Read Online Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood by William J. Mann - Free Book Online
Authors: William J. Mann
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she’d need some help in securing the nice things she still dreamed about, but she’d come to understand that con men like Joe could no longer help her get them.
Patricia Palmer was going high-class.
Now that her résumés and head shots were distributed all over town, Gibby climbed the uneven stairs back to her room and waited for her contacts to call. And why wouldn’t they? Patricia Palmer had everything producers wanted. She was pretty and willing to do whatever a director required—and she was only nineteen. Patricia was bound to be snatched up by a big, important producer. High-class. Gibby had to think high-class.
For too long, she’d been depending on two-bit crooks like Joe Pepa. Gibby had to think higher if she was ever going to fulfill the vow she’d made to her mother years ago. On a mountain road between Colorado Springs and Ottawa, Kansas, Gibby had thrown aside the rusty spoons they were using and promised someday they’d have silver. “Father left us with nothing,” the young Margaret had said. “But I will get us everything.”
From town to town they had traveled, Gibby singing and dancing on the stages of run-down theaters, hoping some famous company would take her on.“Her life has been one long succession of hotels and theaters,” one early press report said about Gibby. “Her one desire to have a home of her own prompted her to enter pictures.”
Her early, fleeting success had brought her enough cash to buy a couple of small properties on North Beachwood Drive, but these were hardly movie-star residences. So Gibby used the income from the little houses to pay her rent at the Melrose. After a couple of years, she figured, she could sell the Beachwood properties and move into a glamorous mansion.
But things hadn’t quite worked out that way.
No wonder she had turned to Joe Pepa. Joe had shown her there were other ways to get what she wanted. And for a while, he’d been right. But the cost had been too high: it was because of Joe that Gibby had been arrested for prostitution at“a house of ill fame” in Little Tokyo on that terrible afternoon of August 25, 1917. Her dreams had nearly died right then and there.
The whole sordid tale began ina downtown taproom popular among picture players—in the days before Prohibition, of course—where Gibby first met Joe Pepa.
At that moment, Joe was enjoying a dash of notoriety. His right arm was draped in a sling, broken in twenty-two places by police bullets, and he wassuing the department for $15,863 to cover his medical costs. When Gibby came across him, he was holding forth at his table, gesturing dramatically with a glass of whisky in his left hand. Everyone there had read his story in the papers:Suspecting him of smuggling opium over the Mexican border, the cops had followed him to his little stucco house on Rodgers Street and demanded to search his car. Standing outside the front door, Joe had told the cops to beat it. At that point, according to the official police report, Joe reached for his gun, although Joe insisted he was only raising his hands as ordered. In any event, one of the officers fired. An explosion of gunfire rattled the quiet street. When the smoke cleared, Joe was lying on the ground with a shattered arm.
A search of Joe’s car found no opium. Of course not: Joe was too clever for that.
So instead the cops arrested him for bigamy. It was this little detail that had turned Joe, a low-rent drug smuggler, into a citywide celebrity. While in Mexico, Joe had married an actress, Betty Benson, who was a bit notorious herself, having just served as a key witness in a scandalous alienation-of-affection case betweentwo Chicago businessmen. The fact that Pepa was already married was irrelevant. Betty Benson was a knockout, and he’d wanted her, so he’d married her in Tijuana. The cops ended up arresting Betty, too, after finding an opium pipe in her room.
But that was just the beginning of Joe’s fame. WhenBetty died
Patricia Palmer was going high-class.
Now that her résumés and head shots were distributed all over town, Gibby climbed the uneven stairs back to her room and waited for her contacts to call. And why wouldn’t they? Patricia Palmer had everything producers wanted. She was pretty and willing to do whatever a director required—and she was only nineteen. Patricia was bound to be snatched up by a big, important producer. High-class. Gibby had to think high-class.
For too long, she’d been depending on two-bit crooks like Joe Pepa. Gibby had to think higher if she was ever going to fulfill the vow she’d made to her mother years ago. On a mountain road between Colorado Springs and Ottawa, Kansas, Gibby had thrown aside the rusty spoons they were using and promised someday they’d have silver. “Father left us with nothing,” the young Margaret had said. “But I will get us everything.”
From town to town they had traveled, Gibby singing and dancing on the stages of run-down theaters, hoping some famous company would take her on.“Her life has been one long succession of hotels and theaters,” one early press report said about Gibby. “Her one desire to have a home of her own prompted her to enter pictures.”
Her early, fleeting success had brought her enough cash to buy a couple of small properties on North Beachwood Drive, but these were hardly movie-star residences. So Gibby used the income from the little houses to pay her rent at the Melrose. After a couple of years, she figured, she could sell the Beachwood properties and move into a glamorous mansion.
But things hadn’t quite worked out that way.
No wonder she had turned to Joe Pepa. Joe had shown her there were other ways to get what she wanted. And for a while, he’d been right. But the cost had been too high: it was because of Joe that Gibby had been arrested for prostitution at“a house of ill fame” in Little Tokyo on that terrible afternoon of August 25, 1917. Her dreams had nearly died right then and there.
The whole sordid tale began ina downtown taproom popular among picture players—in the days before Prohibition, of course—where Gibby first met Joe Pepa.
At that moment, Joe was enjoying a dash of notoriety. His right arm was draped in a sling, broken in twenty-two places by police bullets, and he wassuing the department for $15,863 to cover his medical costs. When Gibby came across him, he was holding forth at his table, gesturing dramatically with a glass of whisky in his left hand. Everyone there had read his story in the papers:Suspecting him of smuggling opium over the Mexican border, the cops had followed him to his little stucco house on Rodgers Street and demanded to search his car. Standing outside the front door, Joe had told the cops to beat it. At that point, according to the official police report, Joe reached for his gun, although Joe insisted he was only raising his hands as ordered. In any event, one of the officers fired. An explosion of gunfire rattled the quiet street. When the smoke cleared, Joe was lying on the ground with a shattered arm.
A search of Joe’s car found no opium. Of course not: Joe was too clever for that.
So instead the cops arrested him for bigamy. It was this little detail that had turned Joe, a low-rent drug smuggler, into a citywide celebrity. While in Mexico, Joe had married an actress, Betty Benson, who was a bit notorious herself, having just served as a key witness in a scandalous alienation-of-affection case betweentwo Chicago businessmen. The fact that Pepa was already married was irrelevant. Betty Benson was a knockout, and he’d wanted her, so he’d married her in Tijuana. The cops ended up arresting Betty, too, after finding an opium pipe in her room.
But that was just the beginning of Joe’s fame. WhenBetty died
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