CLASSIC HORROR BEHIND THE SCENES: THE TRIALS OF LIONEL ATWILL

Most fans of Classic Horror think of Atwill as a great actor…and a notorious sex fiend. But what do we really know?

By Bill Fleck, author of the Rondo-nominated book CHANEY’S BABY, available here, and the recently Rondo-nominated CHANEY’S AUDITION, available here.

Did you know? Two-time Rondo-Award winning filmmaker Thomas Hamilton is in the process of making VINCENT PRICE & THE ART OF LIVING. (I’m lucky enough to be a producer on the project.) Check out Tom’s latest HORROR ICONS update here. For information about possibly joining the Ignition Group and helping to get HORROR ICONS produced, click here. To contribute to Tom’s Vincent Price Kickstarter campaign, click here. Thanks!

NOTE: This article is adapted from my Rondo-nominated book CHANEY’S AUDITION.

Okay, everyone knows that SON OF FRANKENSTEIN star Lionel Atwill was a perverted sex fiend, right? And there is no doubt that there is some truth to the claim.

But do we really know what happened at Atwill’s infamous Christmas party in 1940, right after he finished MAN MADE MONSTER as Dr. Paul Rigas—his “maddest doctor of all”? (Thank you, Greg Mank.)

He is, after all, top-billed in the film, which is shot under the title DR. R. Lionel Alfred William Atwill is the titular Dr. R. And myth-making is something of a side hustle for him.

Feature: The oldest of four sons born to Alfred and Ada Atwill in South Norwood in the London, England borough of Croydon—roughly 22 kilometers south of city center—Atwill delights in telling everyone that he comes from wealth and privilege.

According to Neil Pettigrew, perhaps the most meticulous of Atwill’s biographers, Lionel’s claims aren’t exactly true.

“This was hardly the aristocracy,” Pettigrew writes. “The area should be more accurately described as a place where hard-working families of modest means were living in unremarkable two-bedroom houses. Might it be that Atwill himself deliberately promoted the misconception that he was born in the town of Croydon, to draw a smokescreen over his true origins?”

Whatever the case may be, by 1890, the family is dwelling in Penge. And Atwill is already showing signs of wanting to act.

His fate is sealed—at least according to Atwill—when his mother takes him to see FAUST.

“I wanted ever after to be Mephistopheles,” he’ll recall in 1933.

“For the rest of his life,” Pettigrew comments, “Atwill would be drawn to the macabre, both in his choice of stage and film roles, and in his personal life.”

January 24, 1898. Atwill—just shy of 13—begins attending the Mercers’ School in London. By 1901, he’s left Mercers to study surveying and architecture. He’ll later claim to have graduated from Oxford, but there is no record of this.

What is certain is that, by the age of twenty, he’s chucked in architecture for a career on the boards. Simultaneously, he works on his voice by taking elocution classes, taming what Pettigrew calls “a south London accent, which…is not very dissimilar to a Cockney accent.”

[Above: A young and handsome Lionel Atwill, nicknamed Pinky for the reddish tint in his hair. Had the Tony Awards existed at the time, Atwill would have no doubt scored one. He was a major star on the stage.]

He debuts in the West End at the Garrick Theatre in 1905. He’s especially drawn to the works of George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen. He even ends up touring in Australia.

By 1909, Atwill is acting in THE PRISONER OF THE BASTILLE with Phyllis Relph. The two are married at St. George’s Parish Church, Bloomsbury, in the spring of 1913. Their son John is born on June 30, 1914.

And his career is booming. He’s praised regularly in reviews, and as his stage reputation grows, so does his paycheck. In addition to living in a luxurious apartment on the West End, he employs valets and butlers. He’s even chauffeured about in a car.

By July 1915, he’s acting with the 61-year-old legend Lily Langtry in MRS. THOMPSON. The play never reaches London, but Langtry thinks it will be a big hit in the United States. Would Atwill be interested in going?

The shrewd ‘Pinky’—so-called for the reddish tint in his sandy hair—senses opportunity. On October 16, the Atwills set sail first class to the U.S.

Sadly, MRS. THOMPSON does no better on the other side of the pond. Atwill wonders if he’s indeed made a bad decision…

But then, things begin to come together. He even stars as Jack the Ripper in a play version of THE LODGER, which opens on Broadway on January 8, 1917.

