Kid Thomas

One of about half a dozen extant photos.

He was born Louis Thomas Watts, June 20, 1934 in Sturgis, Mississippi. Known as Tommy Lewis or Louis, he is perhaps most well-known as Kid Thomas. At age seven, his parents Virgie and VT moved the family north to Chicago as part of the Black exodus now recognized as the Second Great Migration. His first instrument had been the drums. Perhaps in an early sign of his ambitious nature he recognized the futility of trying to lead from the back, so he took harmonica lessons from bluesman Little Willie Smith in exchange for drum lessons.

During the 40's and 50's he found employment blowing harp for the likes of Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley and other regulars of the Chicago blues scene. On occasion he would fill in for Little Walter when the latter found himself unable to stumble away from the bar—Not to knock the Kid, but an audience that came to hear Little Walter could certainly notice the difference.

Eager to lay down a record to promote his gigs, Kid Thomas took the direct approach: He walked into the first record label office he came across, King-Federal, and told then he'd like to make a record. Luckily for him, King-Federal was receptive and told him to come back with a band. Thomas quickly assembled an ad hoc crew for the audition. In his only known interview, conducted by Daryl Stoper in 14 years after the session, Kid Thomas recalled:

"The first few numbers didn't go over, so I starting thinking about the (Howlin') Wolf, and I came up with 'Wolf Pack.' And 'The Spell' I got from Screamin' Jay Hawkins. Both of them were thought up on the spur of the moment."

The producers were pleased with the two improvised numbers best and released them as a single.

Though now armed with a record, the Kid was still not having much luck scaring up new gigs in Chicago. Some new-found acquaintances from Kansas happened to sit in on a rehearsal and were impressed enough to book him a gig in Wichita. Kid Thomas jumped at the chance, even though he had no means of getting himself and his band to Wichita. Ever-resourceful, Thomas "borrowed" a Buick from a local minister in the wee hours of the morning of the trip. As (bad) luck would have it, as soon as they reached Wichita, the band split up—and then split on the Kid—with the minister's car. Thomas would recall:

"When I got back the minister asked me what happened to his car. I told him I didn't have any idea. He told me 'That's funny, 'cause it disappeared the same night you did.'"

Something like this, only crappier.

Undeterred, Kid Thomas managed to cobble together another band and (one would assume legally?) acquire a 1947 DeSoto POS for another trip to Wichita. Wanting to make the beat-up wagon appear like a respectable band's transport, the Kid painted his name all over the car, spelling it "Kid Thmas." The car was very popular with the crowd, who wanted to see this "Kid Thumb-Ass."

Pompadour Paragon:
Esquerita

Kid Thomas found Wichita more to his liking. He hooked-up with a fellow Chicago ex-pat, six-fingered guitarist Hound Dog Taylor for a few gigs in 1956. '56 was about to bring changes in the bigger pop-music world as well. Rock and Roll broke through to mainstream (read) white audiences with seminal records released by Elvis, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent, Carl Perkins, The Platters and Little Richard. It was Richard, who would have the biggest influence on Kid Thomas. Thomas piled his towering coiffure beyond the altitude of Little Richard's, approaching what professionals call the "Esquerita-sphere."

Aside from the Murray's Superior Pomade® fixation and a growing collection of sparkly suits, the Kid's musical style's also expanded. He never quit the slower, howling, blues he learned in Chicago, but he also made more uptempo, shuffling numbers. By 1960, he had made his way west to LA, and was in the studio again. It was there he recorded one of the most unhinged, uncommon and ultimately, unfairly unsung records of Rock and Roll, the incomparable "Rockin' This Joint To-Nite". Ahead of his time, Thomas recorded with a two guitar and drummer band. This "bass-will-only-slow-us-down" set-up became the blueprint for punk blues bands of 30 years later like The Gories, John Spencer Blues Explosion, The Oblivians and others. He pushed Little Walter's distorted harmonica style to it's volume-needle-in-the-red-limits. Thomas abandoned any stab at finesse, sucking and blowing like a haywire Hoover. Sadly, the label folded before any promotion could be organized and it would take Kid Thomas five more years to return to the studio. He recorded two more singles in 1965, including one more shot at a frenzied, Little-Richard-esque sound, the blues-cum rock "Wail Baby Wail", which failed to make a blip on the charts. One more recording session would follow in the late sixties—and one more label would fold before it could support the record.

