the radio audience. Bea also plied her voice talents in Warner Brothers cartoons alongside master voice artist Mel Blanc. She voiced female characters for decades, but, due to an exclusivity clause in Mel Blanc’s contract not permitting screen credit to any other voice artist, she was never acknowledged.
Bea co-starred with Lucille Ball in the radio comedy My Favorite Husband, the forerunner to I Love Lucy. When the decision was made to bring the show to television, Ball offer the role of neighbor Ethel Mertz to Bea. However, Bea was already recruited by George Burns to reprise her “neighbor” role on his TV sitcom, so she had to turn the part down (Gale Gordon, who played Bea’s husband had a similar commitment to the show Our Miss Brooks, allowing second choice William Frawley to step in as Fred Mertz).
After eight years on the Burns and Allen Show, Bea was cast as the voice of Betty Rubble on The Flintstones, reuniting with Mel Blanc voicing her husband Barney. In 1962, she auditioned for the role of “Granny” on a new series called The Beverly Hillbillies. She was told by creator Paul Henning that she was too buxom to portray the frail but feisty mother-in-law of series star Buddy Ebsen. Henning did cast her in the recurring part of Pearl Bodine, the mother of Ebsen’s character’s nephew Jethro, from back in the hills. Based on the popularity of The Beverly Hillbillies, Henning created Petticoat Junction and awarded Bea the starring role of hotel proprietor Kate Bradley. With two “rural comedies” under his belt, Henning produced Green Acres, based on a radio show called Granby’s Green Acres (again starring Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet). The lead couple was recast with Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor, although Bea appeared in several cross-over episodes as her Petticoat Junction character.
Four years into the run of Petticoat Junction, Bea was diagnosed with lung cancer. With the show finishing consistently among the top shows on television, Bea took what she had hoped would be a short leave of absence to deal with treatment for the disease. Actress Rosemary DeCamp filled in as “Aunt Helen.” Bea appeared sporadically in the show’s fifth season. Her condition worsened and after three shows in the sixth season, June Lockhart (playing the authoritative Dr. Janet Craig) was brought in as a substitute “motherly” figure. Bea’s stand-in (actress Edna Laird) was stuck into a few episodes, shot from behind with Bea’s voice dubbed into the soundtrack. Bea passed away in October 1968 at the age of 62.
On the day of her funeral, Bea’s husband, veteran sound-effects man Gene Twombly, died of a heart attack.
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IF: secret
Stephani Germanotta has a secret.
In 2007, young Stephani, a budding singer, was introduced to another singer named Lina Morgana by Sony Records producer Rob Fusari. Stephani and Lina began collaborating on songs, eventually penning nearly two dozen compositions. Lina, with her dark hair and exotic good looks, was the obvious choice for performing them. Stephani was awkward, slightly overweight and not attractive in the eyes of pop music. (Although Stephani was previously signed to Def Jam Records, she was dropped by the label after three months.) Lina, however, looked like she was headed to stardom.
But, in 2008, 19-year-old Lina Morgana jumped from the tenth floor of the Staten Island Hotel to her death.
Just months after Lina’s death, her friend Stephani emerged on the music scene. She had adopted her dead friend’s persona, including outlandish costuming, exaggerated makeup, vocal style and outrageous stage antics. She was even singing their collaborative songs.
And she was calling herself “Lady Gaga.”
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The Illustration Friday word was “secret” in June 2012. Here’s my entry from that time.
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from my sketchbook: ramón novarro
José Ramón Gil Samaniego and his family fled their native Mexico in 1913 to escape that country’s violent revolution. The family settled in Los Angeles. With a distant show business connection (actress Delores Del Rio was a second cousin), Ramón took bit parts in silent films while working as a singing waiter to supplement his income. He was befriended by actress Alice Terry and her husband, noted director Rex Ingram. The couple, respected in Hollywood circles, touted young Ramón as the successor to Rudolph Valentino. With support and a suggested name change from Ingram, Ramón Navarro was featured in more prominent roles in the early 1920s. The 1923 silent swashbuckler Scaramouche was Ramón’s breakout role.
After Valentino’s untimely and shocking death in 1926, Ramón’s popularity skyrocketed. He became the silver screen foremost Latin heartthrob. He starred opposite the top female stars of the day — Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, Greta Garbo, as well as his friend Alice Terry — in a succession of blockbuster films. However, by the middle 30s, Ramón’s stardom began to fizzle and MGM did not renew his contract. He worked sporadically, taking on mostly minor roles. When the new medium of television offered acting work, Ramón was able to secure guest star appearances in some Westerns and anthologies.