The jobs pile up. EVE’S DAUGHTER. THE EYE OF YOUTH. THE INDESTRUCTIBLE WIFE. HEDDA GABLER.

“Lionel Atwill…” THE WASHINGTON HERALD trumpets on June 16, 1918, “has probably achieved a larger measure of success during the past season in New York than any other actor in the public eye today.”

“America offers a greater sense of promise than any other country,” Atwill tells writer Barbara Beach. “I prefer London for one reason only. The social position of the actor…In America, actors are regarded as a curiosity, as something to be gaped at…to be idolized perhaps, but never regarded as human beings…”

Along the way, he enlists in the Royal Flying Corps—both his home and adopted countries are battling the Central Powers, after all—but, because he’s in his early thirties, he’s never called to serve.

Eventually, he makes his celluloid debut in a film version of EVE’S DAUGHTER, where he plays the cad Courtenay Urquhart.

[Above: Atwill with Fay Wray in MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM. Atwill was initially reluctant to go into films, as he wanted the movies to feature more complicated, realistic characters. Well, he got his wish…]

“I honestly think pictures have possibilities,” he says at the time, “but not until some of these old-fashioned ideas are combed out of them…I, for one, will never play in pictures again until I am assured that the director is broad-minded enough to present a villain who has lovable qualities, or a hero who has a few weaknesses…” (MAN MADE MONSTER will certainly qualify.)

The summer of 1918 features Atwill on stage in the comedy ANOTHER MAN’S SHOES, which also stars 24-year-old Elsie MacKay. The handsome actor and the attractive actress, originally from Australia, become very interested in each other.

The extent of this interest yields grounds for divorce. Phyllis, now living in Amityville on Long Island with son John, accuses him of “an indiscretion with an unnamed woman on July 1, 1919, at the Murray Hill Hotel.”

“That ‘unnamed woman’ was almost certainly Elsie Mackay,” Pettigrew asserts.

Phyllis seeks $50 a week in alimony—about $872 at this writing—and custody of John. In November, she and John head back to England.

Saturday, February 7, 1920. Elsie Mackay and Lionel Atwill marry in Chicago.

Wednesday, December 23, 1920. Atwill—whose understudy is Fredric March, no less—and Mackay star in DEBURAU. Written by Sacha Guitry, Atwill stars as the titular character, a once-famous mime whose life is shattered when he discovers that the love-of-his-life Marie (Mackay) is actually a prostitute. His later attempts to become successful again on stage are rebuffed by cruel crowds. But he trains his son Charles in his art, and achieves a triumph of sorts when Charles becomes “a new and greater Deburau.”

“[I]t may well represent the greatest triumph of his entire career—on both stage and screen…” Pettigrew writes. “Atwill was acclaimed by the critics as one of the greatest stage actors of all time.”

Meaty Broadway roles just kept on coming. THE GRAND DUKE (1921). THE COMEDIAN (1922). THE OUTSIDER (1923). CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA (1924). In development is DEEP IN THE WOODS (1925).

It’s during DEEP IN THE WOODS that troubles occur.

The first wrinkle happens on November 18, 1925. Atwill is riding the Washington-New York express train…which is unexpectedly rear-ended by the express from St. Louis. Two Pullman carriages are crushed. Luckily, Atwill is riding in the third.

He’s not so lucky when he suspects that Elsie is having an affair with fellow DEEP IN THE WOODS actor Max Montesole.

Atwill’s brow first furrows when Elsie doesn’t come home one night after rehearsal. Atwill’s friend, 32-year-old actor Claude Beerbohm, happens to be present.

He watches as a distraught Atwill nervously traverses the premises, finding and “fondling” two pistols. Atwill quickly works himself up into a frenzy.

“I ought to shoot him,” a furious Atwill spits out. “I ought to throttle him!”

But then, the consequences obviously occur to him, and Atwill begins to calm down.

“I can’t put my hands on the man who’s stealing my wife,” he laments. “I want to kill him, but what good will it do? Is a woman who leaves her husband worth dying for? Dying in the chair? And would it even bring her back to me?”

Instead, Atwill hires two detectives. Together with his attorney, the detectives, and his chauffeur, Atwill pays a surprise visit to Elsie and Max at the Atwills’s Manhattan digs.

What he finds floors him.

Packing cases fill the room. Elsie and Max are obviously planning a secret midnight run. Then, a member of the staff swears that Elsie has been staying in the place as Mrs. Montesole.

