Alexander Pantages "The Beast"

Sex for fame is not new. In fact, it's as old as Hollywood itself. This is Variety Confidential, the secret history of the casting couch. Today's episode is the Beast. Alexander Pantages will go back nearly one hundred years ago in the variety of archives to tell what one might call the origin of Me Too, about an early Hollywood

mogul named Alexander Pantages. He loomed large over the entertainment scene of the nineteen twenties and thirties in ways later emulated by hit makers slash sexual predators such as Don Simpson, Harvey Weinstein and so many others Pantages used his money and power to behave horrifically. He successfully escaped justice thanks to an attorney who set the pace for lawyers made rich by clients who regularly abused vulnerable young men and women who were drawn to Hollywood by its promise of

riches and fame. This season, we look at the secret history of the casting couch. Episode one, The Beast from Variety in iHeart Podcasts. I'm Tracy Patton. Sitting next to me is Matt Donnelly, Variety's senior Entertainment and media writer. Hi, Matt, Hi, Thanks so much for having me. It's great to have you here. So today we're focused on what we're calling character assassination. It's a frequently used tactic used against me

too accusers in Hollywood, also known as victim shaming. Harvey Weinstein was an expert at this absolutely.

social media, how she positions herself in the world. It's quite disturbing, but it's quite a frequent practice.

This was the first case that made this well known, and it happened right here in Hollywood. So here's what happened. The California Supreme Court ruling in nineteen thirty one was the result of a high powered, well funded effort to protect one of Hollywood's biggest names. Had it failed, that man would have spent the rest of his life in prison. His name was Alexander Pantages. Before the Roaring twenties, he had created a circuit of vaudeville theaters that numbered almost

one hundred. He booked vaudeville acts that played between film screenings, a format Variety dubbed vaud film. The live acts included family entertainment along with what Variety called cheap girl flash acts. He was a very powerful guy. He was also famous for something else, his romances. It became clear to Alexander Pantages that movies would replace vaudeville sooner or later. Talkies were in transition. His theaters catered to both. Alex had

money and he was decently handsome. The affairs came easily, but they also got him into trouble. You could often see alex with women in dark corners of speakeasies. His wife, Lois was nowhere to be seen. One affair went public after a bloody fight over a dancer. His arrest made the front page of the Los Angeles Times, and it was a woman, or actually a teenage girl, who led to his ultimate undoing. On August ninth, nineteen twenty nine, he was charged with assaulting a seventeen year old dancer

named Eunice Pringle. Eunice Pringle studied dance and took acting classes in high school. She attended the University of southern California for a year, but dropped out to pursue a career as a dancer. In early nineteen twenty nine, she met a Russian writer and actor named Nicholas Dunyeev. He was dark, handsome, and forty five years old. It was Dunieev who set up an audition with Pantages Vaudeville. Axe earned between one hundred and two hundred dollars a week

that's about twenty five hundred dollars today. Despite her years of preparation in weeks of rehearsal, the audition on May one, nineteen twenty nine did not go well. Instead of moving on to the next audition, Eunice and Nick persisted in trying to get Alex to hire them, and this is where things got strange. Over the spring and summer of nineteen twenty nine, Unis tried to get in touch with Alex Pantages at least twelve times that's once a week

for three months. Eventually, Alex offered Unice a one time booking at his theater in Fresno. He also offered her a gig and a review, but she said no. Finally, he simply gave her the brush off, but she ignored it. Late in the afternoon of August ninth, nineteen twenty nine, Eunice Pringle went to see Alex for what would be the last time. She wore a red crape dress with a short red velvet jacket. She was shown up to the second floor and the waiting area outside Alex's large

corner office. He was busy and invited her to watch a movie in the theater downstairs while she waited. She went down to the mezzanine, slipped in through the balcony entrance, and found a seat in the theatre's top row. She waded through the entire last half of Melody Lane, Universal Studio's first movie musical. Alex eventually found her and escorted her back to the mezzanine, up a short flight of stairs, and into a utility room which was secluded from both

the theater below and the offices upstairs. After a few minutes in the room alone with Alex, Eunice swung the door open and started a scream. Men from Pantage's office rushed downstairs to the mezzanine room. She pushed past them, fled down the stairs, through the theater lobby and out to Hill Street. She returned within minutes with a policeman a traffic cop in tow. They went to the small room, but Alex was gone. She knew where to find him.