Ramón saved enough money from the height of his career that when he found it difficult to get work, his lifestyle did not suffer. He lived in a house in the Hollywood Hills, designed by second generation architect Lloyd Wright and maintained a comfortable existence.
In 1968, the aging Ramón contacted an agency and arranged for two young men to come to his house for an evening of sex. Twenty-two-year old Paul Ferguson and his seventeen-year old brother Tom arrived at Ramón’s home on the evening before Halloween. They were invited in, but they had other plans. The Ferguson brothers believed that the one-time film star had stashed a large sum of money hidden in the house. Once inside, they tied Ramón up with an electrical cord and tortured him, eventually beating him to death. The next morning, Ramón’s secretary, Edward Weber, arrived for work and discovered the actor’s blood-soaked naked body wrapped in a sheet among the ransacked residence. He had cuts on his head and neck, as well as numerous welts and lacerations. The determined cause of death was “suffocation due to massive bleeding.” Ramón had drowned in his own blood.
A police investigation led to an arrest of the Ferguson brothers. During their trial, it was revealed that their violent efforts netted them a sum of $20, a single bill that they took from the pocket of Ramón’s bathrobe. As far as the culprit of Ramón’s murder, Paul and Tom pointed the finger at each other. They served time in San Quentin Prison. Tom was paroled in 1976, but re-arrested for another crime two years later. He died in prison in 2005. Paul Ferguson was paroled in 1978, but was also re-arrested for rape and returned to prison in Missouri. He is due to be released in 2022.
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IF: creature
Universal Pictures classic Frankenstein frightened audiences when it was released in 1931. One scene in particular horrified viewers so much that it was removed from early versions of the film and not restored until home video releases in 1980, nearly fifty years later. The infamous scene featured Dr. Frankenstein’s hulking, fearsome creature stumbling through the woods and finding little Maria playing by a lake. Unfazed, the young girl asks the creature to join her. She shows him how to make “a boat” by popping the flower from the top of a daisy and flicking it into the water, where it floats on the lake’s surface. When the supply of daisies is exhausted, the innocent monster with the abnormal brain, does the unthinkable. He grabs the child and hurls her into the lake, expecting her to mimic the floating flowers. She doesn’t. Instead, she flails her arms about creating wild splashes, until she stops – drowned. The confused and disappointed monster wanders off to wreak more havoc. The next scene shows Maria’s father marching through the town carrying the lifeless body of his daughter in his outstretched arms. The outraged townspeople form a mob, complete with the requisite torches and pitchforks, and begin a search for the notorious doctor’s brute.
The girl was played by six-year old Marilyn Harris, a veteran of an uncredited role in an early John Wayne Western called The Big Trail. When it came time to shoot the “lake” scene, Frankenstein director James Whale was concerned that little Marilyn would be frightened by actor Boris Karloff in costume as the monster. When the cast and crew assembled at the studio to drive out to the shoot location, Marilyn bounded out of her car and ran right up to Karloff, who was in full costume and makeup. She grabbed his hand and asked, “May I ride with you?” Karloff smiled and replied, “Would you, darling?” The two got along like old friends on the set.
The scene required several takes until director Whale was satisfied. Marilyn was tossed into the water over and over again. Despite being a good swimmer, Marilyn was growing tired. Whale offered Marilyn a special treat — her favorite snack, hard-boiled eggs — if they could complete just one more take. She agreed and Whale was so pleased with the results, he presented her with two dozen eggs.
Marilyn appeared in a slew of uncredited roles for the next ten or so years, deciding to call it a career at the age of nineteen. She worked as a cashier at the famed Hollywood Palladium on Sunset Boulevard. It was there she met her husband. After marrying, Marilyn retired to the domestic life to raise a family.
With fond memories of Boris Karloff and her brief Hollywood life, Marilyn passed away from cancer at the age of 75.
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from my sketchbook: veronica lopez
It was November 1969. Veronica Lopez, a one-time prostitute and career criminal, sat in a cell at Sybil Brand Women’s Prison. Veronica was serving a sentence for forging a prescription. One day, she got a new cellmate – a 21-year old hippie girl with a wild look in her eye. She called herself Sadie Mae Glutz, but she was booked on murder charges under her real name – Susan Atkins.
Over the next few weeks in the small cell, Susan recounted the jaw-dropping story of how she and members of her “family” attacked, tortured and murdered actress Sharon Tate and her party guests. As Veronica sat in silent awe, an emotionless Susan told how the pregnant Tate pleaded for her life and for the life of her unborn child. With no remorse, Susan stabbed Tate repeatedly (a coroner’s report put the number at sixteen) until she didn’t make a sound. She claimed she tasted Tate’s blood (a claim she later denied). Susan further detailed her participation in the subsequent murders of Los Angeles grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary. She explained that they were following orders from Charles Manson, who Susan believed was Jesus.
