Mary Astor's Purple Diary by Edward Sorel

Author:Edward Sorel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liveright

Mary’s worried attorney read the tabloids and asked her whether there were going to be any more surprises at the trial. Mary swore the revelations were bogus. Woolley believed her, confident that any entry Thorpe had doctored would render the diary inadmissible in court.

The diary itself was presumed to be safely under lock and key in the office of Thorpe’s lawyer. Had Woolley known that Florabel Muir was in town to cover the trial, he might well have worried. Muir was one of the New York Daily News’ top reporters, and arguably the most unethical one on its staff. Since the 1920s she had kidnapped witnesses, bribed law clerks, and broken into offices to rifle desks. Once she got hold of Mary’s diary long enough to photograph it, she had no compunctions about making the contents juicier or, if too juicy, more printable for the newspapers.

Because of the night sessions and the time difference between coasts, the News would be stuck with yesterday’s breaking story. To counter this handicap, Florabel phoned in her transcript of the diary. The evening edition, dated Tuesday, July 28, came out just hours before the trial got under way in Los Angeles, and contained Mary’s affair with the mysterious “G.” Muir never said whom she had bribed to get the diary, but years later she did say she had paid $300. She had offered the lawyer Anderson $5,000; he had turned it down.

The trial was now Big News, and every newspaper editor quickly sent his top reporters to cover it. Since spectators would be pouring into the courtroom, it was changed to the large one on the twenty-first floor of the Los Angeles Superior Court Building; the jury box could be used for overflow press. Judge Goodwin Knight would preside alone. Woolley phoned Mary to arrange a meeting place. He wasn’t going to let her face that mob by herself.

The circus was scheduled to start at 7:00 p.m. As Mary was leaving the Dodsworth soundstage to meet her attorney, Ruth Chatterton stopped her to ask whether she would have anyone with her in court—“I mean someone to sit in the front row, someone you know is on your team and can give you a wink of encouragement.”

Mary laughed. “No, there’s no one like that.”

Ruth took her hand. “May I drive you down and be with you?”

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