Later, Elsie tries to walk this back, claiming that Max was only there to help get her things ready for a sojourn to Europe. But—afraid of scandal and possible arrest—she finally tells the truth.

She’s been unfaithful.

Divorce court is a disaster for Elsie. Since she says Atwill earns $60,000 per year, she wants $350 per week in alimony; the judge gives her nothing.

Oh, and DEEP IN THE WOODS never opens.

[Above: Louise Atwill, Lionel’s third wife. Louise came from American aristocracy, and she and Lionel enjoyed the good life…until she alleged his perversions robbed her of her love for him.]

The second half of the 1920s finds Atwill continually busy on the boards. SLAVES ALL (1926). NAPOLEAN (1927). FIORETTA (1928). THE SILENT WITNESS (1930).

And 1930 brings a sharp upturn to his already healthy fortune.

“June 1930,” Atwill’s biographer Greg Mank writes. “Lionel Atwill royally entered the pantheon of American high society via his third marriage.”

It’s the third marriage as well for Henrietta Louise Cromwell Brooks MacArthur, 36. But unlike Atwill, Louise actually comes from the aristocracy…at least, American style.

For Louise’s step-dad is none other than Edward Townsend “Ned” Stotesbury, investment banker and partner in both Philadelphia’s Drexel & Company and its affiliate, J.P. Morgan & Company. As such, Ned is worth a ton—reportedly more than one hundred million dollars.

Flush with the money, Louise is something of an imp. “It Girl” attractive, gossipy, and uninhibited, she is—in short—a real catch.

Her first husband—with whom she has three children—is Walter Booth Brooks, Jr., a businessman out of Baltimore. They’re together from 1911 to 1919.

Her second husband, whom she marries on Valentine’s Day in 1922, is none other than General Douglas MacArthur.

She loves to tell friends how MacArthur can’t walk by a mirror without looking at himself. The marriage officially ends in 1929, though it’s actually been over long before that.

When she marries Atwill, she’s asked, “How’s being with an actor different from being with a general?”

“No difference,” she’ll crack. (Later, she’ll say, “I traded four little stars for one big Hollywood star.”)

February 12, 1931. DRACULA with Bela Lugosi is released. It’s a box office bonanza, and helps save Universal Studios from financial ruin.

November 21, 1931. FRANKENSTEIN is released. It makes even more money than DRACULA, and transforms Boris Karloff into an “overnight” success.

The rest of Hollywood takes notice.

Atmospheric films with scary monsters can generate a lot of bucks…

Paramount already has DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE with Fredric March set to screen in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve.

So, Warner Brothers can’t be blamed for signing Atwill to make the thriller classic DR. X (1932), opposite the beautiful Vina Fay Wray.

The success of DR. X means that other exciting film offers pour in. Soon, Atwill is playing menacing but hypnotic characters in the likes of THE VAMPIRE BAT (1933), MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (1933), and MURDERS IN THE ZOO (1933)…which features one of his most famously perverted performances.

[Above: Atwill as the deranged Eric Gorman in MURDERS IN THE ZOO. Here, he’s sewing shut the lips of a man he suspects has been having an affair with his wife. Bizarre—but fascinating—characters like this no doubt contributed to Atwill’s off-screen image.]

MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE dubs him “the Mental Lon Chaney!”

But he’s not just making thrillers.

Suddenly, Atwill finds himself welcome in A-list films as well, surrounded by some of the brightest stars Hollywood has to offer.

THE SONG OF SONGS (1933) with Marlene Dietrich. MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935) with Lionel Barrymore and Bela Lugosi. CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935) with Errol Flynn. THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1939) with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce.

Oh, and he’s also given one of his most famous performances as inspector Krogh in Universal’s hit SON OF FRANKENSTEIN with Rathbone, Karloff, and Lugosi.

Financially—aside from being married to Louise, with whom he shares a number of beautiful dwellings—he’s also signed with 20^th Century Fox. His 1939 salary is $1000 per week for a guaranteed 40 weeks a year. This is a bit less than $27,000 per week today, or almost $866,500 a year.

But things are crumbling at home. Louise is looking to get out.

Allegedly, the troubles begin back in 1933 when Atwill brings home Elsie—perhaps named for Atwill’s second wife?—a fifteen-foot python appearing in MURDERS IN THE ZOO.

