Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
Miss West. The letter stated, quote we told you before one thousand dollars or by god, we will get your face at Western and Sunset you personally acid burns. This was not the first time may West had run up against extortionists. In another instance, in nineteen twenty nine, The New York Times reported she paid three thousand dollars to quote stay out of trouble with Chicago gangsters who were threatening and terrorizing quote nationally known performers to hand over
cash for their own good. It was bigger than actors, though. There were five major studios at the time, and they not only made movies but also distributed them through their own theater chains. Chicago gangster Frank Nitti. Since the Mob controlled the Hollywood unions, the mob would also be able to run a racket extorting theaters around the United States, and they did. Plus they targeted actors, producers, executives, everyone. By nineteen forty three, Nitty and his associates were charged
with extorting millions of dollars from Hollywood studios. But this letter sent to May West this was different. This may have been Hollywood, but this one was personal. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Rich Markey and I'm Holly Frye. So this time around,
West wasn't being threatened by the mob. She wasn't being blackmailed in regard to something salacious or indecent that she may or may not have said her done, or for her secret, albeit short lived marriage to New York vaudeville performer Frank Wallace in nineteen eleven.
That's right. She denied it until nineteen thirty seven, but she finally admitted under oath that she was yes, missus maymie Zukis, but the pair she claimed had never lived together. Wallace, which was of course his stage name, was not trying to blackmail her in the action that brought her before a judge. He was trying to get New York state courts to declare that he was entitled to half of everything she had. She won that case.
After Labor Day in nineteen thirty five, West received the first of what would become a series of extortion letters, threatening death or disfigurement by acid if one thousand dollars was not paid. This wasn't about secrets or favors. It was about taking money from a celebrity. It started with an envelope postmarked September thirteenth, nineteen thirty five, Special Delivery, and was addressed to Miss May West of five p
seventy North, Rossmore, Ravenswood Apartments, Hollywood, California. There was nothing unusual about the envelope, but its contents were a different matter. The blackmail letter read as quote acid is a horrible thing to throw in one's face, so beautiful in the height of her career. You can lose one thousand dollars or a million dollars. We are determined to get it. We want money no later than nine o'clock Monday night at the other end of Warner Brothers studio in the
last palm tree. If the extortion squad is there, we will spoil your face for all time. You know where the last tree is, by the gate on the corner. Stick it in the tree by the palms, and don't try to stop who gets it ty a handkerchief on the wall there opposite the tree. If you fail to meet our demands, we will shoot an air gun at you, and we are good shots.
Over. Another letter followed it read quote acid is a holy job. It never heals. We have an air gun which will shoot one hundred yards and it has a perfect sight. We know we would be caught if we walk up to you and throw it in your face, so we are playing safe. We want one thousand dollars by Tuesday night at twelve o'clock. There is a tin can in front of the Warner Brothers studio on Sunset Boulevard, next to the Remick Music Pub. There's a passage there.
It's inside the concrete wall next to the hydrant. Tie a white handkerchief on the faucets so we know it's there. Cross us and lose a million, we will send a decoy for it, acid burns.
These were threats meant to induce terror, no doubt, Promising to disfigure a celebrity known for their face probably seemed like a quick way to gain compliance. As we ponder that, we're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors. And when we return there are more letters to talk about. But first we'll get to know more about May West.
Welcome back to Criminalia. You may know her from lines like cut up and see me sometime, But May West was much more than the character she played, So let's talk about how she got to be a celebrity.
Mary Jane May West was an American actress, singer, playwright, and screenwriter. She wrote under the pen named Jane mast And. She was known for her sex appeal and her body humor. West was born on August seventeenth, eighteen ninety three, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the first of three children born to John West and Matilda Delker. After she placed well in local talent contests under the stage name Baby May as a child, her parents allowed her to drop out of school to pursue
the stage. Her education ended after the fourth grade. Recalling of herself growing up, May has stated quote, I had a deep, rough voice for a child. The audience started laughing when they heard my first powerful tones. I fell in love on that stage.
May began her acting career when she was fourteen years old, when she signed with hal Clarendon Stock Company at the Gotham Theater in New York City. She spent the next few years working the vaudeville and burlesque circuit. By the nineteen twenty she was acting, singing, and writing her own plays.
It was in nineteen twenty six when she shot to stardom, some say, to notoriety with her self penned play titled Sex The Story of a Montreal Sex Worker was a hit on Broadway, and a year into its run, as many as three hundred seventy five performances had already taken place and three hundred twenty five thousand people had seen the show. But in February of nineteen twenty seven, authorities
rated the theater and the show was shut down. West was arrested and faced a grand jury claiming that her quote obscene, indecent, immoral, and impure drama would corrupt the morals of youth.
The court offered to drop the charges if she paid a five hundred dollars fine and closed the show, but the savvy West chose to serve a ten day jail sentence in a workhouse on Welfare Island now known as Roosevelt Island because of the publicity it would garner. She ended up serving eight of those days, and she used the very public opportunity to her advantage, including stating to the press during her incarceration that she'd dined with the warden.
