The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals Read online

  The rumours of Mackaye’s whereabouts during the beating, coupled with gossip about her affair with Kelly, were so humiliating for the actress that she decided to release an official statement once and for all, through her attorney, Roger Marchetti. In the speech he denied that his client had been drinking gin fizzes with Paul Kelly as her husband lay dying, and that:

  “She will not try to delay her case in the least and if anything, will insist upon an immediate trial to prove her innocence of the charges against her.” The attorney then added that all his client was asking for was fair play, and that the public should withhold any judgement “until she can tell her side of the story and deny all these false accusations.”

  He then went on to say that Mackaye had not been at all well and that, “Mrs Raymond’s prominence on the stage has made her the unmerciful victim of a lot of things which would not have been discussed had she been an ordinary person.”

  The cases against Kelly, Mackaye and Sullivan were all being prepared when suddenly a new twist occurred as two witnesses came forward to tell their version of the death of Ray Raymond. Mr and Mrs Perry Askom – friends and colleagues of the deceased – told police that on the day of the beating they had called in to see Raymond and were shocked to discover that the man had been physically assaulted.

  “Raymond told me that Kelly came over and beat him up and that he never had a chance,” Mr Askom told police, before adding that Mackaye had arrived home right before they were about to leave, saying she had been to the dressmaker, drinking gin and was in a “pugnacious mood”. At that point, as if to predict his fate, the singer had turned to Askom and said, “Take me home with you, Perry. I’m all washed up.”

  By the time the trial of Paul Kelly began, the press, the public and friends and family of Ray Raymond were on tenterhooks. The first day got off slowly, with Kelly’s attorney announcing that anyone hoping for scandal was in for a great disappointment. “The trial will turn out to be very humdrum,” he announced, though anyone who saw Dorothy Mackaye pass by the back of her lover and touch him gently on the shoulder would not have been so sure.

  The next day things became even less humdrum when the jurors and Kelly himself were escorted to 2261 Cheremoya Avenue where the scene of the crime took place. Kelly was visibly uneasy at being back in the house, silently following the jurors from room to room, with who-knows-what going on in his mind. At one point he encountered the maid Ethel Lee with the family dog, although his attempts to speak to her were thwarted when he was moved on by his accompanying attorney. By the time he left, spectators outside described him as “pale” and “glad to be out” as he was led back into the waiting police car.

  Back in the courtroom, Wagner, the surgeon who had performed the autopsy on the body of Ray Raymond, was called to the stand. There he gave the crushing evidence that not only did he see two injuries on the victim’s forehead, but also a black eye, a haemorrhage on the left side of his head and bruises all over his right shoulder, left arm, legs and chest. Gasps were heard when it was also declared that he had found both fractured and cracked ribs on the body, and the defence shuffled uncomfortably when the doctor proclaimed that the bruises and broken ribs could have been caused by crashing blows or kicks.

  Questioning the doctor, Kelly’s attorneys tried to determine whether the cause of death could in fact have just been Raymond’s apparent alcoholism and, in particular, a problem with his heart.

  “No,” replied the doctor. “His heart and other organs were normal, with the exception of the kidneys which were fatty.”

  The defence team, however, were not prepared to accept that Kelly had been in any way responsible for the singer’s death, and in their jury statement declared, “There was no murderous assault and young Kelly struck him just enough to end things and then went on his way. No blows were struck sufficient to produce death and Kelly used no more force than was necessary.”

  Still, in spite of the defence team’s efforts, it became more and more apparent as the days went on that Kelly was not the innocent young man they were trying to portray him to be. Despite Mackaye’s denial of an affair, love letters between the actor and herself were reported to be in the hands of the district attorney and whispers that the two had been conducting a passionate affair were flying around the media. Things were made no better when Ethel Lee took to the stand and said once again that when Raymond was out of town, Kelly was often at the house, and that if Mackaye ever failed to come home from work, she could always be found by telephoning Kelly’s apartment.

  The defence team were incensed that such information had come to light, and Kelly blushed and sweated his way through the damning evidence, while women in the gallery were seen dramatically wiping tears from their faces.

  “How many times did she fail to come home at all during Raymond’s absence with his theatrical company?” the maid was asked.

  “There were many times,” she replied, before adding that even when her employer did come home, it was almost always in the company of Paul Kelly. Furthermore, on the evening of the fight, just prior to Kelly’s arrival at the house, she had seen Raymond crying and his daughter was sitting next to him, wiping tears from his eyes with her handkerchief. “He appeared mentally ill,” she said.

  Excitement came to the courtroom when Dorothy Mackaye took to the stand and explained that on the afternoon of 16 April, she had indeed been at Paul Kelly’s apartment, but she had not been alone. Instead, she said, she was with her friend Helen Wilkinson and Kelly’s flatmate, Max Wagner. They spent time together and enjoyed drinking gin and water before Kelly made a phone call and then left for an appointment.

  “Isn’t it a fact that you knew Kelly was going over to your place?” she was asked.

  “No sir. The first thing I knew that he had had a telephone conversation with anyone was when Miss Wilkinson told me she thought she had heard him mention Ray’s name. I said to her, ‘You’re silly.’”