She led the policeman upstairs to Alex's corner office. There he is, she said, the beast, the brute. Don't let him get away. Because she was under age, Eunice was taken to juvenile hall. A female officer found bitemarks and abrasions on her neck and upper torso. Afterward, a staff doctor performed a thorough medical examination. Later, Eunice, accompanied by her mother, gave her statement to detectives. Variety reported what she said in a story titled A Very Nasty Mess.

Quoting here, she stated she had been promised work by Alexander Pantagas for almost a year and had frequently visited his office. She alleges Pantagus told her to wait for him in the theater. Upon his return, she claims he invited her into a small room and closed the door. She told police Pantagus started edging toward her, and when she protested, he suddenly struck her. Then, she said, she started a scream. Pantagus put his hand over her mouth

and she fainted. She didn't remember what happened next. After his arrest, Pantages was taken in handcuffs to the Central Police station. He was interrogated for five hours. Alex told the detectives that after declining to book unics, he offered to help her find gigs in minor vaudeville houses up north. According to Variety, he claimed he was framed. The girl was the aggressor. She ripped her dress, dropped to the floor and started a scream. He said it was an

extortion scheme. He could book her act and pay her handsomely, or she'd accuse him of rape. The detectives didn't buy it. They booked him on suspicion of statutory rape. Alex had his mugshots and fingerprints taken. He spent hours in a cell waiting for his lawyer to bail them out, but no such luck. Alexander Pantages, theoter magnate and Hollywood power player, spent the night in jail. While he was behind bars, his life was turned upside down. News of his arrest

went out over the wire services. The scandal blew up nationwide overnight. He was famously no friend of the press, especially the trades. He despised their negative stories about his business practices. Variety's nickname for him was synonymous with a bad review. Pan.

dozen newspaper men. The press was out for blood, and so was the prosecution. Before the proceedings got underway, the prosecution petitioned the court to prevent testimony about Unice's sexual history. After a lengthy debate, the judge ruled Unice's sexual experience was inadmissible. It shouldn't have been a close call. The charge was statutory rape. The prosecution needed to prove just two things, one that Unice was under age and two

that Pantages had sexual contact with her. If both were true, he was guilty. Her sexual history was irrelevant. It was that simple, or it should have been. In District Attorney breen Fitz's opening statement, he depicted Eunice Pringle as a young and innocent girl. Alex Pantages, on the other hand, was a millionaire theater owner old enough to be her father. He had led her on by falsely promising he would

book her act. He then lured her to a secluded room in his office building, where he quote attacked and debauched her. The defense opened by claiming that Eunice had ensnared Alex in an extortion scheme. The attorney zeroed in on Nick Dunyev after dropping Yunis off at the Pantages building on August ninth. Daniev had waited nearby at the law offices of Theodore Gotstanker, the same mister Gottstanker who filed the lawsuit against Pantages the next day. The lawsuit

was part of the scheme. The attorney said. Unus staged the so called assault with Duniev as an accomplice. It was an attempt to frame Pantages and force him to pay them five hundred thousand dollars. In the afternoon, the jury traveled six blocks south to the former Pantagous building. It had been recently sold to Warner Brothers. They were taken to the scene of the crime, the odd little room off the mezzanine. The purpose of the tour was to set the stage for us. Unus's testimony the next day.

