Speaker 1: A note to the listener. The following story contains some
Speaker 1: adult content and language. Welcome back to the podcast. Full disclosure.
Speaker 1: Before we get started, I want you to know that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of ground to cover in this episode,
Speaker 1: a lot of history, and I promise it's all necessary, necessary,
Speaker 1: because Marlene Marie Evans was a real person, not just
Speaker 1: a body found in a parking lot. So I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy getting to know her as much as I did.
Speaker 1: I already answered the detective's questions when they went through
Speaker 1: all of the things. I'm just following up to see
Speaker 1: if there's anything that cops may missed. They've pretty thorough.
Speaker 1: Please Glass, Yeah, all right, but I gotta make it brief.
Speaker 1: All I can tell you is what I know, all right.
Speaker 1: She was a sweetheart, a bit of a neat freak,
Speaker 1: always funcks him with her hair. When she first moved in.
Speaker 1: She was a Shylottle brunette girl who loved ile of Lucy.
Speaker 1: She would never miss a Monday Night. She got the
Speaker 1: biggest kick out of the little cartoon Lucy and Daisy.
Speaker 1: Before every episode you two together a line, No, I
Speaker 1: mean day. She was at the doctor's office at the
Speaker 1: jewelry counter bullocks. But you had to come home at
Speaker 1: some point. You're telling me you didn't see your roommate
Speaker 1: except for Monday's No, not really. Why is that she
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time in her room. When I
Speaker 1: asked her what she was always doing in there, she said,
Speaker 1: reading plays and practicing addiction and stuff like that. Six
Speaker 1: nights a week. Even Jane Mansfield took a night off
Speaker 1: from diction. Look, I don't know what to tell you,
Speaker 1: a buddy, glad don't look over there. There's no one
Speaker 1: over there. Why aren't you telling me, Gladys, nothing looked
Speaker 1: me in the eyes. Nothing looked me in the eyes.
Speaker 1: And tell me that Marlene were part time at a
Speaker 1: doctor's office during the day and was home every night
Speaker 1: in her room, but you never saw each other. She
Speaker 1: didn't want a parents to know what. She didn't want
Speaker 1: her parents to know. Didn't want her parents to know what, Gladys.
Speaker 1: She started working knights as a cocktail waitress where Cereos,
Speaker 1: Cereals Jazz joined up on Sunset. Yeah, I know what
Speaker 1: Cereos is. It's a pretty swank nightclub. She got it
Speaker 1: in the head. Will someone got it in her head?
Speaker 1: That if she started sling and drink, she'd have a
Speaker 1: better chance of getting discovered by some real high role
Speaker 1: is her words, not mine. I mean I told her
Speaker 1: she'd have to go to Vegas for those. I think
Speaker 1: she meant big wigs, as if some producer was going
Speaker 1: to see this cocktail waitress as the next Marilyn Monroe
Speaker 1: and put her on the cover of Life the next day.
Speaker 1: And around one was that, I don't know a few
Speaker 1: months before maybe do you ever mention any trouble there,
Speaker 1: anyone she had any problems with? But, like I said,
Speaker 1: passing ships, which was fine, I was tired of hearing
Speaker 1: all about Hollywood talk all the time. You may be
Speaker 1: in the wrong town for that. I just part of
Speaker 1: me felt bad for her. How do you mean? Look,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to degrade this poor girl. God rest
Speaker 1: the soul. I'm just pointing out she was pretty, but
Speaker 1: nothing remarkable. And the way she went on and on
Speaker 1: about what was filming and when she was going to
Speaker 1: get a big break enough that the star was born nonsense.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. I wish you would just have settled down
Speaker 1: with it. A nice doctor that's real stability, not not
Speaker 1: the one she worked with. Obviously, but when was the
Speaker 1: last time you saw her? Two days before they found her,
Speaker 1: my girlfriend, Sylvia was moving back to Michigan with her
Speaker 1: fiance Berry, and stopped over to say goodbye before they
Speaker 1: hit the road. After that, I went to work, and
Speaker 1: I assumed that's where Marlene was going, because she said
Speaker 1: she was working that evening She said she was working, yeah,
Speaker 1: And the morning after that I had the early shift,
Speaker 1: so I assume she was still in a room when
Speaker 1: I left. Any of this helping. I'm not in trouble,
Speaker 1: am I she she didn't want to parents tonight. No trouble.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your help. Hey, how can we not
Speaker 1: bringing any of this down? I got a photographic memory.