She shocked the tabloid press when she told them she wore silk garments under her inmate uniform. In response to a journalist who asked her what she thought was going to happen next, West replied, quote, I expect this will be the making of me. The whole event, said West was quote marketing gold. It was the first time she was arrested on indecency charges, but it wasn't the last.
She followed up Sex with several other plays, including Diamond Lil, a massive hit that ran for more than three hundred performances on Broadway alone. When the Great Depression began to take a toll on the economy, West, at age thirty eight, relocated from New York to Hollywood, and in nineteen thirty two, she was offered her first motion picture contract. The contract with Paramount Pictures not only launched her screen career, but
it also helped save Paramount from bankruptcy. Arriving in Hollywood, West famously announced quote, I'm not a little girl from a little town making good in a big town. I'm a big girl from a big town making good in a little town. And she proved it. Variety reported quote, May West's films have made her the biggest conversation provoker free space grabber and all around box office bet in the country. She's as hot an issue as Hitler. It's kind of a dubious honor to be given by the press.
Yes. By nineteen thirty five, West had become a hot celebrity topic. She was the highest paid woman in the United States and the second highest paid person behind William Randolph Hurst. Her critics called her quote the first female leading man and the greatest female impersonator. So not exactly adored by.
All, but there were many who championed her too, including popular American writer f. Scott Fitzgerald, who considered West quote the only Hollywood actress with an ironic edge and comic spark. Popular British novelist Hugh Walpole wrote that only she and Charlie Chaplin quote dare to directly attack with their mockery
the fraying morals and manners of a dreary world. French author Sidey Gabrielle Colette praised her independent spirit, writing quote, she alone, out of an enormous and dull catalog of heroines, does not get married at the end of the film, does not gaze sadly at her declining youth, does not experience it's the bitterness of the abandoned older woman. She alone has no parents, no children, no husband. This impudent woman is in her style as solitary as Chaplain used to be.
We are now going to take a break for word from our sponsors, and when we return we will talk about yes, more letters and how West's extortionist was caught sort of caught.
Welcome back to Criminalia. It took more than one try to do it. But let's talk about the odd way. This case was closed.
In October of nineteen thirty five. The letters kept arriving. One stated quote, lose your career and beauty on the set or fights or home five seventy raw or writing or parties or studio. We see you every day. Acid burns. Yet another read quote, you can call the police if you wish, but then you will be sure to get acid and a little lie in the eyes as good measure. We want one thousand in fives, tens, twenties, unmarked or copied.
If so you shall never be afraid again of this threat, as we keep our promise, as.
Any of us would. West reported these letters to the authorities as soon as they started arriving. District Attorney's Office investigator Harry Dean was assigned to the case capture the extortionist who was threatening to throw acid at May West unless she delivered one thousand dollars, and to catch their suspect to Dean went undercover, really undercover. He impersonated May West, wearing hair, makeup and clothing in her style and manner.
Part of another letter read quote, we could have did it many times already, but we want to see what you would say.
First.
We had your chauffeur's automatic last Friday, but put it back, ask him if he left it in the car, and then came back for it an hour later.
Attempts to make contact with the perpetrator failed the first few times. Dean and his team left a decoy package at the site more than once, but no one showed up at the drop to claim it, and then May received another letter stating quote, we've seen your sign. It looked like a trap. You put that money next to the fire plug over the wall in the bushes tonight and leave it there in a tin can, a small
can of your own. If anyone stops the man who comes for it, this town will be too hot to hold you as he will not know who we are, and we don't joke. We knew you when you sent one guy up the river for publicity, so don't try it again, Acid burns.
After those few failed attempts by dean impersonating Way to make the drop at the named rendezvous point, May herself went with her chauffeur to drop off the money, well to drop off the decoy. West's chauffeur, by the way, was a man named Albert Chalky Wright, who was a former boxer, and he was no joke. In two thousand and three, he appeared in The Ring magazine's list of one hundred Greatest Boxers of All Time. There was serious
backup at the scene too, a shotgun squad. Shotgun squads were used in stakeouts, during which officers would camp out for hours or longer at the scene waiting for their suspect. One retired sergeant who worked these types of shifts once quipped that the process was quote seven hours of boredom and three seconds of sheer terror when confronting a suspect.
A man named George Janus, a cafeteria worker at one of the studios, was taken into custody after he picked up the decoy, which had been placed by Chalky Wright. Reported by the Los Angeles Time on October tenth, nineteen thirty five, quote, the bus boy was arrested Monday night when he picked up a pocketbook which miss West chauffeur
had placed near Warner Brothers Sunset Boulevard studio. Per instructions contained in the last of six notes received by the actress, Yanoo stuck to his story that he happened along as the pocketbook was placed by the tree, and that he had picked it up out of sheer curiosity. The Los Angeles Times then reported the next morning that quote, six other suspicious characters found loitering in the neighborhood were taken
to the District Attorney's office for questioning. Those six people were released.
