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.