Bonus ep. 5 Call It Frisco Part 2—sally stanford weighs in on the eternal conflict
TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to the Secret History of Frisco Podcast. I’m your host, Knox Bronson.
We are going to revisit the question of “FRISCO” today. Some people are quite passionate about it. This is the “Call It FRISCO, Part 2” Episode.
Ever since I got sober many years ago, I have liked to joke that I spent much of my life shooting the dart into the beehive just to see what would happen. And that since getting sober, I’ve gotten a lot further away from the beehive, but, because I am sober, my aim is so much better.
I knew that naming this podcast The History of Frisco would ruffle some feathers, but I was unprepared for the vehemence of the anti-Frisco brigade.
I posted a link to our first episode, Vice and Crime Were In San Francisco’s DNA at its Inception, on the San Francisco Reddit Group, which has 585,000 members. I felt I had enough episodes to announce our existence.
The very first comment was from a guy named Voltaire who posted, “OMG! Change the name!”
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The Secret History of Frisco
Elmer “Bones” Remmer
After stealing a million dollars from the Cal-Neva Lodge in the 40s, Bones came to San Francisco and became the king of vice.
Jimmie Tarantino
Editor of the Hollywood Life scandal sheet, extortionist, blackmailer, Freddie was the prince of smears and innuendo.
Bill Wren
Managing Editor of the SF Examiner, Bill Wren ran the city and didn’t like to pay the bookies when he lost a bet.
Bob Patterson
As Freddie Francisco, Bob was the biggest gossip columnist of all, also a convicted embezzler and thief. A great writer, too.
Shell Cooper
Bones Remmer’s lieutenant. Cooper and Varni’s bar was a feeder saloon to nearby brothels and filled with b-girls.
Sally Stanford
Sally ran the city’s high-end brothels, catering to the city’s power elite. She eventually became the mayor of Sausalito.
Frank Sinatra
Frank was an early investor in Hollywood Life magazine. After Jimmie shook him down for $8K, Jimmie had to leave LA.
Mickey Cohen
Mickey Cohen was Hollywood’s flamboyant gangster, the southern California equivalent to Bones Remmer
Thomas Lynch
San Francisco’s District Attorney. An ally of Bill Wren, he went after the purveyors sin in the city’s Tenderloin district.
Herb Caen
Gossip columnist at the SF Chronicle and creator of the modern myth of San Francisco, cool grey city of love.
Louella Parsons
Syndicated Queen of Gossip and screenwriter for William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper and radio empire.
Estes Kefhauver
The Senator’s committee revealde the extent and scope of organized crime’s influence over the United States.
“Will Freddie Francisco, former inmate of Sing Sing, be permitted to sit arrogantly upon a throne of pen and ink and splash spiked words that cause tears and unhappiness to S.F. business men and their families?
“Freddie Francisco, alias Bob Patterson, once posed as a member of royalty. He assumed the title of a Count, under the name of Maximilian B.H.M. Carlton as the son of Marquis of Gahnst and a subaltern in the Black Watch regiment, and as such was arrested in Tucson, Arizona and on Jan. 27, 1928, was arrested for grand larceny by the Chicago Police. (Can you picture columnist Francisco as a count?)”—Jimmie Tarantino, Hollywood Life Magazine.
“It doesn’t take much to produce a good merchant of cash-and-carry love: just courage, an infinite capacity for perpetual suspicion, stamina on a 24-hour basis, the deathless conviction that the customer is always wrong, a fair knowledge of first aid, do-it-yourself gynecology, judo, and a tremendous sense of humor. Aside from these basic talents, a good madam must possess an understanding of female psychology (in the broadest sense), a knowledge of quick therapies for restoring drunks to a state of locomotion (out the door), and a grasp of techniques for the eradication of pimps. With these qualities, and a few others, you may develop into a self-respecting madam. —Madam Sally Stanford (allegedly ghost-written by Freddie Francisco himself)