The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals (7 page)

She crowded too much work into too short a time, and overtaxed her capacities . . . The result is that she has had a complete physical and nervous collapse – so complete that she has not rallied from it as she should.

Lying in her bedroom – or as she called it, her “sunshine room”, Lucille enjoyed receiving visitors such as her brother Marshall and the actress Lois Wilson. “Please won’t you all be so happy,” she told them, “I know I will be well soon.”

Unfortunately the child just grew worse and worse, and in February 1925 things took a tragic turn when her mother suddenly collapsed in Lucille’s bedroom, dying in front of the stunned child and her brother Marshall. The shock of this tragic event was too much for the child to bear, and several days later she sank into a coma, from which she sadly never recovered.

With their father not living with the children, and their mother now passed away, it was decided that family friends, actor Conrad Nagel and producer and author Rupert Hughes, would become the children’s guardians. However, this arrangement was not to last long, as sadly on 13 March 1925 Lucille Ricksen passed away, a victim – according to the newspapers – of a broken heart. Her death certificate stated that the girl died of pulmonary tuberculosis though sadly this has not stopped disturbing rumours that her breakdown, illness and death were all really the results of a botched abortion undertaken shortly before her initial collapse.

Of course, no newspaper reported such a thing at the time, and instead they were full of articles and tributes from many of Lucille’s co-stars and friends. Lois Wilson led the way by claiming that she had “never known anyone so full of joy”, while many others described her as a sweet-natured girl who gave happiness to everyone she met.

Flowers flooded into the home, and a simple but impressive funeral was planned at the Gates, Crane and Earl Chapel, where Lucille’s memorial was to take place. On the day of the funeral itself, the venue was full of celebrities who had known or worked with Lucille Ricksen. Flowers from Mary Pickford, Sydney Chaplin, Rupert Hughes and Lois Wilson surrounded the coffin, while many more lay in anonymous tribute around the church. In accordance with her wishes, Lucille Ricksen’s body was cremated, and then both her ashes and those of her mother were interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, where many other stars would be laid to rest in the years to come.

Just days later came the news that while still only a teenager, Lucille Ricksen had left an estate of $50,000 in the form of life insurance and $10,000 from personal property. This shocked everyone as she was relatively poor at the time of her death and, in fact, Hollywood producer Paul Bern had stepped in to pay for her nursing care for quite some time. Tragically it would seem that the child was now worth more in death than she had been in life, and her father Samuel was set to inherit it all.

Although she had not lived with him since she was eight years old, Samuel Ericksen had recently moved to Los Angeles – presumably to be close to his children. After losing firstly his ex-wife and then Lucille, the man had had enough of the so-called bright lights of Hollywood and was now intent on gaining back custody of his eighteen-year-old son, Marshall, who was still under the care of Rupert Hughes and Conrad Nagel. Samuel greatly distrusted the two men and made it clear to Marshall that he wanted him to give up his own acting career and concentrate on his education instead. To that end he decided to use the majority of his inheritance from Lucille for the education of his son, but first he would have to win him back.

To help in his quest, he hired a lawyer, Griffith Jones, who told reporters that Samuel Ericksen had objected to his children being associated with older people within the movie industry, and had “proved himself to be an extremely kind and loving parent and intensely interested in the welfare of the children”. Both Hughes and Nagel were surprised at these developments, and Hughes released a statement to explain why they had stepped forward as guardians in the first place.

It read in part, “Mr Nagel and I were named in the petition with the full consent of the father. We were actuated by sympathy and a wish to help the children in their difficulties. I have had no information that Mr Ericksen desired to enter a protest to our guardianship.”

But protest he did, citing the fact that the guardianship had never been legally sworn as Lucille had passed before it could be heard. The custody case for Marshall Ricksen went to court on 16 April 1925, with Samuel Ericksen’s main charge being that Rupert Hughes could not be a suitable guardian, since he had recently written a piece entitled “Why I Quit going to Church”. In the article Hughes had said that anyone who believed in the Bible had either never read it or was actually lying; Ericksen took great offence at this, stating that Hughes must obviously be an atheist and therefore an unsuitable candidate for looking after a teenage boy.

