by Lee Server
Attorney Jerry Giesler declined the district attorney’s invitation for Mitchum to appear before a grand jury, declaring he would need more time to investigate “a chain of odd coincidences, if coincidences they were.” Attorneys for Leeds and the others followed suit. Proceeding without the participation of the accused, prosecutors offered grand jurors just two witnesses, Det. Sgt. Alva Barr and police chemist Jay Allen. Barr recounted his version of the bust, while Allen displayed the evidence. From three manila envelopes he removed nineteen cigarettes and six “roaches”—”underworld parlance for partly smoked marijuana cigarettes”—all containing “the flowering leaves of cannabis sativa.” Allen displayed several of the joints, on which the name “Bob Mitchum” was now printed. “It was not a very good grade of marijuana,” the chemist concluded smugly. “I would call it a medium mixture.”
Everybody was a critic.
The proceedings lasted two hours. Following the lab man’s testimony, the jurors were closeted with narcotics chief Captain White, freshly returned and rested from his fishing getaway. In an “off-the-record” session, White explained to them the extent of drug use in Los Angeles and what was being done “to rid the county of its terrors.” Jurors then “pledged their support and assistance in continued investigation of the dope traffic” and minutes later returned indictments on two counts, charging Mitchum and the others with possession of marijuana and conspiracy to possess, violations of the State Narcotics Act. Conviction on the first count carried a penalty of from ninety days to six years in prison, depending on circumstances, with no probation. Conviction on the conspiracy count carried the same penalty but with the possibility of probation.
The following day, Mitchum and the three others surrendered themselves to the court of Superior Judge Thomas Ambrose. The LA Daily News reported: “Mitchum, his handsome face haggard with strain and worry, shouldered his way through a mob of applauding fans. Accompanied by the man and two women who were caught with him in an alleged Hollywood marijuana party, Mitchum drew from the throng of admirers, young and old alike, a warming vote of confidence.
“The eighth floor of the Hall of Justice was jammed. The two blonde women accused with Mitchum arrived first. And while actress Lila Leeds took the whole thing in her stride,”—looking ultra-glamorous in black high heels, royal blue suit, silver fox scarf and shimmering neon-red lip gloss—”equally blonde Vicki Evans quailed before the eyes of the multitude. Vicki seized her attorney, Grant Cooper, around the neck as flashlights blazed and eager people surged forward with pens extended for autographs. Mitchum, looking drawn and even thin from the terrific ordeal, willingly scribbled his signature for his beseeching fans, while his attorney, the famous Jerry Giesler, puffed a panatella and beamed approval of what he called the ‘temper of the mass mind.’”
Arraignment was set for September 21.
On the twenty-first Mitchum and his three playmates returned to the courtroom. This time Lila and Vicki offered the judge a more demure vision of femininity. “Both blond women,” wrote one investigative journalist, “have muted their chemically gold hair to lesser shades of brilliance.” Evans dressed in black and Leeds in a tailored, cream-colored Roz Russellstyle suit that tried hard—but failed miserably—to conceal her curvacious figure. The proceedings were cut-and-dried. Judge Ambrose ordered the quartet’s return on the thirtieth, at which time he would hear their pleas of guilt or innocence.
Rumpled, balding, charismatic friend to the press Jerry Giesler had kept a relatively low profile in these first weeks. Columnists anxious to convey some of Giesler’s legendarily colorful courtroom behavior were not rewarded until the September 30 appearance before the judge, when the attorney floridly demanded that all charges be dropped as unconstitutional due to the fact that the indictment “was not returned in clear English.” The section charging Mitchum and the others with “possession and conspiracy to possess flowering tops and leaves of India hemp (Cannabis Sativd)” said Giesler, “might as well have been written in Japanese or hieroglyphics!” He quoted state law to the effect that all indictments must be drawn in pure and simple English so that defendants might clearly understand the accusation. Giesler said that “hemp” to his knowledge was used to make rope, and he comically stumbled over the pronunciation of the word cannabis, provoking laughter from the onlookers. He then left them in stitches by declaring that the only Latin he knew was Xavier Cugat.
Judge Ambrose overruled the demure. The defendants pled not guilty, and Ambrose designated Clement D. Nye as trial judge, trial date to be determined.
On October 2 Jerry Giesler was returning home to Beverly Hills when his car went out of control and climbed halfway up a palm tree. Several ribs broken, he spent the rest of the week in a hospital and was not expected to be on his feet for the better part of the month.
From Judge Nye came word that the trial would begin on November 21.
In the days and weeks following the arrests at the Ridpath party, the Mitchum case was kept alive by journalists, pundits, and moral watchdogs across the country. “MITCHUM’S SINS,” “WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY?” “MITCHUM CASE TOUGH BLOW TO HOLLYWOOD,” “FLAY STUDIOS FOR CONDONING MORAL LAXITY THAT LED TO DOPE SCANDAL,” cried the headlines to these various screeds and editorial thumb suckers.
From the Saint Louis Globe-Democrat.