Speaker 1: Well that's it. You're real, sweetheart. Gladys. You're welcome from
Speaker 1: Vot's Popula and the Los Angeles. Harold, this is the
Speaker 1: Angel of fine ainking in no ground, because my Angels.
Speaker 1: There's a small town in southern Idaho between the Snake
Speaker 1: River and the Albion Mountains with no noticeable connection to Hollywood.
Speaker 1: A sign on the edge of town reads Burley, a
Speaker 1: great place to live. The population of Burley has hovered
Speaker 1: around ten thousand for many years now, but back in
Speaker 1: the fifties it was just over half of that Interstate
Speaker 1: eighty four had yet to be built, so the highway
Speaker 1: ran right through main Street, making Burley quite the thoroughfare
Speaker 1: for travelers needing rest. On a stretch equivalent to two
Speaker 1: city blocks, you had your choice of four restaurants, the
Speaker 1: Oregon Trail Cafe, Boyd's, Nelson's, or the Sportsman's Cafe. There
Speaker 1: was the National Hotel, in Bank, the Idaho Bank and Trust,
Speaker 1: right across the street, a thrift way drug store, a Texico,
Speaker 1: and at the center of it all the Burly Theater,
Speaker 1: an old vaudeville house built in seventeen and later converted
Speaker 1: to accommodate a screen and projector. There was a perfect
Speaker 1: little town that wrapped most evenings up by nine o'clock
Speaker 1: seven o'clock on Sundays. But if you had grandiose fantasies
Speaker 1: of fame and fortune, or desired the kind of glamours
Speaker 1: shown on the silver screen, Burley might not keep you
Speaker 1: as entertained as it did the majority of its residence.
Speaker 1: So as soon as Marlene Marie Nudson was old enough,
Speaker 1: she bought a one way bus ticket out of her
Speaker 1: bustling hometown. She headed to Hollywood, California, to make her
Speaker 1: dreams come true as Marlene Marie Evans and while you
Speaker 1: can take the Girl out of Burley. When the detective
Speaker 1: searched Marlene's apartment, what they found stuck in the mirror
Speaker 1: of her vanity was a photograph of a sea of
Speaker 1: people outside of her hometown theater. The caption read in
Speaker 1: celebration of Shirley Temple's birthday circa nineteen thirty six. Perhaps
Speaker 1: she dreamt that one day all those people would be
Speaker 1: standing on Main Street celebrating her. There's only one way
Speaker 1: to keep warm, stripped down to your painting suit, that is,
Speaker 1: if you're a girl. Our first story takes us to Idaho.
Speaker 1: Who we are fifty beautiful girls up for the title
Speaker 1: of Miss flash Bull. Let's see what develops in this
Speaker 1: photographer's holiday. Here are the ten best. Marlene was one
Speaker 1: of the ten finalists for Miss Flashbulb. She won a
Speaker 1: very small trophy, but hey, a trophy is a trophy, right,
Speaker 1: I've never won a trophy and she got to keep
Speaker 1: the Catalina swimsuits she wore during the pageant that was
Speaker 1: the only contest entry of hers that I could find,
Speaker 1: but that's certainly not because there were a shortage of
Speaker 1: them in Boca Raton, Florida, a bevy of beauties out
Speaker 1: for the title of Miss Bicycle of nineteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: one of the snappiest titles of the century. Later that summer,
Speaker 1: the very first Miss Universe took place in Long Beach, California.