However, he did not bank on a revelation from Hughes himself, who told the court that before Lucille’s death both she and Marshall had summoned him to their home and begged him and Nagel to take charge of their affairs in order to protect them from their father. Ericksen was obviously shocked to hear such a thing, but it was enough to swing the vote in Hughes’s favour, and Judge J. Perry Wood gave him and Nagel joint custody of Marshall Ricksen.

During the coming years, the boy was given emotional support from the two men and he went on to attend university and later became a lawyer. He never spoke about his early life in Hollywood or his sister – the memories of both being far too raw in his mind. His father Samuel, meanwhile, tragically passed away on 25 April 1928, just over three years after his ex-wife and daughter.

Described by the
Los Angeles Times
as having an “enthusiasm as strong as her frame was slight”, Lucille Ricksen gave everything to her career and lost her life and family to the trappings of Hollywood. She was perhaps the first example of the tragic consequences of putting a child into the limelight, but she most certainly was not the last. The exact circumstances surrounding her death will never be known, but one thing is for sure, if she had just been allowed to be a child instead of an adult at the age of twelve, her short life would have inevitably been far happier.

As covered in the first chapter, in 1921, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was accused of raping and killing a young actress called Virginia Rappe at one of his infamous parties. The court case that followed is still talked about nearly a hundred years later, yet another huge Hollywood court case that took place just six years later has long since been forgotten. Until now.

In 1927, Paul Kelly was an up-and-coming actor, described by the media as “dashing” and “debonair”. Born on 9 August 1899 in Brooklyn, his career began as a child actor aged seven, and he quickly became a big star at the Vitagraph Studios. Unlike many actors since then, Kelly made the transition from child actor to leading man very successfully and went on to star on the New York stage in plays such as
Seventeen
and
Whispering Wires
. Still, as a result of his looks and talent, Hollywood came knocking on his door and it was not long before he was working at Paramount, making something of a splash in
The New Klondike
(1926) and
Special Delivery
(1927).

By March 1927, the gossip columnists were announcing the news that the hot young actor was destined for huge success and that Warner Brothers were anxious to sign him for their next picture. He was about to become one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, but sadly nobody could have predicted just what atrocities were going to happen next . . .

Ray Raymond was a stage actor and singer, who by 1927 had been married to actress Dorothy Mackaye for seven years, having met her in New York when they were both appearing in a production called
Blue Eyes
. Together they lived and worked in New York and Hollywood, and welcomed the arrival of their daughter Valeria who by 1927 was four years old. However, by all accounts the marriage was not a happy one, and this was confirmed by Mackaye herself who later declared: “I know it’s not right for me to say, but he was unkind to me. He was always accusing me about Paul Kelly, but his accusations were untrue.”

The accusations involving the actor stemmed from a friendship they had began in New York long before Dorothy had met Raymond. The two had kept in touch for many years, but while she claimed it was purely platonic, Raymond was convinced she was having a passionate affair and forbade his wife from seeing the actor any more. He was shocked by her response, however, when not only did Dorothy refuse to give up her friendship, but also blatantly continued seeing him in the full knowledge of her husband. “Paul was my friend,” she later told police. “Our friendship was so clean, lovely and beautiful that I didn’t want to give him up.”

This refusal to cool her association with Kelly (which she described as “a sort of sisterly love”) did not go down well with Raymond, particularly when it was rumoured that the actor had asked Dorothy to divorce her husband and marry him instead. Mackaye later laughed off the whispers by declaring that if there had been any talk of marriage with Kelly, it was purely a joke, although she did admit that her marriage to Raymond had been under strain but that they had been unable to divorce because of financial problems.

While Dorothy dismissed any marriage talk between Kelly and herself as a joke, Ray Raymond did not see the funny side. Once again he told Dorothy that under no circumstances must she ever see him again, though in the end this seems to have been a great mistake, because instead of deterring her, it only succeeded in making Mackaye even more determined to keep the relationship going. If she enjoyed humiliating her stressed husband in a very public way, she was certainly making a good job of it.