Like any nth-tier blues-blower, the Kid needed a day job, and he earned his scratch mowing lawns. On September 3, 1969 Kid Thomas was driving the company van on South Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills when he struck and killed a 10-year-old boy on a bicycle. Thomas claimed the boy swerved, and the accident was unavoidable. Without enough evidence for manslaughter, the police could only nab Thomas for the four fraudulent driver's licenses he was carrying. On April 5, 1970, Kid Thomas appeared in court, and so did the boy's father. After a brief discussion in the parking lot, the father pulled out a 9mm handgun and shot Thomas at point-blank range. Wounded, Thomas ran toward the nearby police station while the gunman kept firing, injuring a police officer. Police returned fire, but the father gave himself up when Kid Thomas, 35, fell dead on the curb.

Barbara Graham

"When you hear the pellets drop, count ten. Take a deep breath. It's easier that way."
"How do you know?"

 I Want to Live, 1958

Is that an accurate account of Barbara Graham's last moments, sitting in the San Quinten gas chamber? While there is certainly a grain of truth to it (sixteen reporters witnessed her final minutes), one has to winnow down the layers of drama, of politics, of personal feelings that envelope her story. Like Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Graham's character is a beam of light, bounced around and redefined by which ever prism someone chooses to view her through. She's a figure constantly painted and repainted, layer upon layer. Even those who took up her banner with what they considered the best of intentions, failed to see her as she really was, because they could never escape what they wanted her to be. Everyone, death penalty opponents and supporters, judicial reformers, newspaper journalists and reporters, ballad-writers, and movie-makers all tried to mold Graham into something that fit their purposes, be it overturning the death penalty, selling a record, or winning an Oscar. Her true character, still as elusive as ever, may be hopelessly muddled by years of projections, interpretations, and outright showmanship.

Barbara Graham was born in June, 1923 to an unwed teenage mother and a quickly absent father. When a second child was born out-of-wedlock two years later, her mother was sent to the Ventura State School for Girls. Graham would be raised by a series of distant relatives and strangers. 

At age 13, Graham ran away. Located three months later, she was made a ward of the state. In legal nomenclature, she was designated a "wayward" girl after she admitted to multiple sexual partners. Eventually, Graham would herself wind up at Ventura.

By 16, Graham was released by the school and by 18 was free from any state oversight. It seems she made an attempt at settling down in 1940, getting married, having her first child, and attending college. But by 1941, she was divorced and getting by as a "sea gull", one of the women who would hang around the Navy yards of California in order to meet sailors on leave. 

She would be arrested on vice charges several times between 1941 and 1947. Whether she worked as a prostitute or not (Graham herself gave conflicting accounts), she was undoubtedly becoming more involved in California's shadow world of drugs and gambling. She became friends with a number of ex-cons and career criminals who inhabited it. In 1947 she would serve a year in jail for perjury when she provided a false alibi for two such acquaintances. Perhaps it's important to note here that despite a record of petty offenses, Graham had never been charged with a violent crime. She was however, no stranger to men who often were. Her fourth husband, repeat offender and drug addict Henry Graham was one of them. Through him, she met two more, Jack Santo, and Emmit Perkins. Graham began an affair with Perkins and he would share with her the story of an easy mark that would lead to tragedy.

Tutor Scherer was a well-known figure in LA's underground gambling world. Wanting to escape the pressure from the police (in either the form of busts, or demand for a share), Scherer and partners headed to Las Vegas and opened the Frontier Casino. Scherer left behind in LA an ex-mother-in-law, Mabel Monahan, a former roller-skating star of the vaudville era. Monahan lived in the Burbank home her daughter was awarded in the divorce, but Scherer and Monahan remained on cordial terms. He would often visit her when he was in LA. It was these visits that fueled a rumor among LA's criminal underworld: That Scherer was stashing skimmed casino profits at Monahan's home. To Emmit Perkins, this was the perfect job—thousands of dollars being watched over by an old woman. And if it were stolen, Scherer would never go to the police and risk exposing how he gained the money.

Perkins, Santo, and Graham in custody.