Speaker 1: I don't know whether or not the excitement of that
Speaker 1: event played a role in her decision making process, but
Speaker 1: the following year, Marlene headed west. I found this clip
Speaker 1: at u c l A's Film and television archive, but
Speaker 1: at this point it's got to be somewhere on the
Speaker 1: internet before we carry on with a program. How about
Speaker 1: some Harrington? Why yes, I love some Harrington. There really
Speaker 1: is more flavor and every spiritful. And remember, with Father's
Speaker 1: Day just around the corner, wouldn't it be nice to
Speaker 1: surprise Dad this Sunday morning with a cup of rich,
Speaker 1: smooth Harrington instant coffee. That was Marlene's first professional acting gig,
Speaker 1: a live sponsor ad during the Dewey Bowers Review Hour.
Speaker 1: She turns to camera during the jingle, lift the cup
Speaker 1: to her mouth and then with eyes and a smile
Speaker 1: as wide as the lens. She delivers her line. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's a little cheesy, but it was the nine fifties,
Speaker 1: the era of ah Chucks and Gee Whizz. And what
Speaker 1: you notice about Marlene immediately was that she wasn't the
Speaker 1: girl next door type. She was very simply put a
Speaker 1: girl from next door, not play by any strap, but
Speaker 1: definitely more of a Merry Anne than a Ginger and
Speaker 1: she was a perfect fit. This clip was dug up
Speaker 1: by the press from the vaults of Classic Pictures shortly
Speaker 1: after Marlene's death. It's her screen test for a small
Speaker 1: role in the nture Aimless Lute and Bally. Who can
Speaker 1: you take a few steps forward for me? Um without
Speaker 1: your hand in your pockets? Right there? Okay, fell us?
Speaker 1: Your name and are you're reading for? My name is
Speaker 1: Marley Marie Evans. I'm five ft six and I'm reading
Speaker 1: for the role of Lady Babcock. And where are you from?
Speaker 1: Marley Early? I'd hill tell me one thing you love
Speaker 1: about Early? Oh there are so many things. Just one
Speaker 1: is fun? Okay. Well, my my mother she used to
Speaker 1: take me to Nelson's, her friend, and Net was the
Speaker 1: piano player in the lounge. There we used to sit
Speaker 1: and listen to ant A Gershwin for what seemed like ours.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful was my mother's favorite? Was that enough? Perfect?
Speaker 1: Whenever you're ready, Pardons to start the scene. Oh, of course,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I couldn't believe his character. I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe his behavior. Yes, dear, I thought that
Speaker 1: it was absolutely dreadful, Yes, dear dreadful. Charles. Are you
Speaker 1: listening to a word I'm saying? I don't understand why
Speaker 1: we make the drive out here every summer? Great? Please
Speaker 1: thoughts your name again? Marlene Marie Evans. Marlene didn't get
Speaker 1: the role in Vali Who, but she did land her
Speaker 1: first on screen role in another of classics movies called
Speaker 1: Broadway Tangle. She has two lines as a department store
Speaker 1: sales girl regarding the price of a child's kaleidoscope, opposite
Speaker 1: the film's lead Geane Hagen. Now I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go into the entirety of Marlene's resume here. I'm simply
Speaker 1: trying to paint a picture for you. So many Hollywood
Speaker 1: hopeful as actors and actresses arrived every day by the
Speaker 1: bus load, literally to make their mark to this day.
Speaker 1: They still do, but where so few actually make it.
