Los Angeles is the city where the American Dream has been realized in the spectacle of Hollywood. Yet the Dream is only for the benefit of a few, whilst many are trampled underfoot. The city may be warm and sunny for most of the year, but sunlight casts dark shadows, and it is in these spaces that John Gilmore writes, exploring the dark side of the Dream through the crimes of the Manson family in
The Garbage People (Amok), and through his own relationship to movies, stardom, and fame in
Laid Bare (Amok).
Even in his forays outside of Los Angeles, Gilmore exposes the grim side of the human condition, as in his excellent
Cold-Blooded (Feral House), which focuses on Charles
Schmid - the Pied Piper of Tucson - and the Tucson murders. In his latest
book, Severed (Amok) Gilmore once again returns to his home town, in order to explore the quasi-mythical - and unsolved - slaying of Elizabeth Short in 1947. In the book Gilmore details the life - and death - of Short, re-opening, and eventually offering a solution to, the case.
Jack Sargeant: What attracted you to the whole of the underbelly of LA - in
Laid
Bare, in Garbage
People, and now in Severed?
John Gilmore: I don't think it was a matter of being "attracted" to the "underbelly"
of LA as much as being birthed into it and nursed by it, in a manner of speaking. My mother had been a bit player in the movies, a model, a downtown LA elevator operator and a good time party gal in a thousand Hollywood "cocktail lounges"... With my dad, in earlier years (he'd wanted to be an actor and an artist-worked for a time helping to paint cartoons for Disney), but was mostly struggling through the Depression. They had a lot parties, my mom and dad, ups and downs, fights and make-ups, split ups and back togethers, and a few months after I was born they split up for good. I went with my mom to El Monte (Ellroy's country), but she didn't want to be saddled with a baby and brought me back. I was raised by my grandmother who owned a house built by my grandfather, a head carpenter for RKO Radio Pictures. My dad lived in the little house in the rear until my grandfather built an apartment over garages behind that when my dad
remarried - a woman with a kid a couple years old than me; we never got along, despite early sex explorations). Soon my mom remarried as well. All of us lived in the same neighborhood in what's now called East Hollywood--the Silver Lake area.
I'd been born in LA General Hospital; spent my early years riding streetcars and going downtown with my grandmother; experienced all the early LA amusements, the piers, the roller coasters, the lion farm, the alligator farm, the ostrich farm, Venice pier, the fun-houses, the freak shows... My dad
became a cop when the war broke out. Though my mom lived just a block away in an apartment, I didn't see her much but when I did they were drinking and partying-sailors, pilots, etc., and a lot of musicians. Her husband, who also worked for LA, was a part-time musician, played upright bass.
My grandmother was super-liberal and we had a pretty busy house; people in and out constants; a perpetual boarder was Jack McCormick, a homosexual steward on the Lurleen (a ship going between LA harbor and Honolulu-it's the ship at the end of From Here To Eternity movie). He'd been everywhere, was a movie extra, and murder/ crime/ subjects dominated the household talk. We had seven daily newspapers in LA, each competing with the other for sensational news. Radio was my first true love.
I was raised in the "underbelly", on the fringes; B-movie actors, ex-prizefighters, my older cousin was a stunt man for movies and raced cars at Gilmore Stadium-not owned by us. My grandmother had a lot of low-lifes around from time to time, political problem-people to do with Ireland, ex-cons, movie extras, potential suicides.
I devoured the newspapers, detective magazines, etc., and movies. Very young I was in a couple of movies as an extra, and bit parts as a child, and did promotional films for LA Police Department. I went to Hollywood High School, acted professionally; went to a private school with the then-Mayor of la's son, Barry Bowron, and we'd raise hell in hot rods etc.
I lived through LA's "rounding up of the Japanese", through the Zoot Suit era (have a much different take on that since I lived through it); touched or somehow was a part of the early Hollywood sideline scene, Sunset Strip, night clubs, etc.