Perhaps as with any scheme formulated by a brain trust of thugs and drug addicts, it didn't go as planned. The assembled crew consisted of Graham, Perkins, Santo,  John True, and Baxter Shorter, a known safe-blower. On March 9, 1953, Graham appeared at Monahan's home and asked to use the phone. Only seeing one woman present, Monahan opened the door. The four men emerged from cover and pushed their way inside. The gang demanded to know where Scherer hid his safe, but Monahan didn't cooperate. Monahan was struck repeatedly and strangled with a strip of bedsheet until she died, never divulging Scherer's stash. It wasn't out of loyalty, or stubbornness, or pride, but ignorance—Monahan genuinely knew nothing about a safe Scherer had hidden in her Burbank home—because there was none. It was nothing more than an underworld rumor, spread around and around by hoods and junkies until it's purely speculative origin was forgotten. Graham and company were merely the first to be desperate and foolish enough to try for it. They ransacked the home, searching for the phantom safe. Carpets were ripped up, sofa cushions cut open, vents pulled from the floor, but nothing of value was found. The crooks were so inept, when Monahan's body was discovered two days later, police initially dismissed robbery as a motive—they easily found thousands of dollars worth of jewelry Monahan had hidden away in her purses. 

The police had a more difficult time narrowing down their list of suspects, as it included anyone who had heard the rumors of Scherer's mythical hidden stash. Two outside forces began to change that, one financial, the other psychological. First, the $5,000 reward offered by Monahan's daughter started loosening tougues. Second, was the age-old motivation that had led to many a gang's dissolution: self-preservation. The botched nature of the crime and subsequent media attention put even more pressure on each individual to cooperate with the police. They faced the classic Prisoner's Dilemma: do you keep your mouth shut and hope every other conspirator does as well? Or start talking, and seek a deal with the prosecutors—maybe even immunity? If you wait too long, one of your partners might take the deal first. Even if no deal was forthcoming, talking to the police first offered the opportunity to present your version of the events before anyone else gave theirs.

Baxter Shorter

The reward money enticed an informant to come forward and share the name of John True. Police picked him up, but True remained reticent and was soon released. The newspapers soon got wind of another arrest and announced that a suspect was being held, and he was naming names. It seems Baxter Shorter, the hired safe-cracker was more eager to talk than True. The next day two men, later identified as Perkins and Santo kidnapped Shorter. His connections to Mickey Cohen, LA's most powerful gangster couldn't save him. Shorter was never seen again and would be declared dead seven years later. This was enough to change John True's mind. When he was arrested for a second time, he agreed to testify against Graham, Perkins, and Santo in return for immunity.

True and Shorter's stories aligned on the basics (entry was gained through a ruse by Graham; Monahan was beaten and tied up). Their details differed slightly as each claimed he himself only witnessed the violence, and did not take part in it. The District Attorney's choice was simple. True had no criminal record and was therefore easier to sell as trustworthy. Repeat offender Baxter Shorter was missing and presumed dead. The DA chose to present True's account to a grand jury. True claimed that as he entered the house Graham was beating Monahan about the head with a pistol. He tried to stop her claiming:

"I told Mrs. Graham not to hit her any more. I put my hand between the gun and Mrs. Monahan's face. She fainted or collapsed. I had her head in my lap and went down with her. Mrs. Graham pulled a pillowcase over her head."

True claimed that he later heard someone else finish Monahan off while he was in another room.

Graham, Santo and Perkins were found within a month hiding out in a small apartment. News reports implied Graham had been using drugs and when arrested was caught in flagrante delicto with one or both of her accomplices.

The three were charged with murder and prosecuted in a joint trial. The media immediately picked-up the image of Barbara Graham as a real-life murderous vamp: cold, devious, manipulative, avaricious, and merciless. They dubbed her "Bloody Babs" and the "Ice Blonde". The image of the young attractive woman who was accused of leading such a vicious crime were irresistibly provocative to the newspapers. Often their attention was more on the risque details of Graham's past, rather than the facts of the crime. Stories that did focus on the trial painted Graham as callous, indifferent, even bored with the proceedings. After she fell down a flight of stairs, newspapers implied she staged the accident to delay the trial. Headlines even claimed she was flirting with jurors.