Speaker 1: Marlene was already working. I'm not saying that from a
Speaker 1: few lines in a commercial and two speaking lines in
Speaker 1: a little known romantic comedy. Marlene was destined for stardom,
Speaker 1: but she was working. She was doing exactly what she
Speaker 1: came to Hollywood to do, and at the very least,
Speaker 1: she had a promising future one cut tragically short. It's
Speaker 1: just crazy to think that she would have does. She'd
Speaker 1: be all but forgotten if not for your grandfather. Well,
Speaker 1: we hope, yeah, hopefully. Yeah. I have a lot of
Speaker 1: listening to do. This bottle of blue label was extremely
Speaker 1: generous of you. No, no, no, not at all. I please,
Speaker 1: I was I was taught to never show up anywhere
Speaker 1: empty handed. Thank you. No, I didn't. I didn't mean
Speaker 1: yet open it now, I not. I think it's the
Speaker 1: perfect way to mark the moment. I'm not gonna argue
Speaker 1: with you. Thanks. So, do you have any early memories
Speaker 1: of your family? Good ones? No, they don't have to
Speaker 1: be No, No I do. Uh. He used to read
Speaker 1: me three little kittens, remember that? Oh the candy dish
Speaker 1: so in between the club chairs, which I wasn't supposed
Speaker 1: to touch. But come on, who leaves an unattended candy
Speaker 1: dish in a house with kids? That was my favorite
Speaker 1: thing about visiting Gigi. See, I clearly remember the recorder.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting. So so he didn't buy them any phone
Speaker 1: once he became a private investigator. Oh no, he always
Speaker 1: had it. I remember pressing the buttons and speaking into it,
Speaker 1: and then he would play it back, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was funny that my voice was coming out of it.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I'd see him talking into it, and I'd
Speaker 1: sit in one of the club chairs across the room
Speaker 1: and listen. Oh god, those club chairs were the ugliest color,
Speaker 1: color of puke. Oh they'd be worth a fortune. Now.
Speaker 1: G was ahead of our time. He used to record himself.
Speaker 1: He had his wingback leather chair in the corner on
Speaker 1: the front room where he'd sit when he read the paper.
Speaker 1: These rituals of Hanks were some of my favorite moments
Speaker 1: on his tapes. As I began listening, I expected to
Speaker 1: hear this. I don't know, Sam Spade, Humphrey Bogart type
Speaker 1: serves me right for watching too many movies. Instead, though,
Speaker 1: I found a cop who loved to read poetry. If
Speaker 1: you're up against the bruiser and you're getting knocked about.
Speaker 1: Grin if you're feeling pretty groggy and your lick beyond
Speaker 1: a doubt. Rn. I remember his police uniform. The squad
Speaker 1: car was a big deal. Anytime the squad car showed up,
Speaker 1: it was like Christmas. He would surprise us during a
Speaker 1: shift and he would put me in the driver's seat
Speaker 1: and put his hat on my head and let me
Speaker 1: turn on the lights. Don't let him see your funking.
Speaker 1: Let him know with every clout, though your face is
Speaker 1: battered to a pulpe, your blooming heart is stout. Just
Speaker 1: stand upon your pins until the beggar knocks you out
Speaker 1: and grin. But most of what I know about him
Speaker 1: is from my mother. Such as he loved being a cop.
Speaker 1: Nothing made him happier. He would have done it for free.
Speaker 1: It was all he used to talk about. But but, but,
Speaker 1: and as happy as it would make him. She was
Speaker 1: never happy about the fact that he was a cop.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say never happy, but it clearly didn't help
Speaker 1: their marriage. M Was it the hours and the danger. No,
Speaker 1: not the danger, not on the job anyway, and that
Speaker 1: was the fifties. The danger was that he would have
Speaker 1: won too many with the boys after work, stay out
Speaker 1: all night, hitting on the girls in dispatch. She was
Speaker 1: a mother of two. That was enough stress on its own,
Speaker 1: and it only got worse when he started his own agency.
Speaker 1: No red tape, no partner, no set hours, no one
Speaker 1: to answer to about that. Um. How much do you
Speaker 1: know about the circumstances that led to him leaving the
Speaker 1: l a p D. I know some, but this is
Speaker 1: more her department. I found all of the newspaper clippings
Speaker 1: he kept. Wow, So this is what the papers said.
Speaker 1: And there are a couple of names to remember to
Speaker 1: understand exactly what went down. First, the Honorable Benton Francis Hughes.
