Another Dead Gay Guy, Part Two: Hollywood Murder Triangle

Eighty years ago this past week, death stalked through Hollywood, taking three lives. It’s not a famous murder case, but one that captured my attention while I was researching the Mary McElroy case last weekend. Perhaps it’s best to start at the beginning:

Once upon a time, in 1927, a young man named Paul Vare was brought out to Hollywood from Billings, Montana, by evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. Some time after that, he was adopted by one Ada E. Wharton, a bedridden widow. By the mid-thirties, Paul Wharton’s talents were in demand from several prominent Los Angeles residents. Under the name Paul Ivar, he dressed famous clotheshorses like Jean Harlow, Aileen Pringle, Carmen Consedine (daughter of Alexander Pantages) and Constance Bennett (he designed the bridesmaid gowns for Bennett’s marriage to Henri de la Falaise, a Gloria Swanson ex).

Then, on the evening of April 25, 1935, Paul Ivar had a little dinner party with his chauffeur and secretary, thirty-five-year-old William Howard, and one (or possibly two) other men. He was still sharing a fashionable apartment with his foster mother. At some point in the evening, Paul brought Ada some dinner and then returned to his guests. Eventually, Ada heard somebody leave the main room outside, then three or four shots rang out, followed by the sound of her foster son groaning and slumping on the floor. Frantically, she crawled out of bed into the front hallway of the apartment, where she found Paul bleeding and clutching a telephone. As he expired in her arms, a man she had never seen before rushed in and stopped dead in his tracks. He was tall and blond, probably dressed in a gray suit and gray hat. Mrs. Wharton pleaded for help but the man disappeared into the kitchen and was never seen again. William Howard had also vanished.

Across town, a thirty-nine-year-old UCLA law professor named Henry E. Bolte was coming home from a dinner for his law class, noticed a stranger near the entrance to his apartment but paid no attention to him. Bolte walked to his apartment and practically had his key in the door when the stranger pulled a gun and shot at him three times, wounding him twice. Bolte’s wife, Virginia, opened the door to find her husband lying in a pool of his own blood, still alive but in critical condition. Investigators hurried from the sight of Paul Ivar’s death to Bolte’s apartment. William Howard was found nearby; he had shot himself in the head.

Two seemingly unconnected murders were now linked, and the connections that emerged over the next few days came out in the press in code words and suggestive phrasing. The news stories on April 26 described the tall blond “Mystery Man” sought by police for questioning.

Two men and two women, one reportedly dressed like a man, were questioned by the police. Meanwhile more facts about Paul Ivar emerged. He had struggled with an addiction to narcotics (but had been cured by Aimee Semple McPherson). At the time of his death, he was on probation for the theft of an $800 diamond ring belonging to a Mrs. Ray Wolfe of Bevely Hills. He and his crowd were described in coded terms by the newspapers: "pale," "strange," "exotic." Quothe Captain William Bright, head of the LA Sheriff's homicide division, in the Palm Beach Post: "They were strange men who led strange lives." Social politeness of the day meant that he and other law enforcement officials wouldn't comment on the possible motive, once financial disputes had been ruled out; readers who were "in the know" would have guessed in half a second that something lavender was afoot.

Actress and notorious clotheshorse Aileen Pringle, in an "exclusive" interview with the same publication, elaborated on her professional relationship with the designer: “He was exceptionally talented, and his designs were simply lovely. They were a little – well, a little bizarre. But good. Before he finished them, he told me he needed some new clothes for himself, and asked if he could use my charge account at a store. He said he could check off our bills to each other in that way. When my statement came back from the store, I found he had bought, not clothes, but several hundred dollars worth of perfumes, atomizers, cosmetics and similar things. I asked him about them, and he told me, ‘well, I use them.’”

Pringle went on to explain that “he had had a fight with Constance Bennett when she discovered he was Chinese.” I have not found any other information articles that suggest he was Chinese, and the one photo I did find didn’t hint that he was anything other than Caucasian. She allows one last revelation: “He occasionally appeared at my home… with curious, feminine-looking men.”

Aileen Pringle ought to have known something about 'bizarre - but good' fashions. Nine years earlier, she was being dressed by Erte. I'll leave the story there for now. Next month, the conclusion, more fun facts, and the identity of the big blond Mystery Man.

Another Dead Gay Guy, Part One: I Feel Like an Asshole

I want to warn you in advance: This post is going to have a rather long set-up.

Whenever I have a big assignment or a midterm or, in the case of this past weekend, both looming ahead of me, I tend to do a LOT of procrastinating. Things get done one way or another, but not before lots of time has been spent checking email, checking social networking sights, footnoting articles on Wikipedia, and so on. This particular story actually starts with me reading IMDB trivia for the movie Kansas City. That in tern lead me to do a number of searches on Mary McElroy, the young woman on whos kidnapping the movie was based. (The kabillion-footnote Wikipedia article Mary McElroy (kidnapping victim) was written in the next few hours by yours truly.)

While reading scanned, highlight-sensitive newspaper articles from 1935, I found (I believe it was in the Miami Daily News) a somewhat scattered, confusing article about a Hollywood dress designer’s murder, one of three connected deaths. A bed-ridden spinster, a tall blond mystery man and Jean Harlow were all connected to the case.

Obviously, this was too good to be ignored. I went ahead and probably lost a good couple hours scanning for articles and coming up with a surprising amount of info that still seemed to have some missing pieces. What I found was tantalizing; I ate it up like the true crime vampire that I’ve always been. (I hope to follow up this post – hence the ‘Part One’ in the title – soon.) Then I checked facebook.

And I was stopped cold. Checking in on a few people from high school (they rarely come up in my news feed – something I don’t know how to change) I happened to search an acquaintance, not a close friend, but somebody from my past who I knew for a brief period and was friendly with. When I found him again on the site a year or so ago I was totally envious of him: he had a great job as a designer, lots of time and money to spend on trips to exotic places where Spanish is the primary language, a shockingly handsome boyfriend, a six pack you could bounce quarters on.

He was dead. His wall was covered with “we love you,” “RIP,” “we’ll miss you,” etc. I was shocked. It seemed so unreal. I’ve lost classmates before but this moment proved that each loss is just as sad and unnerving. There was no word as to the circumstances of his death on his page, so I did a quick google search: His death was everywhere. I don’t want to go into the details, and I only have what’s been printed and posted and forwarded and editorialized. I don’t really feel that I have the right to either. The absolutely appalling comments on NY Daily News’ site are bad enough.

It struck me, as I went from one page to the other, trying to get more details about Ale’s death that there must be somebody else out there doing the same thing, but not for the same reason. Just a few minutes before I had been devouring the details of a seventy-five year old murder case without feeling any sympathy for the victims in the case. There had to be another me out there, at the same moment, doing the same thing with this case. I felt like an asshole. Serves me right.

I want to close with my memories of Ale. He was two years ahead of me at Paly. He was closeted at the time, and I don’t begrudge him for that, knowing his circle. He still seemed to be himself, very intelligent and witty, with an appreciation for the finer things (Peter Greenaway comes to mind first). We knew each other briefly outside of high school, when he came to a couple of youth group support meetings. We had a mutual friend, my neighbor Katie, who had some classes with him and graduated the same year. I’m sure I still have his business card in a drawer somewhere. As much as he would have hated growing old, we clearly lost him too soon.

(12.3.1983 - 4.13.2010)