In Honor Of The 110th Birthday
Of The Late Legendary Private Investigator Phillip Marlowe-An Encore Interview
With Dotty Malone Back In 1978-The Last Living Link To The Fame Shamus Who Has Passed
Away At 98
By Seth Garth as told by Dorothy
“Dotty” Malone
[Back in 1978 Seth Garth, then a young
stringer at American Film Gazette did
a piece in honor of the late famous private detective Phillip Marlowe who was
then being feted on his 70th birthday. (Marlowe had passed away some
years before of some say hubris, drink and a serious cocaine addiction.) As
part of his research into some of Marlowe’s more famous cases he ran across
Dotty Malone who had at one time involved with Marlowe in a case, and as he dug
deeper maybe more. Ms. Malone was in any case the last living link to the
famous Sternwood case which first brought Marlowe to wide public attention,
some say notoriety when he married Sternwood’s older daughter, Vivian shortly
after Marlowe tied up the loose ends, the loose ends that counted which was to
save an old man grief before the end, before he went to his rest concerning his
younger wayward daughter Carmen. The name may not mean much now in super
highway times, now generally or in Los Angeles where the case unfolded, but in
that old-pre-World War II town he carried a lot of weight, had pull. Reason: General
Sternwood was the guy who practically invented the La Brea tar pits which made
his fortune. That insured plenty of newspaper coverage and cover-up as well
depending on how the wily old man wanted things done.
So as a young up and coming reporter
Seth interviewed Ms. Malone, let her tell what she knew of the Sternwood story
from her vantage point. Recently Seth received word that Ms. Malone whom he had
not seen in many years had passed away at her home in Brentwood where she lived
for mainly years at 98. He went into his files to see if he still had the
Malone interview, He did have a copy and we decided that it would honor both
Ms. Malone and Mr. Marlowe to have an encore presentation of her interview which
gives a very different view of the Sternwood case than the police logs or the newspapers
had at the time-Greg Green, site manager]
********
Sure, I knew Phillip Marlowe, knew him
from the Sternwood case which may not mean too much now with about twenty
million stories out in the urban sprawl but did when a guy with money, a guy
like old Sternwood, more money than Midas some said after he hit
pay-dirt with those stinking La Brea tarpits which put him on easy street. And
gave him enough pull with the P.D. and with the L.A. Times to play whatever angle he was playing in whatever way he
wanted. Originally, and I will tell you how in a minute, I only knew that the
General had hired Marlowe, everybody called him Marlowe and that is the way he
wanted to be called, to do some small chore, clean up the mess, for him around the
antics his younger daughter who even I knew was a wild one, knew she frequented
and was photographed at splashy Hollywood venues and did plenty of what today
would be called kinky things with people in Hollywood. Some well-known actors
and actresses, married and single, too who you would be surprised if I told you
their names since you work for a film publication. You know dope, sex, strange
rituals, and all you can figure it out. It was not until later that I found out
the details, the details that put the case in the cold files and off the front
pages of anything but the L.A. editions of the scurrilous Inquirer.
It was strictly a matter of
happenstance that I would wind up meeting Marlowe, getting involved even as
small a part as I had in what happened. I had come out West from my Maryland home
after graduating from Bryn Mawr, mainly to get away from my straight-laced
family and with the idea unlike most girls who came to Hollywood then, now too,
not of becoming a film actor but a screenwriter since I was fascinated by some
work that William Faulkner and Booth Tarkington had done with screenplays. I
was pretty good looking, except for having to wear glasses all the time for bad
eyes which would have cut down my chances of a film career if I had wanted to
go that route. In those days wearing glasses, young women wearing glasses, was
a subject of some social scorn once viper short story writer Dorothy Parker
made everybody aware of the stigmata with her probably drunken remark that
“guys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.”