Speaker 1: He was a judge in the Los Angeles Superior Court
Speaker 1: at the time Hank was on the police force. The
Speaker 1: other is Benton's son, Forrest Hughes. Forrest was attending Dartmouth
Speaker 1: majoring in finance with a minor in Russian, probably two
Speaker 1: hits off his father. Anyway, the the short of it is,
Speaker 1: Forrest was home for a break during the summer. Hank
Speaker 1: comes across a drunken forest one night while he's off
Speaker 1: duty outside the King Eddie Saloon. Apparently he'd beat the
Speaker 1: crap out of Forest, broke his jaw, fractured his eye
Speaker 1: socket for no apparent reason. Right, But mom, Hank's best friend, Ed,
Speaker 1: a fellow cop, was with Hank that night, and that's
Speaker 1: not in the paper. No, it's not. They said Hank
Speaker 1: acted alone. My mother said, my father swore that he
Speaker 1: and Ed saved a girl that night. He and Ed
Speaker 1: came out of the ball are and took the alley.
Speaker 1: They heard a struggle and found this guy trying to
Speaker 1: force himself on a young woman. But there's also no
Speaker 1: mention of a girl anywhere in the clippings. Just off
Speaker 1: duty cop assaults judge's son and no word. Nope. A
Speaker 1: little background on ed Hess. At that time, Ed was
Speaker 1: one of less than sixty black officers in the l A.
Speaker 1: P D. It's no question that he faced racism, both
Speaker 1: from those he did his best to protect and serve
Speaker 1: and also under a police chief who at that time
Speaker 1: made certain that any officer of color faced almost impossible
Speaker 1: odds when it came to being promoted. While he's not
Speaker 1: in the report from the following tape, I do know
Speaker 1: that Ed was there that night, and my best guess
Speaker 1: is that if Ed was in an off duty altercation.
Speaker 1: It would have been exponentially worse for him than for Hank.
Speaker 1: Thank you. This is a big help. I want to
Speaker 1: know exactly who I'm dealing with here. The last thing
Speaker 1: I need is to track this guy down to find
Speaker 1: out he's a gun runner for the mob. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: there's nothing like that on his rap sheet. In a
Speaker 1: couple of beanies talking us orderly, and you got to
Speaker 1: get along the way. Hey, you know something? You got
Speaker 1: funnier money, still breathing down your neck? Hell, I wish
Speaker 1: How do you mean there's nobody around me? I had
Speaker 1: four walls and in box and a filing cabinet. It
Speaker 1: sounds like my office. You got windows, of course they
Speaker 1: have windows. And then it's not like your office. And
Speaker 1: he luck with the girl nothing, she's a ghost. Damn
Speaker 1: should have stayed. What are you gonna do? Walker bruised
Speaker 1: white girl into my hospital. I had my back and
Speaker 1: two whiskeys. I had no problem inmitting my part in it.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't have changed the thing. Still a judge's kid,
Speaker 1: Still a judge's kid. Hell. He wasn't even at the
Speaker 1: station long enough to make a damn phone call. A
Speaker 1: little ship you know death duties bad. The only time
Speaker 1: outside has been with you. I could always use the
Speaker 1: company on a steak out if you missed me so much, sweetheart,
Speaker 1: No thanks, I need my pension. Damn. I'm sorry. Man.
Speaker 1: He relax, and I know you didn't mean nothing by it.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what. Give me that apology again,
Speaker 1: but this time louder. For the record. I don't understand
Speaker 1: why you can't just write it down like the rest
Speaker 1: of us. That you can't write down the background noise
Speaker 1: of the way a person stutters or pauses, and you
Speaker 1: can't write down how somebody sounds like a liar. Why
Speaker 1: would I lie to you? Not you? It's just easier
Speaker 1: for me. Yet I can't explain it. Yeah, because you
Speaker 1: made a life of ship. What if I just really
Speaker 1: love the sound of your beautiful voice and just stupid.
