“Merrily We Go to Hell”
by Pablo Capra
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| Dorothy Wallace. Photo by James Montgomery Flagg, The Moving Picture World, 1918-02-02. |
Prohibition continued
to see pushback at Topanga Beach until it ended in 1933, but the drama in the
last years involved more celebrities than gangsters. (For the gang stories, read my book Topanga Beach: A History 1820s-1920s.)
In the early hours of
July 14, 1931, authorities broke up a party at 12 Topanga Beach, and arrested
two actors, both struggling with professional and personal setbacks.
Dorothy Wallace
(1894-1985), the host, was causing a disturbance with “shrill laughter, songs,
and sundry toasts.” In her youth, she’d traveled the world with wealthy
parents, received “ardent attentions” from Middle-Eastern royals, and owned a
$10,000 wardrobe. Her last acting role was in Merry-Go-Round
(1923), after which she’d suffered through a short turbulent marriage with
Millard Webb, best known for directing John Barrymore in The
Sea Beast (1926). “We have separated several times in the past. We
always manage to patch things up again, however,” she told the Los Angeles Times after withdrawing an early divorce
action.
Kenneth Harlan
(1895-1967) was also “extremely boisterous” at the party. His career seemed to
be thriving, with leading roles in Finger Prints
(1931), Air Police (1931), and Danger
Island (1931), but he correctly foresaw a future of minor roles in the
“talkie” era. To counter this, he’d re-invented himself by opening a Hollywood
nightclub, the Pom-Pom Cafe, that capitalized on his Roaring Twenties image,
and featured a “sparkling stage show in which talented entertainers and a bevy
of beautiful young girls appear[ed] nightly.” However, by this time, his
hedonistic lifestyle had wrecked four marriages (he would have nine!), nearly
landed him in jail for failing to pay alimony, and gotten him mugged by the
bootlegging Ralph Sheldon Gang.
The third and final
arrest was an embarrassed Dr. James Cowan (1881-1948). He worked for the Los
Angeles City Health Department, and was the son of a prominent Methodist
preacher, Clarence Cowan, who was also the “chief censor of moving pictures and
literature in Pasadena.”
According to Jess
Williams, watchman for the cabin sites company, the occupants of the cabin[,]
in which the three were arrested, had been warned frequently concerning their
activities.
— “‘Ken’ Harlan Pays $25 Fine for Wild Party,” The Record, 1931-07-15
Harlan’s unnamed date,
Cowan’s wife Frankie (1886-1962), and others at the party were not arrested.
(Frankie would later receive a DUI in 1936 after weaving on Sunset Blvd.)
Authorities had been called to the party by neighbor John Mott (1874-1942), in #13, after his “roars for quiet met with roars of laughter.” An attorney, Mott lived with his wife Lila (1873-1958) and daughter Barbara (1916-1997), and belonged to the Sepulveda family that had helped found Los Angeles in 1781. Because of this lineage, President Herbert Hoover (in office 1929-1933) consulted him as an expert on Latin America. Around 1900, Mott had served as the Exalted Ruler of the Los Angeles Elks lodge, and was probably involved with the Elks Rodeo of 1923 at Topanga Beach.
Malibu Deputy Constables William Bovett, Jones, and Deputy Sheriff Edward Aitkens made the arrests. As always, Malibu Justice of the Peace John Webster showed his impatience with drinkers by wasting no time in sentencing them.
At a 2-o’clock-in-the-morning session of the Malibu township justice court Judge Webster, who has a reputation for the speediness of the film colony justice he dispenses at all hours of the night or day, fined [Wallace,] Harlan and Dr. Cowan $25 on intoxication charges…. A radio going full blast with the loud pedal on formed most of the medley, with a constant vocal obbligato which carried a high alcoholic content, neighbors declared. Other well-known members of the motion-picture colony were said to have been at the party, but only three arrests were made.
— “Film Sociable Ends in Court,” Los Angeles Times, 1931-07-16
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| Marie Prevost and Kenneth Harlan in The Beautiful and Damned (1922). "I detest reformers—especially the sort who try to reform me!" |
The next Prohibition
arrests at Topanga Beach were 23-year-old radio repairman Lurton J. Knee, of
Van Nuys, and Paul A. Beck, of Canoga Park. They were caught on the morning of
November 8, 1932, after one of their dates collapsed at Rust’s Barbecue (where
Oasis Imports is today). The men were further incriminated when their dates
were found to be 15 and 16.
The last Topanga Beach
party to make headlines during Prohibition ended in a fatal fire on April 27,
1933.
Stockbroker Thomas
Harbeson (1897-1933) and his wife Miriam (b.1897) hosted the cocktail party at
6 Topanga Beach. Harbeson came from a wealthy family in Beverly Hills, where
the couple had another house, but they spent most of their time at the beach.
For some reason,
Miriam went home with guests William Sunday Jr. and his wife Nina to Big Rock
Beach at midnight. William was the son of famous evangelist Billy Sunday
(1862-1935), whose wide influence helped get Prohibition passed in 1919, but
whose sons engaged in many of the activities that he preached against.