“Misunderstood” Hollywood has let the lid off the garbage can again. Now we have a young swoon actor, the idol of teen-agers, caught with two actresses and a real estate man indulging in a reefer-smoking fest known to the trade as “kicking the gong around.” Moreoever, he makes no bones about admitting a long addiction to the narcotic weed and seems remorseful only because the exposure may write finis to his career. Not a word, mind you, about the thousands of impressionable young fans who think he is “simply out of this world.”
Like the United States presidency, part of the cost of some occupations is forfeiture of the usual individual rights of privacy. Hollywood has long known this, yet it refuses to accept the responsibility. Will the admittedly numerous upright, hard-working members of the film profession begin to police their own ranks? Or will they wait until some monstrous stench overwhelms them all?
Harold Heffernon in the Indianapolis Star:
It has been common gossip for months that a dope scandal was hovering dangerously over the film colony. Luncheon crowds discussed it freely wherever film folks and newspaper correspondents gather.
What will Hollywood do now, officially, to clean its house and try to win back some of the public confidence it has destroyed in the disgraceful mess of the past few weeks?
Right now Hollywood has the biggest problem of all on its hands. The public never did—never will—laugh off a dope scandal involving a favorite screen performer.
Tough-guy syndicated columnist Robert Ruark had a more jaded perspective:
I don’t quite savvy all this sudden bleating over the plight of Robert Mitchum, a droopy-eyed young movie actor who seems to have been caught by the cops with a couple of blondes. For one thing, it is not an unusual offense in Hollywood. Dragging the weed ranks roughly in the film colony with taking Benzedrine as a substitute for sleep and sobriety. Some medics think it less harmful to the user than the habitual dosage of sleeping potion, or goofballs, which by now are as static a Hollywood prop as the yellow convertible. . . .
I don’t believe Mr. Mitchum’s guilt or innocence should affect his career one way or the other. So many of Hollywood’s idols of the young have persisted despite the company they kept, be it gangsters, dope-dealers, murderers, or other folks’ wives, that a little thing like a drag on a muggle shouldn’t bother a man who has charm for the kiddies.
Hedda Hopper, trying to distract the ad hominem attacks on her beloved movie industry, lashed out at others:
It is so axiomatic that any lurid story with a Hollywood background is sure-fire for black scareheads, that there’s even a wild rumor behind the scenes here that the police decided to pull this caper with Mitchum in ord
er to draw the heat off the department because of their inability to deliver any kind of a case on last week’s gangster killing of one of Mickey Cohen’s hoodlums.
Her readers, too, bore some of the blame for the present mess:
The public makes them gods and goddesses. Yet the public can never understand when they turn out to be mere human beings. So, in this case of Bob Mitchum, let his trial be that of any individual citizen, as it would be for you or me or somebody we know who lives down the street. He—not Hollywood—is on trial.
Howard Hughes, RKO, and David Selznick had observed the developments in the Mitchum prosecution like ambivalent caregivers attending an infectious patient. To look after the boy and risk catching something or throw a sheet on him and dump him in an alleyway—that was the question. Any overt attempt to help the actor or influence the case became ammunition for the DA’s office and the Hollywood- and Hughes-bashers who floated rumors that the moguls were “pulling political strings” to subvert the law and let Mitchum get away with it. Hughes and Selznick both issued official “hands-off” statements regarding the actor’s defense.
The public response to the scandal was mixed. The studio received hundreds of letters decrying Mitchum, many from teachers, parents, and clerics bemoaning the actor’s setting a terrible example for the kids. A far larger group, however, appeared to be titillated by the hunky actor’s rowdy behavior. Trailers for Rachel and the Stranger reportedly elicited applause and hoots of approval from audiences, and when the film went into general release in October there were lines around the block. No matter what Loretta Young’s and William Holden’s agents were telling them, RKO understood that Mitchum was drawing those crowds. As far as the ticket-buying segment of the public was concerned, Bob’s reefer rap was no more than they expected from the Hollywood “bad boy” and only served to make him more alluring on the big screen.
• • •
Early in November, with Jerry Giesler supposedly still on the mend from his auto accident, Mitchum, Ford, Leeds (Vicki Evans had now disappeared to somewhere “back East”), and attorneys Norman Tyre and Grant Cooper appeared before Judge Clemence Nye to request a continuance. The judge agreed to a new trial date of January 10.
Blood on the Moon opened in November and, like Rachel and the Stranger, was a solid performer at the box office. The returns increased David Selznick’s belated professional interest in the star. He lobbied for Mitchum to play the role of criminal mastermind Harry Lime in The Third Man, but coproducer Alexander Korda and director Carol Reed preferred Orson Welles.
With the threat of Bob’s imprisonment looming and the whole humiliating scandal never far from anyone’s mind, the Mitchum family’s Christmas of 1948 was far from joyous. As Dorothy had feared, the kids would not escape the consequences of so much lurid publicity. One afternoon Josh came home from school crying, taunted by classmates: “Is your old man out of jail yet?”