Media bias and John True's self-serving testimony aside, the most damning evidence was a recording of Barbara Graham herself. While being held in jail, Graham was approached by another inmate, Donna Prow who offered to arrange Graham with a false alibi in exchange for $500. Desperate, she took the offer. Little did she know, the Prow was working with the police in exchange for a sentence reduction. An undercover officer met with Graham to arrange the details of the alibi, and recorded several incriminating statements from her: admitting she was at Monahan's house the night of the murder, and claiming that Baxter Shorter had been "done away with." After five hours of deliberation, the jury found all three defendants, Barbara Graham, Emmit Perkins, and Jack Santo guilty of murder, September 22, 1953.

Graham and her co-defendants appealed their verdicts on various grounds, but by June, 1955, all possible avenues of petition were exhausted. All three were to be executed June 3. Graham was to go first, initially scheduled to die at 10:00 AM. The governor's office briefly stayed the execution twice, but in the end, found no grounds for clemency. Graham exclaimed "Why do they torture me? I was ready to go at 10 o'clock!" Even in her final minutes, the reporters gathered to witness the execution took note of her hair, makeup and wardrobe. At 11:34 AM, directly below the chair Graham was strapped, the potassium cyanide tablets dropped into a tank of sulfuric acid, producing a deadly quantity of hydrogen cyanide gas. 32 year-old Barbara Graham was declared dead at 11:43 AM. Perkins and Santo would be executed later that afternoon.

1958 would see Barbara Graham's story come to life on the big screen in the film I Want to Live! Though claiming to present "the true story" of Barbara Graham, many inconveniently damning details were omitted. Producer Walter Wanger was an unabashed opponent of the death penalty. His opinion no doubt shaped by his own experience in California's penal system, having served a brief term for attempted murder after shooting his wife's alleged lover. Star Susan Hayward would win an Academy Award for her portrayal of Graham. Mabel Monahan was not depicted in the film. The following year, several songs concerning the case were released, including "The Ballad of Barbara Graham." It's writer admitted "It had commercial possibilities."

Linda Darnell

A pretty and pleasant midwestern American girl. A mother consumed with the desire to push her daughter to attain all the fame and glamour she never found. If there's one common taproot among all the burned-out starlets, it's the obsessive, vicarious stage-mother. Linda Darnell was no exception. The young Linda (Monetta as she was known then) probably enjoyed the spotlight of department store modeling, small-market stage acting and beauty pageants—but, she probably also would have enjoyed a childhood of gradual personal development; of learning how to form healthy relationships with her peers; of moderated exposure to the world of adults. She probably would have enjoyed any childhood, period. But that's not the life Linda's mother Pearl made for her. At barely 14 years-old, her mother sent her to meet one of the Hollywood talent scouts who prospected middle America, looking for the next bit of coal who might stand up to the pressures of the star machine and come out a gem. She made enough of an impression on the scout to earn a screen test, but in a rare moment of moral rectitude, the studio, 20th Century Fox, sent her home for being too young. But alas, only a year later Fox felt no sting of compunction when they signed Darnell to a contract when rival RKO expressed interest in her.

15-years-old and sent to Hollywood. Alone. Darnell posed as 17. Fox billed her as 19. Not that the ruse lasted long, and not that anyone really cared. Her true age of 16 was revealed in 1939, the same year a Life magazine article (bookended by whiskey ads) declared her "the most physically perfect girl in Hollywood".

Mommy Dearest

1940 began with a string of successes for Darnell, beginning with Star Dust, the tale of a beautiful young girl discovered by a talent scout but rejected for being too young—at 17 she was already parodying herself. Audiences and critics both approved of her performances, particularly when teamed up with Tyrone Power. Her mother, however, was harder to please. By now, Pearl had followed her daughter west and was starting to make a name for herself as well with her overbearing on-set behavior. She made news by claiming her husband was having an incestuous relationship with another daughter, a charge Linda disbelieved. After the ensuing private fallout, Pearl turned against her in the press.

By 1941, the fickle tastes of movie audiences began to change. Perhaps in an era when a studio could put out scores features annually, the public felt oversaturated with her. Or maybe by turning 18, the novelty of a child leading lady disappeared. When coupled with her refusal of studio head Darryl F. Zanuck's lecherous advances, the result was the abrupt cool-down of her career. Darnell only made one picture in 1942. That same year she began receiving anonymous letters demanding money under threat of physical harm. The would-be extortionist turned out to be a 17-year-old high school student. Zanuck loaned her out to Columbia for a forgettable B-movie and put her on formal suspension in 1943 when she eloped in Vegas with cameraman J. Peverell Marley.