What I didn’t know, was kind of shocked
at, was that there were a million girls, guys too, who wanted to be
screenwriters and so I learned the hard way the way around the Hollywood
studios. As you might guess, since you are with a film magazine, the way
forward in this business with few exceptions is through sex. Everybody, at
least everybody in the business knows that to get ahead you have to what we
used to call “put out,” have sex, male or female, with some bastard to get in
the studio before a camera or the writing room. I was naive enough for a while
to hold out, to stay a virgin. Because Bryn Mawr was an all- women’s college I
didn’t have much sexual experience, had never “gone all the way” as one of my
daughter’s asked me in one of our candid mother-daughter talk-fests although I
had some lesser sexual encounters. It was not until I hit Hollywood and started
hanging with young actors who hung around the same places I did to try to
figure out how the hell to get inside though studio gates that I went “all the
way.” All the way the first time with Rory Calhoun, who when I knew him before
he became a star was simply Jeff Mahoney. We remained friends ever after until
his second marriage, still talk now and again.
That is the background to how I met
Marlowe, met him when I was working in a high brow book store on Sunset
Boulevard while I was waiting to get into the studios, get into some writing
assignment. I remember it was a rainy day, unusual for that time of year in
L.A. and I had just practically thrown out a couple of young girls from
Hollywood High School who had heard, correctly, that the bookstore had some
interesting high-side erotica for sale. Had heard it from some boys and were
curious. Since they were too young to look at such material I kicked them out
after they started badgering me. Now to set the record straight especially in
like of what was going on with the younger Sternwood daughter Acme Books sold
strictly literary erotica which may or may not have had pictures alongside, For
example, we carried the Kama Sutra,
had it right on the shelves. Since smutty books come into the story I wanted to
get that straight.
This guy with a rained-splattered trench
coat, you know the ones that guys like Humphrey Bogart made famous in I think Casablanca with the belt buckle to cinch
the whole affair, dripping soft felt hat, wearing a suit, brown although not
high end, not from what I could tell, short to medium high, older and as he
approached me as I was straightening up a book bin of overstocks I noticed he
had a craggy face, kind of handsome in a way. (To set the record straight I
mentioned to Marlowe in a funny manner that he seemed kind of short to be a
private detective after he introduced himself. He smirked and said he had had
enough of that kind of talk that day since the young Sternwood girl, Carmen,
ahd said the same thing when he went out to that first interview at the
Sternwood mansion. He then said that didn’t seem to stop Carmen at all since he
then tried to do a lap dance on him when he was standing. I laughed a knowing
laugh.) He startled me by asking me some questions about rare books mainly
because he no more looked like a rare book aficionado than the man in the moon.
When I mentioned that fact after answering his questions about specific rare
editions he noted that the young gal at the reference room in the Hollywood library
had told him the same thing. I also found out later, much later, that she had
given him her telephone number on the basis of his reply about helping him get
through the books. I also found out that after he left the bookstore he went to
the library to pick her up and I guess she showed him quite time. She had still
been pissed off at him when she informed me of this later because after he had
had his way with her he had left, said he was on a case.
That is when Phillip, I call him
Phillip now that he is gone but Marlowe then
like everybody else, laid out the story about how he was working for a wealthy
guy up in the hills where the wealthy lived then in their above the grimy air
mansions and without mentioning any names then said the guy was being shaken
down by the bookseller across the street at Geiger’s
Rare Books and Antiques over some stuff that one of his daughters had gotton
caught up in. When he went to see “what was what,” to cram the shakedown, this
book clerk, this Agnes, I will get to her later, her and her relationship with
Phillip after her various guys, protectors fell down on the job was as clueless
as he was about rare books. So he came over to see what I knew, whether the
operation was legitimate or was it a front for from what he saw a “dirty book”
racket to high-end customers. I mentioned that he must have grown up in my
religion, Catholic, because nobody I knew except them used the words “dirty
book” rather than pornography or sex books. He said I was correct and could a
co-religionist help him by identifying this mad monk Geiger.