She took the stand that morning dressed like a schoolgirl. Because of the high profile of the case, Beeron Fitz, the district attorney, questioned Unus himself. Fitz was a minor political celebrity in California, a former lieutenant governor who liked prosecuting the rich and famous. After preliminary questioning, Fitz asked Unus to take the jury through what happened in the mezzanine room on that August afternoon. We spoke of the hot weather, she said, and then of my act. And

then I slipped off my little red coat. He took off his coat after asking if I objected. We were both seated, and he pulled his chair over and took my hand. Then he slid his arm along the back of my chair and along my shoulder. He said he wished I would be his sweetheart. He went on and on and said that he was crazy about me. He told me that he hated his wife. He would give me anything I wanted. I told him I was not interested,

and I wished he would please be a gentleman. In American Zeus, author Tasso g. Lagos wrote about how Pantages pulled her to him and rose to his feet. Eunus said, trying to kiss her. She turned her head. He struck her on the chin. She recoiled and tried to get away. He pulled her to the floor and pinned her down, all the while whispering seductively. She begged him to let her go. When he wouldn't, she tried to scream. He clapped his hand on her mouth to stifle her. He

kissed her throat. The kisses turned to bites. Da Fits asked Eunus to show where Pantages bit her. She touched her left breast and then her left shoulder, but stopped in mid gesture. She couldn't go on. She began to cry. Unus composed herself. She'd fainted, she said. When she came to, they were on the floor. His pants were on buttoned, her dress was ripped. Eunice pushed him off and staggered to her feet. She noticed a spot on her dress, a dark, wet stain. She opened the door and started

to scream. In the afternoon, Unice was cross examined by Pantaga's lead attorney, Jerry Geesler. The Pantagous trial was his first big case, but he will become one of Hollywood's most successful fixers. Decades before private investigator Anthony Pellicano went to prison for helping top Hollywood attorney's fix problems, Geesler practically invented the practice. Over the years, his client list would include Marilyn Monroe, Lana Turner, Charlie Chaplin, Benjamin Bugsy,

siegeal Errol Flynn, and many others. But it was this case, the Pantage's rape trial, that put him on the map.

After another heated debate, the judge allowed that too. Unus stepped down and made a simple pass in front of the jury box. Geesler asked her to remove the jacket. She slipped it off, revealing the form fitting, sleeveless dress that accentuated her cleavage. Geesler had made his point. Decades of day faming and blaming the victims of sexual assault essentially began here.

the stain on Unus's dress. His answer was unprintable in those days, presumably it was semen. After he stepped down, the prosecution rested as its first witness. The defense called the defendant, Alex Pantages. He complained that Eunice's visits that summer were annoying. When they sat down in the mezziting room the day of the attack, he claimed she surprised him by grabbing his tie and pulling him toward her. He tried to get away. They struggled and ended up

on the floor. She screamed and started ripping her clothes. He shoved her off, then claims that she ran off down to the lobby. During the cross examination, Alex shut down under the DA's unfriendly grilling. He answered questions with a stubborn yes or no. On October twenty sixth, the jury announced its verdict to a packed courtroom. Guilty as charged, Alex was sentenced the next day to fifty years in stea Quentin. He was in his fifties, so this was

a life sentence. Two days after the verdict, the stock market crash, setting the stage for the Great Depression. The crash prompted one of Variety's most famous headlines, Wall Street Lays and Egg. Meanwhile, Jerry Giesler's team completed the appeal of Alex's conviction. The brief was twelve hundred pages and focused on the judge's banning testimony about Eunice Pringle's sexual history. While the appeal was in the works, Pantages was held

in County Jail. Out of the Blue, Alex was granted parole on one hundred thousand dollars bond, but trouble found him again. On October thirtieth, on a business trip to San Diego, a couple of his colleagues were partying at the El Cortes Hotel. They also hired a couple of girls from Hollywood to liven things up. Supposedly, these girls were underage again. Four months later, on March tenth, in nineteen thirty one, Alex and his wife Lois crossed the border for a little r and r at the Agua