  Interestingly, Mackaye admitted that Wilkinson had jokingly told Kelly that Raymond wished to see the actor, though she was adamant that the whole thing had been said in jest and that Kelly did not really believe it to be so. However, she did admit to speaking about her husband with Kelly that day, telling him that things were “the same as usual” and that they had agreed to separate, but she denied that he had become angry with anything she had told him.

  “Mr Kelly never discussed my husband or my affairs in the presence of others or my friends,” she answered, clearly irritated, even though she had just described that they had been discussing her marriage in front of Helen Wilkinson. She then denied that she had waited for Kelly to come home from his “appointment”, saying that she and Helen Wilkinson had instead gone shopping for Easter eggs before heading back to the Raymond family home.

  Then came a bombshell, when love letters between Kelly and Mackaye were presented to the court. Despite Dorothy’s claims that the two were just friends, the letters showed that Kelly’s version of events was closer to the truth. In several letters Paul told the actress that he loved her, while in others he remarked how much he missed her, how he was miserable without her and how he was being awful to everyone because all he could think about was her. “I thought I’d die,” he dramatically declared. Meanwhile other letters were disclosed: “Darling Mine,” began one, while another included a row of kisses and a note which said, “Count them and that’s not enough.” Dorothy had responded during a trip to San Francisco with a wire which read, “Crazy to get home, our home. Love and everything that goes with it.” And she signed it Mrs K.

  The love between the two was further proven when Kelly’s “house boy”, Yobu, confirmed to the court that there were frequent visits by Mackaye to the house, and that the two shared a “love language” that he had been unable to understand. Gasps were heard when he then described taking water to the couple in Kelly’s bedroom, and confirming that Mackaye had stayed overnight on several occasions.

  Then it was time for Kelly to tak
e the stand, which he did with great fanfare in the newspapers. During the testimony it became clear that Paul Kelly truly believed he had been provoked by the drunk Raymond, who was described as the aggressor and the one eager to fight. Kelly did admit, however, that he had swung the first punch. “He said, ‘Where is my wife? You ought to know, she has been living with you.’ I slapped him in the mouth. I said, ‘That is a nice way to talk about your wife, isn’t it?’” He then went on to explain how he had asked for the child to be taken out of the room, and had refused an invitation from Raymond to come back to the house later on, for fear that he planned to get friends to come there and beat him up.

  The trial of Paul Kelly continued in a rambling way, with testimony repeated and incidents described time and time again. Even the newspapers grew tired of the case and started filling their columns with comment about Kelly’s lawyer falling asleep, lady flappers in the audience who were giving the accused “the eye” and popping chewing-gum bubbles in his direction.

  Finally, however, the case was wrapped up and it was time for the jury to give its verdict. Kelly was found guilty of causing the death of Ray Raymond, though he quickly announced that an appeal would be made. Meanwhile, the trial of Dorothy Mackaye began, though that too followed the route of the Kelly trial, with an added element of drama when she announced that she had reconciled with her husband on his deathbed.

  Eventually Mackaye was found guilty of concealing the facts after her husband’s death and the case against Dr Walter J. Sullivan was dropped for lack of evidence. The actress announced that she would appeal, though in the end both she and Kelly resigned themselves to their fate and lived out their sentences quietly at San Quentin Prison. In January 1929, Dorothy was released from prison. On her departure, she spoke to reporters and declared, “I’m leaving immediately for Denver to look after my baby daughter. I bear no ill will to anyone but I am determined to clear my name of the stigma that has been attached to it since the death of my husband of which I am, and Paul Kelly is, innocent.”

  Meanwhile, Kelly followed just seven months later and said, “I’m going straight to New York. I’m headed straight for the comeback trail. I’ve got a job with the New Century Play Company and I’m going to hit it hard.”

  For the next few years, both Kelly and Mackaye declined to speak about each other in the press, though by January 1931 they could hide their love no longer. The two were rumoured to be very much together and finally in February of that year they were married. Quite amazingly, Kelly then successfully adopted Valeria, Dorothy’s daughter by the man her new husband had slain just a few years before. He then concentrated on his acting career while his wife wrote a play about her experiences in prison, which became a 1933 film entitled Ladies They Talk About, starring Barbara Stanwyck.

  Dorothy Mackaye then decided to leave her Hollywood days behind in order to concentrate on being a mother. This seems to have been a decision she had come to back in 1927, just after the tragedy had unfolded. At the time she had announced, “I am willing to sacrifice everything for my daughter’s sake. There is no excuse whatsoever of my baby being dragged into this mess and I don’t want her ever to hear of the tragedy that has wrecked her home.”

  With the hopes of a happy life in front of them, the new family moved to a ranch in the San Fernando Valley which they named “Kellymae”. Together they lived a quiet life away from the spotlight, although the marriage that Kelly had literally fought for lasted only nine years before disaster struck. On the evening of 2 January 1940, Dorothy was driving her car towards the ranch when she encountered another vehicle coming towards her. It was a foggy night and, as she swerved to miss the oncoming vehicle, Mackaye hit the edge of the pavement and her car overturned. Passers-by ran immediately to her aid and the former actress was able to drag herself from the vehicle. She was taken home by a neighbour.