I said I would help when Geiger came
out of the store. Then something came over me, maybe it was that funny rain,
maybe it was boredom looking forward to a dull afternoon of cataloging a new
supply of titles and maybe it was just my time to break out. I don’t know but I
suddenly gave him my best come hither look and he knew exactly what I meant by
my remark and look. Said he had a pint of whisky, bonded, going to waste and
that was that. I put the “Closed” sign on the front door and we went into the
back room where I had my desk. Oh yes, how could I forget this. I told you
already I have to wear glasses and he mentioned couldn’t I take then off since
he was well aware of the Dorothy Parker line. I went to the mirror, fixed
myself up a bit put on some new lipstick and went back to my drink. His eyes
bulged when he saw me. I don’t have to write a story about what happened that
afternoon do I just know my dress was pretty messed up above my knees before we
were done. When it started to get dark and rainier, I noticed that Geiger was
coming out of his place with his so-called chauffer, but everybody knew his
boyfriend. Phil said he had to leave and would get back to me. I knew he
wouldn’t, still I felt like a woman, a real woman for one of the first times
and was ready to chalk it up to experience. (I was also glad as hell Rory had
broken me in since Phil could be gentle in some ways but a cave man in others-in
sexual ways.)
In any case after that afternoon I kept
tabs on the story. Through the newspapers, through a few people I knew
including the store owner who knew what Geiger had been up to since his own
daughter had been trapped in the vicious drug, sex and pornography tomb, pillow
talk and checking in occasionally with the cop on the beat who knew the chief
police department guy, a guy named Bernie Olds who got Phil the job with
Sternwood in the first place since they had worked together in the D.A. office
before Marlowe got canned for going around some rule, around some honcho who
got his claws clipped.
I would not have mentioned this back
when I was interested in the case, kept tabs on the players, on all the moving
parts but I also knew a couple of hat check, cigarette and photography girls
who worked in the Club Luna, no holds barred anything goes places on the
outskirts of town where the Sternwood sisters, Vivian and Carmen, who were what
the now gentle old general had nightmares about what he had spawned hung their
hats. The reason I knew them goes back to when I was earnestly trying to be a
screenwriter, trying to get into the film business and these young women were
also trying to the same and like me were skimming working other jobs until that
proverbial ship came. I should also mention that one of them, maybe two, the
twins, Cecilia and Shirley, probably went to bed with our Phillip, although
from what was told to me by the hat check girl, Pamela, who I had roomed with
when I first came west it didn’t last long because Phil was kind of rough with
them, thinking they were on the make and that was that. I could see that such
women would be repelled by what was the ugly side of the craggy-faced handsome man.
By the way Seth since I noticed you
didn’t pursue the question whether it was out of some silly chivalry for an old
lady or fear of what I might come up with that “pillow talk,” bedroom late
night after sweating up the sheets if it was typical L.A. night was a serious
source of finding out stuff that never made the papers. Never made the papers
because a young reporter named Ray Chandler, a member of one of the Chandler
branches that ran the L.A. Times then
took his orders from above, from some uncle who squashed whatever he could
since he used to play tennis with the General in Bel Air in the old days when
both were sprightlier. Ray was on the story from the beginning, from the Geiger
hit and I had met him when he was rummaging around seeing what people in
various shops knew about Geiger’s rackets and he came in to see me. I told him
what I knew which then was not much more than he knew but somehow his manner
and my idea that maybe I could get in the studios through writing as a
reporter, or, face it sleeping with a reporter got him angle asked for date.
Later he would take me down to his family’s cottage (a semi-mansion but he
always called it a cottage) in La Jolla on the weekends and I would rifle
around his study desk and get whatever information he was holding back from me.
By the end of our relationship which didn’t survive much past the conclusion of
the case I knew as much as he did about the goings on across L.A. to smother
the case or really try to solve the damn thing.
After Phillip had left my store that
rainy afternoon he headed across the street to his automobile and trailed
Geiger and that boyfriend to his house out in the Edgewood neighborhood, not a
good or bad neighborhood then but a place where the houses where far enough
apart that Geiger could conduct his little racket in some privacy. According to
very late filed police report Phillip had staked the place out seeing what was
about. What was about was one Carmen Sternwood coming to get her dope, a thing
called laudanum, basically opium cut with ether if it is done right from what I
heard, having never gotten beyond jimson, weed, you know marijuana that you can
find anywhere now, really knocks you out. Which fit nicely into Geiger’s
operation since he would take his “dirty pictures” from a hidden camera while
someone like Carmen was doing her Balinese strip. From what I knew, heard about
Carmen she might have done her dance on the Pacific Coast Highway at dead sun
noon as long as some man was watching but the laudanum probably made sense to a
weasel like Geiger.