But professionally, Darnell endured. Still in the prime years of a young actress, she took supporting roles in low-budget productions, and eventually her talent as well as her beauty were recognized and the studio brought her back to A-pictures. In 1945, Zanuck had her added to the cast of the Otto Preminger noir Fallen Angel. Zanuck's pressure to cut star Alice Faye's screentime in favor of Darnell eventually prompted Faye to drive off the studio lot and leave the movies entirely for 17 years. Darnell, who no co-worker ever spoke poorly of, reportedly had a difficult time working with the notoriously severe Preminger.

In private, Linda's life would reach Douglas Sirk levels of melodrama. Marley introduced her to his good friend, alcohol, who would also serve as her companion for years to come. Another baleful bedfellow Darnell would make around this time was Howard Hughes. Falling for him, Linda separated from Marley and convinced herself Hughes would marry her. When Hughes made clear he had no intentions of doing so, Darnell canceled the divorce proceedings.

Linda preferred RC Cola...

In 1947, Darnell was cast in the highly-anticipated Forever Amber, a $6 million picture likened to the production of Gone with the Wind, again, helmed by Preminger. Though not eager to work with him again, she took the coveted role, and paid for it physically. The director's overbearing manner, the long hours, studio-required weight losses, and increased drinking led to multiple collapses. Despite prosperity at the box-office, Forever Amber was not the one thing Linda wanted most of all, a critical success.

1949's A Letter to Three Wives was yet another double-edged sword Darnell managed to fall upon. A commercial and critical success, the film brought her capital when bargaining with the studio over roles. It also introduced her to writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Linda would carry on an affair with Mankiewicz for six years and would again separate and return to her husband after her paramour refused to marry her. Drinking, depression, a suicide attempt, and the stifled hostility she felt since childhood led to psychotherapy. All of this coincided with a lawsuit against a former manager who stole thousands from her.

Back at Fox, for her next role, Darnell chose the lead in the controversial Pinky, a film about a light-skinned black southerner who passes for white in the North. Zanuck quashed this possibility and cast Linda's Three Wives co-star Jeanne Crain instead. Crain's performance would be nominated for an Academy Award, a recognition Darnell would never see.

...and Tab.

The 50's were not kind to actors without the protection of a long-term contract. Competition from TV was the main impetus for studios to cut back, and expendable actors were the first to go. Darnell maintained employed, but the roles she had to choose from thinned. Despite a horse allergy, she made westerns. Despite her desire to be commended for her acting, she took glamour roles. And despite him, she even agreed to work with the dreaded Preminger again. With a new contract in 1951, she gained the option to freelance. Thinking freedom from the studio system would offer new opportunities, she found being released from premiere productions also meant leaving behind premiere salaries. These lower-budget studios were also far from the tight ship ran by the big producers only a decade prior and would often fall behind schedule. Her drinking, illnesses and weight gains also made her less employable.

Returning to the US after several pictures made abroad (including a Howard Hughes-produced 3-D film shot in Mexico) and divorced from Marley, Darnell believed she has secured the lead in The Barefoot Contessa, a dramatic vehicle that would return her career to its heights and reunite her with Mankiewicz. She was wrong on both accounts: Ava Gardner would take the role and the affair ended. Darnell would marry three more times, including a brief and loveless marriage-in-name-only with a brewery heir.

After 1955, Darnell returned to Fox, which had started producing television. There she averaged about three "Television Playhouse"-style productions per year as well as the sporadic B-picture. By 1965, the pace of Linda's career had slowed to only one TV credit and one film credit in the last six years. Was she "taking a break"? Or did Hollywood stop calling? The answer, as usual, probably lied somewhere in between.

1965 also found Linda in Skokie, Ill, visiting a former personal assistant while preparing for a regional stage production. In a callback finale only Hollywood could provide, she spent the night of April 9th watching her 1940 film Star Dust on TV. The vultures would later claim she fell asleep, drunk, despondent, and dreaming of days gone by while an unwatched cigarette smoldered. There's no proof her carelessness led to the blaze that night, but the rags couldn't resist such pathos. Darnell was burned over 90% of her body and the next day, all of 41 years old, succumbed to her injuries.