  While it seemed that initially she was going to be okay, the day after the accident she began to feel unwell and was taken to hospital, where the doctors predicted her injuries were not life-threatening. Sadly they were wrong, as internally there were problems with Dorothy’s bladder and on 5 January 1940, after speaking breezily to her husband and doctor, it ruptured and the former actress collapsed and died, leaving Paul Kelly absolutely devastated.

  After the initial period of bereavement, Paul Kelly returned to New York where he starred in several plays such as Country Girl, Command Decision and Bad Girl. He also met a former actress called Zona Mardelle and together they moved to California, where they made their home at 1448 Club View Drive, Los Angeles. It was here, on 6 November 1956, that the actor collapsed and died suddenly, shortly after returning from casting his vote in the 1956 presidential election. He was fifty-seven years old.

  The story of Paul Kelly and Dorothy Mackaye is one of scandal, intrigue, murder and love but, above all, tragedy. A man died in order for them to be together, but in the end it was something as simple as a car journey that would keep them apart forever. Was it karma that made sure they were never able to live out their lives happily together, or just a tragic case of coincidence? Alas, we will never know for sure.

  6

  Clara Bow’s Scandalous Love Life

  Where does one start when describing the life of Clara Bow? Known as “Crisis a Day Clara” because of the colossal number of scandals that came her way, the actress probably had more newspaper headlines in her career than just about any actress of the 1920s and 1930s. Everything from court cases to emotional breakdowns were covered, but probably the most publicized were her scandalous relationships with the many men that came her way (although contrary to popular belief, this does not include sleeping with the entire University of Southern California football team – that was merely a rumour.)

  Born on 29 July 1905 in Brooklyn, Clara Gordon Bow was raised in a violent and highly unbalanced home. Her mother Sarah was an extremely unhappy and deranged woman, who had no desire for marriage or children, and frequently suffered from seizures and manic episodes. She could be extremely cruel to the child and throughout her infancy Clara never felt as though she was in any way loved by either parent. Indeed, it was later discovered that her father was even more psychotic than her mother, and would be violent and sexually abusive towards the child on a regular basis. He would also take off for long periods of time, leaving mother and daughter without any means of support, and the days alone would be cold, hungry and filled with horrific outbursts from Sarah Bow.

  In 1921, keen to escape the horrors of her home life, Clara won a nationwide “Fame and Fortune” contest which she hoped would launch her into the world of showbiz and an eventual move to Hollywood. Unfortunately, this did not sit well with her mother, and one evening in 1922 the fledgling actress woke up to find the woman holding a knife to her throat. “You’d be better off dead,” Sarah told her terrified daughter, and while Clara was able to escape physically unharmed, the nightmares of that evening would live with her forever. Shortly afterwards, Sarah Bow was taken to a mental hospital and she died in early 1923.

  Things looked bleak for the fledgling actress, with the “Fame and Fortune” organizers not in the least bit interested in her now that she had won the competition. However, she did receive a positive comment in the January 1922 issue of Motion Picture Classics magazine – shortly before her mother tried to kill her – which described her as very young but full of confidence and ambition. They also added, “She has a genuine spark of divine fire.”

  They were not wrong. Clara was a courageous and determined young woman and despite her nightmarish background and abusive parents, she was positive that she would one day become a star. Casting directors were not so confident, unfortunately, but despite being told over and over again that she was not right for the part she was going for, the young woman continued to knock on doors and attend auditions. Eventually her persistence paid off and she started to win a variety of small roles in low-budget movies. This led to a move to Hollywood in July 1923, where her career really st
arted to take off.

  Despite being very young, Clara became the ultimate flapper girl, a symbol of what everyone believed 1920s Hollywood women looked like. With her flame-red hair, she began making a real name for herself among cinema-goers everywhere; and young girls tried to emulate her look and copy her style. She was extremely hard-working and appeared in dozens of films such as Poisoned Paradise (1924) and The Plastic Age (1925).

  It was her 1927 appearance in It which cemented her fame (making her the first ever “It Girl”) and, for the first time in her life, Clara was actually a happy woman. During an interview in 1951 she described that period: “In my era, we had individuality. We did as we pleased. We stayed up late. We dressed the way we wanted. I’d whiz down Sunset Boulevard in my open Kissel with seven red chow dogs to match my hair. Today they’re sensible and end up with better health – but we had more fun.”

  By the late 1920s, the fun Clara was having was getting a little too intense, however. She was now a huge star and soon found herself involved in more affairs than even the gossip columnists could remember. Her first real public relationship came in the form of a much publicized engagement to director Victor Fleming. He hoped it would lead to marriage, but Clara had no intention of allowing it to get that far. Instead of planning a wedding, the actress finished with her fiancé just weeks after they had announced their engagement because she found him “too much older than I. And gosh, he was too subtle. I couldn’t live up to his subtlety.”

  She was not single for long, however, as film star Gary Cooper was next, and according to Clara it lasted for about two years. Of the relationship, she later told columnist Alma Whitaker that he was a “nice boy. But the studio objected to us keeping late nights and running around.”