Then out of nowhere the shit hit the
fan, excuse my English, as shots rang out in the rain-swept night. Marlowe,
Phillip, headed in to find Geiger dead as a doornail on the floor and Carmen
half-dressed sucking her thumb as two unidentified cars sped away. I am not
sure, or at least I don’t remember whether Phillip, took a run at Carmen, had
his way with her in the old-timey expression, that night or just cleaned up the
place of any evidence she had been there. Maybe both in any case nobody heard
about Geiger’s demise for a while except I did see Phillip’s car across the
street in front of Geiger’s the next day and then saw a station wagon with
Agnes and some guy in it and that he had hailed a cab, a cab with a female
driver which was a novelty in those days even for Hollywood usually doubling
down as a way for certain women to do their other business, their prostitution
if you must know, without the problem of irate landlords and seedy rooms. I
would later find out in a strange way, strange if hailing that very same cab
and female cabbie one night when I was closing up the book store and on the
ride home she as much as said he had what she called “curled his toes,” Phillip’s,
after doing the tail job once his name got around as crackerjack private
detective. I am not sure whether she said he was strictly for tough nights or
something like that but I do know that I shared no feelings of sisterhood with
her.
This is probably the time to step back
a little and see why hailing that cab and following that station wagon had
anything to with helping General Sternwood or his wayward daughter out of a
mess. The original reason General Sternwood had asked Phillip to do his work
was that he was being bribed by Geiger over Carmen’s gambling debts and was
trying to decide whether to pay or not. That is the front story and made sense
since the guy in that station wagon with Agnes was a grifter named Joe Brody
who was in the habit of putting the bite on plenty of people, either
independently or for one Eddie Mars. Mars a name I did not know at the time was
the real kingpin behind every evil known to man that happened in that town, in
all of Southern California really, and as I would subsequently find out from
that bevy of employees I mentioned earlier owned the Club Luna where the
Sternwood young women held forth. Moreover Mars was the backer behind the
scenes for Geiger’s sleaze ball operation which when exposed had dragged in half
the young women not only in rancid Hollywood but among the “best” families, the
so-called elite. The hush would be on in that case even if General Sternwood had
not called in his chips. So Phillip tagged this Joe Brophy or thought he had
only Carmen looking for her nude photos showed up and fouled up the works. Or
tried to. Here is where things got unglued on that front. That boyfriend of
Geiger’s thought Joe had wasted his lover that rainy night and as a result
decided to bang-bang Joe. Done. Boyfriend done too since Marlowe wrapped him up
with a bow before long and made him a special delivery packet at the local P.D.
station. Work for the old General finished and without disturbing too many
things.
That was the front story but the back,
the real reason that the getting senile old General wanted Marlowe’s services
was to get a tag on a guy named Rusty Regan who had been before he disappeared
a while before, he said about a month, Vivian would say a couple of months, had
been something like the General’s confidante, best friend. Had blown town and allegedly
had run off with Eddie Mars’ wife in the process. Phillip figured if he found Rusty then he would get a
serious lead on the “who” and the “why” of the Geiger-Brody killings. Of course,
while all of this work was going on Phil was playing footsies with older daughter
Vivian, at first he said to see where she fit in the picture. Was he going to
have to like his friend from the D.A.s office now working as a P.I. up in San
Francisco Sam Spade and sent her over when she got him in too much of a jam.
This is where Eddie Mars comes more clearly into the picture. He was the
backing, the protection for Geiger’s “dirty picture” racket taking a nice cut.
Taking cuts of a million other things from women to dope and back as well as
even more sinister stuff. All the while looking like your average businessman
using the Club Luna as a front for the whole operation. Slick, very slick.
Vivian had made what even she would later admit a wrong devil’s bargain with
Eddie because he held everything, he could over her (including a few tumbles in
the hay while that wife was supposedly away with Regan and Marlowe wasn’t
looking). Even now though every time though I think about that Club Luna and
those former friends of mine, that hat check and cigarette girl sister act, who
took a run at Marlowe knowing that I had been with him before them.