Robert was a big boy, and he at least could handle the occasional wisecracks he ran into in public. As he was coming out of a restaurant one evening, two cops sitting in a squad car called him over, big grins on their mugs. “Hey, Bob, we’re keeping Lawrence Tierney’s cell warm for ya.” Mitchum gave them a friendly wave and thought, You want to suck what? More dangerous were the characters—car parkers, delivery boys—who winked or made the OK sign and offered to share a joint or put a little present in his pocket. He was sure that the city had police spies watching his every move. Now and then he’d see what he thought was a stakeout car or some flatfoot studying him over the top of a newspaper. What he didn’t suspect at the time was that Howard Hughes also had men tailing and bugging him. He tried to leave home as seldom as possible.
On January 6, 1949, an advertisement appeared in the Canyon Crier, a community newspaper. The ad, taken out by Miss Nanette Bordeaux, actress and owner of the house at 8443 Ridpath Drive, announced the sale of the remaining furnishings and bric-a-brac used in the recent notorious reefer party. The ad read in part: “Charming sofa and arm chair. New slipcovers hide cigaret burns. Robert Mitchum sat here. $15.”
• • •
Jerry Giesler, on his bed of pain, devised a bold, unexpected, and risky strategy. Having urged Mitchum to plead not guilty to the charges, the attorney had initially expected to battle for victory in the courtroom. His investigation had shown evidence of the frame-up Mitchum declared the morning after his arrest. The police stakeout had ignored the hours and days of earlier drug use in the Ridpath house only to start their raid within minutes of Mitchum’s arrival. Giesler had been given off-the-record information from at least one journalist that there had been a tip-off about the arrest of a “big star” hours before it happened. A good case could be made from the telephone calls Mitchum received and other calls made by Leeds and Ford on August 31 that Robert had been deliberately lured to the house that night. Was Lila Leeds involved in the setup? Bob was convinced that it was his malevolent ex-business manager, Paul Behrmann, who had put the cops onto him, and Giesler found out that Behrmann had once been Lila’s agent. Hollywood was a small, incestuous town, but that was curiously coincidental. Still, after several decades as an attorney, Giesler had great respect for coincidence. Leeds was a dizzy dame and a magnet for trouble, but would she have deliberately engineered the potential destruction of her own career prospects? Lila, for her part, also suspected a setup. Wasn’t it odd how Vicki Evans had deliberately refrained from touching the stuff that night? How she had been the one to go back to the porch and unlock the door for the police? And Vicki—Florence they called her in court, whatever her name was—had now disappeared. And then there was Robin Ford, Mitchum’s direct connection to Lila Leeds. Bob’s double and pal Tim Wallace would remain forever convinced that Ford was the link to the cops, that he had an earlier charge hanging over him—dealing, Wallace figured—and had turned stool pigeon. Reva Frederick voted for Ford, too (”Sleazy . . . a user . . . if there was a buck or a deal to be made he was there”). There were other theories making the rounds. Julie Mitchum, gleaning inside info from her own network of showbiz pals, held to a more elaborate conspiracy theory. Fifty years later she hadn’t changed her mind: “Bob had told me and had told them at the studio he wanted to break his contract. He was sick of them telling him what to do, sick of their trash scripts. He told me he was going away to the Bayou country and just write. That was all he wanted to do. The studio, of course, could not let someone walk away like that. So they set him up for the marijuana thing. It was the same with Bob’s business manager. They didn’t want Bob protected, so they had to get his personal manager out of the way. That guy ended up doing five years in the penitentiary. They said he had taken everybody’s money and he hadn’t taken a nickel from anyone. He was a lovely person and he adored Bob. Two radio announcers who testified against him whispered to me that he hadn’t really taken anything from them.”
It was like one of those Charlie Chan mysteries, Giesler thought. Everybody in the room was a suspect. The attorney didn’t know what to make of Mitchum, an intelligent man, a great success in his field, idol of millions. He could be sitting on a yacht with liveried retainers feeding him lobster and champagne, but he preferred the company of lowlifes and police informers. Giesler had gotten to know many movie stars in his career and they never ceased to amuse him, although right now, with his ribcage broken and bandaged, it hurt to laugh.
His enthusiasm for a courtroom battle began to dissolve when he learned of some potential ammunition the prosecution team had been gathering, evidence of Mitchum’s uninhibited lifestyle. The DA’s office had a lot of dirt on the boy. Giesler realized he could very possibly win a not guilty verdict and yet prosecution evidence and witnesses might still damage Mitchum “beyond hope of rehabilitation.” Reva Frederick remembered a conversation with Giesler. “He said to me, ‘The reason I’m so good is that I always prepare the opposition’s case first. I don’t even think about what I’m going to do until I know what the other side is planning.’” RKO execs agre
ed that although the actor’s current notoriety had not so far lessened his popularity—quite the opposite—a long trial filled with scandalous revelations making headlines every day would be likely finally to turn the public against him and destroy his movie stardom for good. Giesler and the studio also agreed—possibly without any input from Mitchum—that if the actor were to get off scot-free it might look like “special justice” for a celebrity and cause a renewed backlash against the movie industry.
Giesler’s plan: “I proposed simply to ask the court to decide his innocence or guilt on the conspiracy-to-possess-marijuana count on the basis only of the transcript of the testimony before the grand jury.”