Jack Sargeant: From my experience it seems that Los Angeles has this incredibly noir element to it, every corner is haunted by a ghost, every building tells a tale, its incredibly seductive on that level, yet you left for New York in the post-war years, and now live in New Mexico, would you ever return to LA?
John Gilmore: I didn't "leave" LA for NY, but simply was a young actor hitting out to
do some serious work - hopefully. My base was LA - my base now is LA., it is my native land, my roots are there, my father still lives there. I have friends there. NY wasn't a home but a place I loved (the 50's and early 60's), worked in, but kept the track open and was back and forth between LA and NY many times. I have seen so many changes in LA; I'm by nature a wanderer, emotionally, spiritually, physically; but LA is the place of my birth and hometown, and my ashes will dumped in the ocean at Santa Monica.
New Mexico has a magic to it - a major magnetic draw on the "soul"; and I like it
here - I crave and need the "desert" from time to time, always did -
used to spend time in the Mojave Desert north of LA. I used to work for Rory Calhoun at his ranch in Ojai-broke horses, lived like a ranch hand but kept coming back to LA because of the movies.
I've been obtaining a narrow little pie-shape of hillside lot way up in the Hollywood hills. If I don't turn sell it someday, I might build a two-story modern place and go home for good. Nestled in the Hollywood hills, one is (can be) removed from the rest of reality by the very nature of Hollywood. I own an old (built in 1882) Adobe here in New Mexico, and divide my time between LA and here.
Jack Sargeant: With Laid Bare you really exposed a lot of contemporary stars and icons,
Kenneth Anger had to have Hollywood Babylon published privately in France originally, did you ever worry about what people would say about Laid Bare? Did the people in the book ever get litigious ?
John Gilmore: Kenneth Anger's mad at me because of Garbage
People, publishing the Tate
murder photos. He'd had a couple to show the world with his Babylon 3, but got scooped. Warner Books wanted to do
Laid
Bare but got nervous legally. I never had any real worries about being sued, but couldn't convince NY. I softened the Jane Fonda scenes before we went to press and dropped a couple names of nobody's due to privacy. Also didn't use the name of the male "relative" who got into sex things with me as a kid and into early teens. Dennis Hopper was mad, called mutual friends, bitched hours on end, but mostly about meaningless things-big issues I draw attention to didn't seem to get him hot under the collar. He's the only one. I did get a lot of calls from people I haven't seen in half a century who raved about my "amazing" memory.
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Jack Sargeant: How long did it take you to research
Severed - reading the book again, it seems like you re-opened the entire case?
John Gilmore: Researching Severed
was a kind of on-going occupation since 1963 until
the first edition in '94. There were several periods of concentrated effort: mid 1970's, early 1980's, early 1990's until I finished it before Christmas
' 93.
Jack Sargeant: Did the original investigators help a lot, or did they think you were treading on their toes?
John Gilmore: My big help came when the door opened to me in Homicide in '64, and I
made friends with the Captain. (This was because of a Masonic -
Catholic rivalry. The department was broken up into two sides, and since my policeman father was a hot-shot Mason, that door swung open). Harry Hansen, in charge of the case back then, was impossible and remained impossible until his death. I was treading on his turf. However, Jack Webb (Dragnet) liked me and helped; and then years later while I was living in western Louisiana, I renewed contact with Finis Brown, then retired in east Texas. He was very helpful.
LA's true gangster, Mickey Cohen, was helpful to me in the late 1950's and very early 60's. Some helped-some refused to. Hansen was the only one who didn't for self-serving reason. Others didn't because of the "code"--can't talk about other cops. Solid help came from people in the LA County Sheriff's detectives. The link to Bauerdorf came as "tip" way back.
Jack Sargeant: Are you familiar with James Ellroy's book on the Black Dahlia, which extrapolates from the original crime into fiction? What do you think of his book?