Funny through all of this Carmen was
making her own moves, trying to figure out where she stood in the mess. Of
course she headed to Marlowe’s door whatever she thought of him (according to
Vivian not much, said he was too ugly to be handsome but that was no bar to a
man trap like her) And of course she had her way with him, including getting
him to get some cash from Eddie Mars on account at his crooked gambling tables.
Although the rest of the tale is pretty straight up let me give you the details
because the whole thing shifts to Eddie Mars and his henchmen, especially his “hit
man” some bad ass names Carlos something I forget the last name and it is not important
because he had wasted some poor sucker Joe who was fronting for that Agnes who
worked for Geiger and had been Brophy girlfriend. Women like her always get somebody
to take then under protection and under the covers even if they bitch and moan about
all their so-called tough breaks. Needless to say, Phillip played along with Agnes
for two reasons-one to get her in the sacks since she was pretty good -looking for
a tramp and she had information about the whereabouts of Eddie Mars’ wife. I
don’t know what happened to Agnes probably found another Joe after she found
out Phillip was just there for a tumble and ran that guy into the ground before
moving on again.
That Agnes information proved to be invaluable,
although if Phillip had headed to the nearest cop house he could have found out
that at the address Agnes had given him there was a garage run by a dopehead
named Art Huck. This was another one of Eddie’s operations, hot cars, so he
knew, had known all along where his wife had been. Philip really only had to
figure out the why of the ruse and the still pressing question for old man
Sternwood of where Regan was. At the house after some fuss he found both Eddie’s
wife Rhonda and Vivian. Oh yeah, and that savage Carlos who was ready to put a
few slugs into Phillip’s head if that was what the boss wanted. Except Phillip
through some quick action by Vivian got to him first. That sealed the deal
between them as I will explain in a minute. The whole thing had been set up, set
up with too many moving parts really, between Vivian and Eddie to cover for the
fact that dope-addled Carmen had shot Regan when he would not tumble to her
advances. That would be Phillips’ excuse for that tumble he had had with Carmen
when he first went out to the Sternwood mansion and Carmen tried to do that lap
dance while he was standing up.
Although the reason for the elaborate
cover-up was clear to him now Eddie was still a threat to him, and now to
Vivian since a guy like Eddie ould definitely get burned up when he heard that his
high-priced hit man had been turned to mush by Phillip’s firepower. I remember reading
this part, the end of Eddie Mars (although not the end of some gangster’s
control of all the evils in Southern California, Guy Madison moved up the food
chain and things went on as usual without missing a beat). Marlowe and Vivian
had hightailed it to Geiger’s now empty house (remember Eddie owned the joint) to
hold a conference with Eddie. Phillip though had faked out where their location
was expecting Eddie to think he would get there first and set up a very fatal
ambush for the pair. Eddie, and his eternal bodyguards waiting outside to
execute the ambush, got a big surprise though when he discovered Phillip got
there first and sent out some shots to alert Eddie’s guys. Phillip then forced
Eddie out the door to his well-deserved fate of being riddled with machinegun bullets
by his own henchmen. Nice, right.
That wrapped up Eddie. The fate of the others.
Well Carmen was put in some private hush-hush mental hospital, stayed for a few
months and then headed to San Diego where she was found dead about a year later
out on some pier after having had an overdose of heroin and half her clothes ripped
off. Eddie’s wife, after a short clandestine affair with Phillip, headed back
East and into oblivion. Vivian and Phillip as you know were married shortly
after the close of the case although as you also should know, or have heard
about, the marriage didn’t take and there was a huge court case over the
divorce. The General, old Sternwood, well he went to what some detective fiction
writer called the big sleep. That is all I can tell you. Thanks for listening.
