Jimmie was always shaking someone down. If they didn't pay up, he smeared them. Here is a great piece, representative of his work and writing at its best.

Errol Flynn
Friday, December 10, 1948

Jimmie T. was by now firmly ensconsed in San Francisco, but he could not resist making accusations against rivals in Hollywood. A shakedown artist supreme, he knew how to hint what he might be able to prove in print unless he received shakedown shekels ... and he could not have taken on Louis B. Mayer without either (a) friends or (b) some serious dirt.

There is always serious dirt in Hollywood.

This week the entire nation received a series of shocking news headlines directly concerning Hollywood stars, producers, etc. As often as you picked up a newspaper or listened to a radio, a Hollywood figure was involved in some disgraceful escapade. We'll give them to you one by one.

As I've often warned, too many Hollywood personalities are involved in dope, sex perversions and vile "affairs." The dope situation in itself, just to render a meager report, has again taken a turn in the right direction. This I am happy to admit. After all, our object has been to reduce spreading of this disease.

A certain law enforcement agency now estimates that in the past two months the use of dope in Hollywood studios and in Hollywood and L.A. proper has been reduced 50 per cent. The amount of arrests of users and peddlers who have been headlined bears out the basis of this percentage.

However, this all-important drive to wipe out the scourge that has beset the city and the industry must and will continue until it is com- pletely eliminated. How long this will take depends entirely upon the elusiveness of the user and peddler versus law enforcement agencies and their reaching arms.

A few columns ago, we reminded readers of the vicious cycle that has returned to intrigue Hollywood further. The cycle of the early "20's" is slowly but surely being overshadowed by the cycle of events that is taking place in Hollywood and around the nation, concerning idolized personalities.

Any other industry, long before now, would have drawn up their lines and organized to combat a condition that is affecting the lives of one out of every five in Hollywood. To call them cowardly, at this particular time, is also suggesting a mild ter'm. Studio heads who have ignored current predominant events, blacking the eye of Hollywood are most certainly knocking away the foundations from under their own feet.

Dore Schary and other MGM officials are the most disgraceful offenders because that studio has the majority of violators.

I've told you before that Dore Schary, although he harkens to the defense of these DOPE and sex-perverts, makes absolutely no constructive move, or statement, to remedy this horrible influence on important contractees and lesser lights.

This Schary fellow is a typical example of the unfit leadership that heads various studios. His actions indicate that he is more concerned in covering up activities of the vicious sex-perverts and DOPE addict than in instituting a plan that he and his cohorts once promised Schary, who puts himself up as a leader and a fixer, should hang his head in shame. What's more, his underhanded tactics with personal threats directed to me and this magazine will eventually backfire. Schary figures that if he can stop these essays with foul method THAT would be his answer towards a remedy.

This so-called MGM bigwig, who doesn't even defend himself when publicly called a RED, should be removed from his high office. More about Schary and a certain Mr. S. will be discussed later in this column. I would like to requote, in part, a resolution approved last week by the National Board of the Allied States Association of Motion Picture Exhibitors, at a meeting attended by 700 members.

We now quote these 700 members: "Producers should discipline the stars as sternly as they police their scripts for questionable material the resolution advised. Producers are called on to require court acquit- tal, or if not a court case, exoneration by an industry committee for any player who has gained notoriety for offenses or conduct condemns bv the production code for inclusion in motion pictures. The production code seal should be withheld from any movie including a player who gained such notoriety before production of the picture and has not been cleared." Unquote.

That's nothing. Here is what their resolution charges: "Producers have condoned and even defended the stars' misdeeds."

The exhibitors, and this reporter, through separate channels, were promised again that some sort of a personalized plan would be put into effect to curtail activities of certain prominent movie names.

Up to this writing this promise has fallen flat. As I said earlier, headline events of the week prove that certain Hollywood personalities require disciplining.

Now about this Errol Flynn fellow

At least five times in recent months we've told you that Errol Flynn, the so-called swashbuckling film hero, idolized by thousands of young- sters, arrested twice in New York on a third degree assault charge, has more than one serious ailment.

The studios are aware or his many escapades as well as his mental and physical handicaps.

 To date, the studio, (WB), has done nothing effectively to bring Flynn to task. They know he doesn't lead a normal life. After yelling that he was "framed" and that the N.Y. police were the Gestapo, he paid the fifty dollar fine and will soon return to Hollywood and the incident will be closed, just another chapter in the annals of Flynn's activities.

Numerous charges have been listed against Flynn in the past that included assault, paternity cases and actions in volving minors, all cleverly concluded by high-salaried connections. Flynn is the type of star to whom the Hollywood studios insist your children pay homage.

Now about this Robert Walker fellow

This fine actor, Robert Walker, is an MGM hero. They pay this man about $100,000 a year. Dore Schary and other MGM officials, for a long time, have known the failings of his physical and mental capacities. Walker is the type of Hollywood problem child who should have been placed in a psychopathic ward many months ago. Personally, I sympathize with Walker. The man needs help, understanding and re- habilitation. But do the MGM officials do anything about it? .I should say not. But they have rushed him into pictures. This is another star the average American boy and girl is asked to idolize, via the MGM releases.

Last Monday, Walker was arrested on a drunk charge again in Topeka, Kansas, after scuffling with police, using an arrogant attitude as if his Hollywood influence was his protective shield. He also smashed three glass windows and sustained dozens of stitches on his hands. But be has paid a fine and now of course that incident is closed. Walker is now undergoing psychiatric treatments. Hollywood studios and executives haven't made one statement as to Flynn's or Walker's series of wild escapades. Unless the studios sud- denly have a change of heart and prepare some sort of a plan to handle the situation, you can bet your bottom dollar they'll be welcomed back to their studios with brass bands and starred in pictures 01 SenU- ment, comedy and other forms of average American life. Again they will foist this type of hero upon awe-stricken kids throughout the country.

Now about this ex-junkie Louis B. Mayer


Last Tuesday, Louis B. Mayer, ex-junk mogul, his new bride ex-chorine cutie-pie, Lorena Danker and MGM's "traveling press agent," Howard Strickling, while honeymooning at Arrowhead Springs, insulted newspaper reporters, photographers and the intelligence of the press. Mayer was insulted by the presence of "mere newspaper reporters" on the job gathering news. Strickling quoted Mayer as saying, "He would talk to no person less than a newspaper owner or news service head." Mayer left the newspaper reporters out in the cold, avoiding them and ignoring them. This ex-junk mogul, Mayer, has too much gall and ego for one man. Here is a man who depends on the press to sell his picture products and then turns around to boot them. He picked on a few innocent reporters and photographers assigned to a job. He could have used his head for a change by speaking for just a few minutes, but instead, he preferred to add another blotch to Hollywood's large body.

Maybe Mayer and his type are the reason why there are SO many "flunkeys" and sex-perverts on the MGM lot.

Instead of my elaborations, let me quote in part, what a prominent metropolitan columnist had to say in the Los Angeles Daily News regarding L.B.

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