John Gilmore: James Ellroy's book is a novel. It is fiction. He used the girl's name
and her mother's name, and the rest is pure 100% fabrication out Ellroy's head. His research consisted of chatting with one old LA newsman, getting a couple of newspaper clips and using someone's name. He also used the name of one of the crackpot confessing Sam's (who looks remarkably like Ellroy-an inside joke for Ellroy?). Ellroy's book on "the case" has no link to "the case" whatsoever, and can be read only as a fictional piece. Ellroy has said his book bears no connection to the actual case except in name. His book can he taken only as an Ellroy novel. I do not care for his writing, but respect him for sticking to his individual view of things (in his work as a writer). Gilmore writes from Gilmore's view. Ellroy writes from Ellroy's view. As long as we do that we're real writers. We don't compromise. Whether we like each other's work or not is beside the point and doesn't matter. However, I am considered the "more dangerous" writer. I "shake, rattle and roll", get them nervous and disturbed, while Ellroy tends to entertain them. Ellroy says, I hope you like my work. I say go fuck yourself. With those attitudes, of course he'll make more money than me, but I'm not after making money as much as clarifying a vision. Ellroy wants to please. I tend to offend. Ellroy entertains. I instruct. What we do share in common is a disgust for certain Hollywood producers etc., for being fucked over in deals. But that's the nature of the beast, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Hollywood's the bitch goddess, a helluva fuck, but she can turn into a black widow if you let her. Key is in what you want from her. We have to look at Roman Polansky. I'm a native son so I've got a special pass to get in and out of her web.
Jack Sargeant: In your crime books you show a meticulous ability to research facts and data - did you ever consider becoming a cop or a PI?
John Gilmore: In 1963 I thought of becoming a cop for a short time, but it was my cop
father who discouraged me. I was a rebel. I was a non-
conformist. It wasn't going to work. Never thought about being a PI, though my investigations have been about the same thing, so in a way a writer has to be a sort of artist-PI (like Hunter Thompson) in order to worm your way into under-the-table situations.
Jack Sargeant: Your Manson book. Garbage
People, was one of the first out,
and was republished a couple of years ago, and it seems to have stood the test of time well, but were you tempted to re-write sections of it, and to go back to those people and confront them again?
John Gilmore: No--I wasn't tempted to rewrite sections of the Manson book. Only to
add the new sections that came from my post-Garbage People work with Bobby B. No matter what they say now, that's how it was then. I think the book stands on it's own as a cultural slide or time in a test tube. It would very nicely go into a time capsule.
Jack Sargeant: You've just completed a work of fiction to be published by Creation Books -
Fetish Blond -how hard did you find it to write fiction after writing true crime and non-fiction? Do you think it requires a different form of discipline?
John Gilmore: I wrote fiction long before I wrote nonfiction or true crime I wrote
quickie novels side-by-side with Ed Wood Jr.. True crime pulled me into it. I never DECIDED to do it, but the situations came up and I got sucked into them
somehow - usually to make a quick deal, a fast movie, a quick book. These became major investments of personal involvement, again like Hunter Thompson (especially with the Hells Angels); they became ways of life for the duration of
projects - all of them sort of now culminating into a way of life, a view, singled out of this century as we roll quickly into the next. I see myself and my work (there's no separation between them), as a surfer on a big wave. I've been riding the crest of it-right on the ridge of a LOT of years and only now I'm seeing where it's
heading - that beach out there, it's virgin land. Yeah, man, all the young people are so fucking lucky to have slumped out of all the morals and restriction and are sort of out here naked and nervous, edgy and anxious, but time is rolling into a new era, a new state of consciousness for the human
condition - it's a global universe and the young people now have a bright new world of new experience before them-unbroken trails, unexplored territory-they're going to be swiftly traveling (as this wave breaks) onto a different land. So many who are on drugs and fucked up and feeling a deep meaninglessness, are actually moving towards this place of new experience. Man is changing. The loss is only part of the change. I see it as a very exciting world full of individual choice and opportunity!
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