********
[The following addendum to the Dorothy
Malone interview was not included in the piece published back in 1979 for the
simple fact that I could not verify most of it before the upcoming publication
date. In those days unlike what is increasingly happening in the publishing
business today maybe reflecting the influence of social media you checked your
sources, or your assertions didn’t see the light of day, usually. Ms. Malone’s
statement that after the Marlowe-Sternwood divorce she herself got married to
Marlowe could not be checked, I could not find any paper trail except the Las
Vegas marriage license she showed me. The most I could find in the L.A. County
Courthouse was the complete proceedings in the widely covered divorce of the
two prominent citizens. The settlement Vivian Sternwood laid on Marlowe to get
out from under what she, or rather her fleet of lawyers, called mental cruelty and
a whiff of adultery when that meant something in such proceedings. (That
adultery would presumably include Marlowe’s affair with Ms. Malone but the case
never got to that point for whatever legal reasons Vivian and Phil’s lawyers
came up with.) Beyond that I couldn’t find much.
More to the point Ms.
Malone’s revelation that all through the case she was “curling Marlowe’s toes,”
her expression learned through him which she used any time she made a reference
to her sexual activities. That part turned out later to be more provable and I
was, still am, amazed that she was able to carry the affair out while Marlowe
was worming his way into Vivian and the Sternwood fortune. But enough of my
naivete then out in Hollywood land where morality in certain precincts was very
different from that of the Acre in North Adamsville. Let Dotty say her piece,
finally. Seth Garth]
Seth now that I have
told you the story of the Sternwood case, the case that made Marlowe, got him
cushy jobs with no heavy lifting among the Sternwood crowd, let me tell you
something that might make your career, might at least get you a by-line. Didn’t
you wonder, didn’t you think in your head how I knew so many of the details of
the case that only could have come from Phillip, like how he felt after Eddie
Mars’ hit man wasted some poor grifter trying to help out Agnes get some dough
to split town when all her other protection fell down (Geiger and Joe Brody)
just because he was not fast enough with the answers-and the hit man didn’t
want any witnesses to implicate Mars. This may come as a shock, although I hope
it doesn’t but I was “curling Marlowe’s toes” not only after he married Vivian
but while the whole case was proceeding to its conclusion.
Whatever had started
that rainy day in the bookstore when my hormones were jumping and Marlowe came
in the door like some avenging angel, like a guy who was looking for some
answers in trying to bring a little rough justice to whoever needed it didn’t
stop that afternoon although it very well might have. After we mussed up my desk,
I figured the whole thing was a one night, a one afternoon stand, not uncommon
in looser Hollywood certainly looser than Maryland or Bryn Mawr. But after the
Geiger killing, murder as turned out. he went back to the Geiger’s bookstore
looking for anything that could implicate Carmen Sternwood and not finding
anything he came over to my store wondering whether I had seen anything going
on across the way. Since I had customers and the boss was coming into the store
shortly I didn’t play my come hither routine with him but he knew by my looking
at him that was what I was thinking. He said we should meet later to “compare
notes.” And that started things which never really finished after that until a
few years before he passed away when I met somebody who would become my second
husband and who would father that daughter I was always giving my advice about
men to. That night was the first night by the way that Phil used his, our
intimate expression- “a guy makes passes at a gal who wears glasses who hauls
his ashes.” An old-time expression
“ashes” but it would get me going more than once when he said it especially
since I was sensitive about having to wear glasses all the time.
What will surprise
you even more is that shortly after Marlowe and Vivian divorced he and I got
married in Las Vegas. [She showed me the copy of the marriage certificate-Seth
Garth 2018] While I think that Marlowe would agree with me that we had a torrid
affair it was kind of off and on depending on what was happening with him, with
him and Vivian in the end. I was not happy from day one in the bookstore that
he would be with other women, worse that he would wind up with Vivian which I
could see from a mile away but that was the way it was with me-he was my man
even when I had an occasional affair like with Ray Chandler and later with
Jerry Lord, the producer, when I decided that my virtue was not more important
than getting a screenwriting job. Mostly though after we were married we
settled down, settled down to enjoy each other for whatever time we had.
So maybe in an odd
way I should be thanking old long gone General Sternwood resting in his place
of sleep for bringing Phillip Marlowe to my door. I hope you will let the world
know that was the way things were between us. [This last remark after I had
asked her if she had anything in the way of documentation, witnesses beyond the
marriage certificate that I could hat my hand on. Seth Garth 2018]