Veronica repeated to police everything that Susan Atkins had confessed. Veronica received a portion of the reward money offered by Tate’s widower, director Roman Polanski. Charles Manson was arrested based, in part, on information provided by Veronica.
Returning from a Las Vegas trip in 1979, Veronica was taken from a Los Angeles bus terminal by a man she believed to be to be a hired cab driver. The driver robbed Veronica and beat her until she was unconscious. A police search found her in the street at 60th and Western Streets in South Central Los Angeles. She reported that $400 was taken from her. Over the next few days, Veronica complained of dizziness and nausea. After treatment received at a hospital, she was released, but her symptoms persisted. She was returned unresponsive to Cedars Sinai Hospital, where she soon passed away from injuries resulting from brain stem compression and blunt force trauma.
Veronica was 43. Police maintained that her murder was unrelated to her Manson Family testimony.
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IF: entangled
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!”
— Marmion by Sir Walter Scott
My dad was a liar. And not a very good one.
In the long ago days before the internet, when facts were a little tougher to confirm, my dad made up shit left and right. He loved to tell of how he cut school as a child and sneaked off to a Phillies game. He claimed he witnessed a no-hitter, but couldn’t tell anyone because he’d get into hot water for skipping school. He loved telling that story. Years later, after a minimal amount of “Googling,” I discovered that the entire tale was fabricated.
By trade, my father was a butcher. He was employed by a local supermarket chain for many years, until he worked himself up to the corporate level. A suit and tie replaced his bloody apron as his regular work attire. At this new level, he was rubbing elbows with (in his eyes) the “upper crust” and was entitled to be included among the attendees of an annual corporate executive convention and banquet. My mother, at the time, established herself a little business of transporting neighborhood children to kindergarten at the nearby elementary school. For a mere three dollars per week, she’d stuff twenty toddlers into the open space of her station wagon and — seat belts be damned! — deliver them to their preschool. A little jostled and shaken-up, but relatively safe. My father, however, had told his colleagues that his wife was otherwise employed. He had told them that she was a teacher. But, he did not corroborate his deception with my mom. She was not embarrassed by how she earned her pay. (She was proud, as a matter of fact!) So, while mingling at a pre-dinner cocktail hour, my mom was confused when my dad’s boss asked what subject she taught. With a look of momentary bewilderment, she corrected the man, explaining that she was not a teacher. My dad was livid, despite not briefing my mom on the bullshit he’d been shoveling at the office for the past eleven months.
When my son was born, my wife and I continued the Jewish tradition of honoring a deceased family member by naming a newborn in their memory. My son would be carrying on the symbolic names of my wife’s beloved grandfather and my beloved maternal grandmother. The official naming was done at the brit milah (circumcision ceremony). During the proceeding, the mohel (one who performs a circumcision) announced our child’s Hebrew name to the small congregation gathered in our home. My father’s mother leaned in to my dad and asked who our baby was being named for. Then she asked who my older brother was named for. My dad replied, “Max (my brother) was named for Pop (meaning my father’s father).” This, of course, was not true. My paternal grandfather was still fourteen years from meeting the Grim Reaper when my brother was born. Jews just don’t that and my father knew it. He also knew he was lying to his elderly mother.
My father became very sick very suddenly in October 1993. Actually, he was sick for a long time, he just didn’t let anyone know — so, it was sudden for the family. My father was keeping company with a very nice woman who filled the void in his life left by my mother’s passing two years earlier. As my father drifted in and out of consciousness in a hospital bed, my immediate family — my brother Max, my wife and myself — entertained my dad’s lady friend’s future plans. With sparkly eyes, she spoke of arrangements and promises that my father made — how they would marry in the new year, how she would move in with him. She continued to explain that my father justified the enormous amount of money still owed on a thirty year-old house was due to a second and third mortgage being obtained in order to pay for my art school education.
“Whoa!,” I interrupted before another word was uttered, “I paid for art school. Me! No one else!”
We all stared at each other across the little semi-circle we had formed in the hospital hallway. “What else did he tell you?,” Max asked. She had been told by my father that he was a partner in the current supermarket in which he was employed (he wasn’t). The place had just experienced a devastating fire and he was concerned about the cost of rebuilding (it was not remotely a concern of his).
We were dumbfounded. After 36 years of lying to my mother, my dad had the opportunity to make a fresh start in a relationship. Instead, he chose to continue on the path that he was used to.
I love and miss my father. He taught me a lot, but he had no idea how he was teaching me.
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It looks like Illustration Friday suggested the word “entangled” in 2009. Here is my submission from that time.