Around 5:30 a.m.,
after Thomas had gone to bed alone, the house caught fire. Miriam returned
hysterical to find Malibu Forestry Patrol Chief Al Weinert and his men carrying
her husband’s body from the ashes. She believed that Thomas had passed out with
a cigarette, telling investigators, “He often took a smoke before going to
sleep.”
The fire burned three
other houses, but no one was in them.
5 Topanga Beach
belonged to attorney Ivon Parker (1881-1953) and his wife Evelyn, who had lost
their beach house to fire once before, in 1926. Ivon worked for celebrities
Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Marie Prevost (Kenneth Harlan’s third wife),
and Tom Mix. When Prevost died from alcoholism in 1937, she left (what little remained of) her estate to Ivon. When Mix died in 1940, he bequeathed his
“Wonder Horse” Tony and all his Western gear, of which Ivon was a major
collector. An Elk and a founding member of the LA County Sheriff’s Mounted
Posse (with Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz), Ivon died while riding with the posse in
a 1953 parade. His brother Claude Parker owned Parker Mesa, the property that
is today Sunset Mesa and the Getty Villa.
7 Topanga Beach
belonged to Harold Wenstrom (1893-1944) and his wife Ella Williams. Wenstrom, a
cinematographer, is remembered for his collaborations with actress Alla
Nazimova. Williams was the secretary of actress Marion Davies and manager of
Cosmopolitan Pictures, the film studio created by William Randolph Hearst to
promote his girlfriend Davies’ career. Hearst and the Los Angeles Athletic Club
(LAAC) shared ownership of the Topanga Beach property.
8 Topanga Beach
belonged to Frank Longo (b.1904), an LAAC boxer turned cashier for Bank of
Italy and, after the name change in 1928, Bank of America. Longo was a member
of a subgroup of The Elks called the Italian Associates. Four months after the
fire, he was charged with (but acquitted of) helping the notorious
Italian-American bootlegger Albert Marco (b.1887) bribe a city official.
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| Fanchon Simon and Marco Wolff in "Sun-Kist." New York Tribune, 1921-05-22. |
One celebrity neighbor
who opposed drinking was Fanchon Simon (1892-1965), of the Fanchon and Marco
dance company, which she formed with her brother in 1923.
They were deeply
religious, and did not drink, smoke, or swear. Even the stagehands watched
their language when “Miss Fanchon” was around.
— “William Simon Jr. on Fanchon and Marco History,” fanchonandmarco.com
Their company excelled
at a lost form of dance that was performed in movie theaters to excite
audiences about the film they were about to see.
The two sensed a lucrative
opportunity at the historic crossroads where vaudeville overlapped with the
movie industry’s meteoric rise and huge audiences. A movie ticket to a big city
theater in the early 1920s often included a full-fledged musical revue with
live song and dance. Called “prologues,” these stage shows preceded and often
promoted the film. Audiences loved them—often more than the silent film
itself.…
— “Let Us Entertain You,” Huntington Frontiers, Fall/Winter 2015
Simon built her large
house on Las Tunas Beach in 1931. It would become the Las Tunas Isle Motel in
the 1940s, and still stands at 18904 PCH. Her husband William (1896-1976) owned
a restaurant chain called Simon’s Drive-In. They had two children, Faye
(b.1926) and William Jr. (b.1929).
In 1932, actress
Natalie Talmadge (1896-1969) bought the house, as her marriage to actor Buster
Keaton was unraveling, partly due to alcoholism. She lived there for about a
decade, raising two sons with her own last name out of resentment for Keaton.
In 1969, she died of heart failure related to drinking.
Prohibition not only
restricted drinking, but also depictions of drinking, making it difficult for
films like Merrily We Go to Hell (1932), which told
the story of a man struggling to get sober. In a publicity photo for the film,
lead actor Fredric March raised a glass in defiance of the Prohibition code.
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| Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney, publicity photo for Merrily We Go to Hell (1932). Daily News, 1932-06-12. |
The film took its
title from a 1931 memoir by Lady Mary Cameron, the pseudonym of English writer
Dorothy Fletcher (b.1900). Immediately after reading an advance copy, Adolph
Zukor, president of Paramount Pictures, had paid Fletcher a “record-breaker”
price and offered her a long-term contract to write screenplays. She’d hurried
to Los Angeles, moving to 47 Old Malibu Road, Topanga Beach.
The film ended up
having nothing to do with Fletcher’s book. Paramount simply plastered her title
onto another story. “Its own mother wouldn’t recognize it,” quipped a reviewer.
Fletcher’s memoir was about her determination “to lead a life rich in experience
rather than the subdued existence mapped out for her.”
And yet, she found an
unusual way to add that message to the film’s publicity. After causing a minor
traffic accident, she chose to spend three days in jail rather than pay a fine.
Newspapers delighted in reprinting her catchy title along with her explanation:
“I’ve never been jailed before, and I want the experience. It may help me with
my writing.”
***
Pablo Capra is the Archivist for the Topanga Historical Society and
author of Topanga Beach: A History 1820s-1920s (2020).