And Janoos well, the chief special investigator for the District Attorney, a man named Blaney Matthews, doubted his guilt because George, a Greek immigrant, spoke little English. Janos was released from custody on October tenth, nineteen thirty five, and the extortion story just kind of ends there. The case wasn't solved, but it was closed. No one was held accountable for the threats, but after Yanus was detained and questioned, the letters stopped.
Dean for his efforts, received acclaim and applause for his investigation and his impersonation from his fellow investigators. The New York Times reported that his colleagues turned his office into what could have been may West's dressing room, tying ribbons to his telephone and placing flowers on his desk and leaving quote essence of hyacinth spray lingering in the air.
At the same time and off the record, some reports suggest FBI Director j. Edgar Hoover was really angry with the Los Angeles Police Department because he believed blackmail and extortion fell under federal responsibility and was not an enforcement matter for local law. Hoover built the reputation of the FBI by targeting and arresting bank robbers in the nineteen thirties. That's true, but yes, the new bureau was responsible for investigating this type of threat.
When may West died from complications of a stroke at the age of eighty seven in November of nineteen eighty, it was front page news and the embalmer it said, made her look half her age. The Los Angeles Times reported quote. In her life, she became both an icon and a caricature. May herself lives on in so many ways still today, and she's been a dictionary entry, yes, since World War Two, when RAF pilots cheekily named their
full chested inflatable life preservers in her honor. I think we should have a drink to her honor.
Listen, I'll drink to May West any day. I love her. So this coercion concoction, it's an interesting one. Before I talk about the one we're having, there is a cocktail called a May West.
I didn't know that.
I was not brave enough to make it, and I'll tell you why. It is an odd combination of ingredients because it is made with vodka, amaretto, madori, and cranberry juice.
What very interesting fruity salad you got going on there.
It seems like it would be a war. Allegedly, and again I didn't make this to test it. Allegedly, something happens where when you drink it, it actually tastes like a cherry cordial like. It takes on a chocolatey note from the amaretto and the medori's sweetness. Okay, does something that makes it sound like a confection. I haven't tried it. I might at some point, but just if you're curious about it, that's what that is. That's not what we're having.
The thing, of course, that I would bet most of us are thinking throughout this whole thing is acid Burns, which is interesting right the way it's always the tag of the letters. It almost sounds like somebody's name, their pen name is acid Burns, like Charles Montgomery Burns and his brother Acid his brother, just to get a little
Simpsons reference in at any time. But it made me think about a cocktail that would be acidic ie in cocktail language, that means citrus, heavy and a little bit interesting, familiar, but something with a bite that was like as robust and brazen as May West. This one is a little bit it shares DNA with a margarita, but it goes to a different place pretty quickly. But we also haven't done tequila in a while, so it felt like the
right time, right. I could definitely see May West doing shots of tequila, or we're not doing shots, but.
I could see that. Yes.
So the acid burn starts with an ounce and a half of tequila reposotto would be my choice. A half ounce of quantro, a half ounce of ginger liqueur, a half ounce of lime juice. Then you're also gonna add a quarter ounce of lemon juice, anywhere between a splash and a half ounce of a gave, depending on how sweet you like it, like in agave syrup. And then you're gonna shake that. You're gonna pour it into a pre chilled glass, and you're gonna top it with a
low kiss of prosecco. There's enough sweetness because the citrus, we're getting citrus from the liqueur and the ginger liqueur is involved that it's not just the bitter acid flavor. You're also getting that sweetness. And the prosecco evens it out a little bit, makes it very crisp and bright, because otherwise I found it a little heavy.
And you get a little bubbly from may West.
I think you know I love a little bubble action the mocktail. For this one, we're gonna do things a little different. We're gonna do an ounce of lime juice, a half ounce of lemon juice, a half ounce of ginger syrup, and a half ounce of orange syrup. If you cannot find ginger syrup, man, that's the easiest syrup in the world to make. If you just boil some ginger, literally chunks of ginger and water, you will have ginger tea, and then you can make that into ginger syrup by
just adding sugar to it. I usually do like a cup and a half of tea and a cup and a half of sugar. I like a one to one. Some people like more sugar to get a thicker syrup, which is fine, that's dealer's choice. But then you're gonna take all of that, You're gonna put it in your shaker, you're gonna strain it into a pre chilled glass, and you can top that with ginger ale or if you want a less sweet drink, club soda. That's just like a refreshing variation on a lemon lime. It's very, very
yummy and very easy to drink. So that is the acid burns, which hopefully will not burn you in any way and will only be delightful and make you feel refreshed and also make you think of May West, because she's pretty interesting, a fascinating woman. We just can't help but admire a bit I like that. She was like, Ugh, just give me the thing. I'll take it myself.
I yeah, right, you've tried five times, I'll do the six to one. Right.
I got a boxer with me. We're fine between the two of us, not a problem. If you find yourself in dire straits, please let authorities handle it. Don't presume that you can do it, even if Maywest is very.
Cool or you have a boxer friend.
We are so thankful that you spent this time with us. We hope that you will join us once again next week. Four other stories of blackmail, extortion, and coercion concoctions. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.