Speaker 1: After I finished my first visit with Beth and Phillis
Speaker 1: and returned to Los Angeles, I went to one of
Speaker 1: the herald sources of the L A. T. D. To
Speaker 1: see if they could find anything regarding Hank's dismissal with
Speaker 1: the pulled was his personnel file. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: Hank Briggs wasn't fired. Hank Briggs chose to resign from
Speaker 1: the l a p D instead of putting his future
Speaker 1: in the hands of a disciplinary committee of speers. Had
Speaker 1: they decided to remove him from the force, and let's
Speaker 1: be honest, there was a Superior Court judge hanging over
Speaker 1: this whole thing, he would have been fired. Had that happened,
Speaker 1: Hank would have lost his ability to be a licensed
Speaker 1: private detective. So by resigning, he basically took a plea
Speaker 1: deal that allowed him to keep doing what he loved.
Speaker 1: He had this artist c for camera. I never even
Speaker 1: heard of Argus before, but apparently it was affordable and
Speaker 1: had a quick learning curve. This was his business card,
Speaker 1: serving Los Angeles in strict Confidence, which he later changed
Speaker 1: to serving Hollywood in strict confidence. He kept clippings of
Speaker 1: certain cases. There's corporate embezzlement, one about an exoneration involving
Speaker 1: a witness. The prosecution was hiding drugs being dealta a
Speaker 1: studio A lot. I mean, all all these cases, but
Speaker 1: he's not mentioned in any of them. Ah, but that
Speaker 1: wouldn't exactly have been serving in strict confidence. But it's
Speaker 1: never mind. I answered my own question. So the Briggs
Speaker 1: Detective Agency was born, and Hank Briggs wasn't a company more.
Speaker 1: And because he was no longer a cop, there was
Speaker 1: an entire world of information and new methods of collecting
Speaker 1: that information now available to him, especially in some of
Speaker 1: the cedier areas of Los Angeles is underbelly where even
Speaker 1: a reliable informant never told the police everything they knew.
Speaker 1: And let's not forget that Hank also had ed offering
Speaker 1: him help when he was able to. It would seem
Speaker 1: that it was the best of both worlds. Really, except
Speaker 1: for one detail. Hank wasn't a company. Moore m artists
Speaker 1: It okay, this is the document the maiden voyage of
Speaker 1: the s. S. Briggs makes. She float m There's nothing
Speaker 1: gained by whining, and you're not that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: You're a fighter from a way back, and you won't
Speaker 1: take a rebuff. Your trouble is that you don't know
Speaker 1: when you have had enough, don't give in. If fates
Speaker 1: you down, you just get up and take another cuff.
Speaker 1: You may bank on it that there is no philosophy
Speaker 1: like bluff and grin. The Angel the Vine As a
Speaker 1: podcast produced by Vox popular on behalf of the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles Herald. Thank you for listening to the Angel of Vine.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to support us, please leave us a
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Speaker 1: directed by e Ryan Martz, written by Oliver Vacare, story
Speaker 1: about e. Ryan Marts, Jason Salwalt, and Oliver Vakare. Sound
Speaker 1: designed by Joel Robbie. Produced by Vox Populi in association
Speaker 1: with Forever Dog Podcast Network. This episode's performances by Joe Manganello,
Speaker 1: Constant Zimmer, Kamilla Luddington, Mike Coulter, Rebecca Field, Travis William Patrick,
Speaker 1: Eazel Ali Ready, Tom Sibley, Cree Summer, and Oliver Vacare.
Speaker 1: Angelis is performed by Desy Dennis Delon piano and arrangement
Speaker 1: by James Harper, composed by Matt Dennis, Lyrics by Earl
Speaker 1: Brent from downtown Los Angeles. This has been the Angel
Speaker 1: of Vine. You'll hear more from us soon. Oh is
Speaker 1: my a Joe? Excuse me while lie deep peace. It
Speaker 1: is his is