Although Dorothy later claimed that she and Kelly would always have chaperones when together, it was obvious to everyone that the two were spending more than enough time alone, going on motorcycle rides together, visiting his apartment and attending parties. One of the said parties was actually at her marital home on Holly Drive, where Raymond became so angry to see Paul Kelly there that he threw him out in front of the other guests. “He took a violent dislike to Kelly from the start . . . He was so silly, ridiculous and absurd about our friendship, and insanely jealous,” Mackaye later said.

Raymond obviously had a temper and a drink problem to go with it – Mackaye’s flaunting her “friendship” with Kelly was like playing with fire. “He wasn’t in his right mind,” Dorothy later said, which made her decision to keep the relationship with Kelly going in such a high-profile way even more questionable. But go on she did, and several months before the fateful last encounter between the two men, Paul Kelly was at the house when Raymond unexpectedly came home. Disturbed and furious to find his love rival sitting in his own living room, the upset man took no time in throwing out the young actor once again.

“I know exactly what your problem is,” Kelly shouted at his rival as he hit the sidewalk. “You think I’m in love with your wife.”

“That is exactly the reason,” replied an angry Raymond, to which Kelly boldly said: “Well, you’re exactly right.”

This information did not sit well with Raymond, though at this point Dorothy was still denying to everyone that the pair were anything but good friends. Still, Raymond and his wife continued to live together and even moved house, this time to 2261 Cheremoya Avenue, Los Angeles, before Raymond went on tour with his play,
Castles in the Air
. This, of course, left Dorothy free to conduct her “friendship” with Kelly and the family maid later said that the actor was often at the house during parties and on his own in the company of Mackaye.

Whether or not Raymond knew anything about these get-togethers is not known but what is certain is that at the time he returned to Hollywood on 15 April 1927, he was still convinced his wife was in love with Paul Kelly and had begun to share his suspicions with friends. On the afternoon of his coming back from tour, there was an obvious strain between the couple and Raymond was in no mood for talking. Instead, he spent time drinking heavily before dramatically breaking a glass over his head, cutting his scalp in the process. He then left the house in a state of despair.

The next day, Dorothy Mackaye visited Paul Kelly and apparently told him that his love rival was spreading rumours about their affair all over town. Furious, Kelly telephoned Raymond to demand if it was true.

“I understand you have been saying things about me,” he said.

“You’re damn right I have and I wish you were here now so that I could give you what you deserve,” Raymond screamed into the telephone.

“I’ll be right over,” Kelly boldly told him. Leaving Dorothy in his apartment, Paul Kelly arrived at the Cheremoya house around 7 p.m. Once there, he was greeted by the family maid, Ethel Lee, and asked her to go and get Raymond so that they could talk. The concerned maid immediately smelled trouble and relayed a message that if he wanted to see Raymond, he must enter the home himself, which Kelly did. He sat down next to the man in the dining room in order to have it out with him once and for all.

“What do you mean by talking about me?” Kelly asked, to which Raymond replied once again that he knew the actor had feelings for his wife. In scenes that could have come straight from a 1920s movie, the six-foot tall Kelly then punched Raymond on the jaw before challenging him to a fight. The smaller man refused the offer, saying, “No, I have just spent twenty-four hours on a train and I’m tired out. I’m in no condition to fight.”

“You’re not tired, just yellow clear through,” replied Kelly, before Raymond then changed the subject and began questioning the actor on the whereabouts of Dorothy Mackaye. The official line was that the actress was out shopping for Easter eggs and visiting her dressmaker, but Raymond was in no position to believe this.

“I don’t know where she is,” lied Kelly.

“Yes, you do,” answered Raymond, and at this point Kelly leaned over and struck the singer on the jaw once again. He then calmly got up and went to the kitchen where he proceeded to ask the maid for a cigarette. Raymond followed him, screaming, “I’ll get you! I’ll get you!” before Kelly turned and hit him several times.