Caliente Hotel south of Tijuana. But then Alex's lawyer showed up unexpectedly with some bad news. The San Diego District Attorney planned to arrest Alex within twenty four hours. The charge was contributing to the delinquency of a minor, along with a related conspiracy charge. The accusers were the girls he partied with in October. One of them, Lydia Nitto, was sixteen years old. Alex admitted to the partying, but

said he didn't touch Lydia Nitto. Or anyone else. He claimed he was being framed again in an attempt to ruin his chances for a retrial. In the Pringle case, the girls had been procured from a trafficking operation called a lovemart. Its specialty was providing underage girls for wealthy men. When the love Mart's supply of girls was low, police said they kidnapped girls from orphanages. Because of this, the

press dubbed Alex's new scandal the love Mark Case. Alex's life took another upswing a few weeks later, on April second, nineteen thirty one, the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of his appeal. The court agreed with Jerry Geesler that Eunice's quote previous acts of unchastity should have been presented. They became relevant, the justices said, because the prosecution made her virginity an issue. The court ordered a retrial on

the Pringle charges. In a statement to the press, Geesler predicted that the reversal would quote establish precedent and authority not only in California but throughout the nation. He got that right. The ruling would set back rape victims' rights for decades. In early June nineteen thirty one, the pantageous love Mark case went to trial in San Diego. Prosecution's

first witness was Lydia Nitto, Alex's accuser. She gave a tearful account of an orgy at the El Cortes in October, but under cross examination by Jerry Giesler, Geiesler produced an affidavid proving that she was born in nineteen oh eight. She was twenty two at the time of the lovemart orgy, not sixteen. The judge dismissed the statutory rape charge, but let stand the conspiracy to corrupt charge related to the other girl. Testimony continued for two more weeks. The jury

deliberated for two days but then deadlocked. A retrial was scheduled, but it never happened. Alex Pantages had dodged a second life in prison verdict. The retrial in the Pringle case began in the late fall. Because of the Supreme Court ruling, the defense was free to flip the tables and put Eunice on trial. They did it with the testimony of

new witnesses. The most important new witness was the physician who examined Unis on August ninth, According to the La Times, the doctor quote expressed disbelief in miss Pringle's account of her life prior to this time. In other words, the doctor found that Unice had been sexually active before the incident. She was not a virgin. The jury deliberated for sixty four hours. Their verdict reversed the previous jury not guilty. Later, Uni spoke to reporters. The verdict shows the value the

state of California places on its girls, she said. It shows me that a person who gave the best ten years of her life fighting for justice is lost. It convinces me that the state will not protect its women.

and millions more from the sale of his theaters. He announced plans to build new theaters in November nineteen thirty five, but it was not to be. He died in his sleep on February seventeenth, nineteen thirty six. He left a lasting legacy. However, his last theater, the Hollywood Pantages, is still in business and remains one of the premier theatrical venues in the country. The Pantagous trials have a legacy too. Jerry Geiesler's prediction came true. The California Supreme Court ruling

became a p nationwide. Defense attorneys used it to put their client's accusers on trial. Over time, courts ruled that certain behaviors could undercut a victim's accusation of rape. A rapist might go free if his accuser was known to dress provocatively, own condoms, or travel alone at night, or even if she drank, smoked, or used drugs. Eventually, however, there was a bright light. Congress passed the Violence Against

Women Act in nineteen ninety four. The Act included a National Rape Shield Law, a provision that reversed the pantagious Precedent ruling six decades earlier. Today, the Shield law remains an important legal tool in the search for justice in the era of Me Too. Given all this background, has the Me Too movement had an effect on the tactic of victim shaming and media smear campaigns.

So I'm thinking even the level of you know, when you're going to jury selection, I don't think that the average person would be so susceptible to a stunt like as ridiculous as parading a young unit springle around in a red dress.

But more than that, I do think that it's I think a sadly necessary thing to sort of litigate, you know what I mean. And seeing someone like Geesler, who's also a really fascinating character too, it's always helpful to see these tactics reverse engineered so we know how to avoid them in our search for justice. It really shows you that history is not the steady climb toward the light right. There's lots of peaks and valleys in our attempt for equity and fairness and nonviolence.