Then, too, there are rumors that Louise and Lionel are occasionally open to bringing others into their marriage bed. The gossipmongers begin whispering that Atwill is expanding his tastes by engaging in group sex, something Louise just doesn’t appreciate.

And then, he enjoys attending murder trials, something she’s never understood.

Plus, he’s often different in public than he is at home. Fans see the jovial, increasingly girthy bon vivant, who loves tennis, gardening, socializing, good food, and good drink.

Louise sees a surly, mentally cruel, cross-dressing egomaniac, whom she believes—when under the influence of alcohol—is more than capable of physical violence.

Her lawyer piles on. Atwill:

• Frequently remains away from home, and provides no explanation.

• Often associates with other women.

• Indulges in abusive language.

“Locked into a bizarre marriage to a strange man,” Geoffrey Perret—one of Douglas MacArthur’s biographers—writes, “Louise became self-pitying and hugely fat. She looked ever deeper into the contents of bottles…”

Thus, the image of Atwill as a sex fiend begins to emerge. And he doesn’t help himself with his comments.

“My wife tells me that I am cruel—that I have a steak of cruelty,” Atwill admits to writer Faith Service as early as 1933. “And what do I do when I am cruel? Nothing. NOTHING. To do nothing is the most blood-curdling, most demonical form of cruelty there is…She loves me more for it, not less. All women love the men who are capable of mental cruelty. All women love the men they fear. All women kiss the hand that rules them…

“The American man…is a splendid specimen physically…” Atwill goes on. “Where his women are concerned, he is a fool…He has allowed her to come out of seclusion and defy him. Women should appreciate this kindly fellow. They do not. They take advantage of him. They belittle him. I do not treat women in such soft fashion…

“Women are cat creatures,” he infamously concludes. “Their preference is for a soft fireside cushion, for delicate bowls of cream, for perfumed leisure and for a master—which is where and how they belong.”

By the Spring of 1939, Louise has had enough. She blows out of their digs on D’Este Drive, Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles and heads to Washington D.C.

Atwill fills his downtime by throwing wild parties. Many of these result in illicit rumors.

One of them will destroy his career, and almost get him thrown in jail.

[Above: Max Solomon, Bugsy Siegel, and attorney Issac Pacht. Pacht defended Atwill against the illicit sex charges. He is the one who read into the record Atwill’s “lied like a gentleman to protect my friends” statement.]

In the meantime, Atwill takes on the role in THE MYSTERIOUS DOCTOR R to help fund an independent production of THE DARK RIVER, based on the novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Hall. He’s just paid $25,000 for the screen rights—a bit more than $536,000 today. His intention is to have James Whale direct the picture on a budget of $500,000.

Sadly, THE DARK RIVER will never get made. But Lionel Atwill delivers a fantastic performance opposite a fantastic Lon Chaney, Jr. all the same.

Fast forward. The halcyon days shooting MAN MADE MONSTER aren’t only a special memory for Lon Chaney, Jr., who is unhappy with the roles he’s assigned after THE WOLF MAN (1941). Things have definitely gone south for Lionel Atwill since then as well.

To begin with, April 29, 1941 brings the horrible news that John Anthony Atwill—the actor’s 26-year-old son—has been killed “as the result of enemy action.” John had been serving as a Flight Lieutenant and a Station Medical Officer in the Royal Air Force.

Though they hadn’t seen each other in five years, the pair had exchanged letters…the last of which were written only ten days prior:

“Is there any chance, Dad, you may be coming over soon?” John had asked. “I would like awfully to see you again—and one can never tell these days and nights.”

“I’ll wind up my affairs as soon as possible,” the actor replied, “and I will be seeing you in May.”

But it’s not to be. On the evening of April 26, John is enjoying a drink with two comrades at the Ferry Inn near the R.A.F. Coltishall where he’s stationed when headlights in the parking lot attract German planes. Fifteen bombs are dropped, and one wipes out the inn. Twenty-one people are killed as a result.

Upon being informed of John’s death, Atwill collapses, and is immediately put under a doctor’s care. It’s a terrible time in Atwill’s life.

But things are about to get a lot worse.

May 9, 1941. The newspapers are carrying the story of Virginia Lopez, a 30-ish dress designer from Cuba, and Sylvia Hamalaine, 16, a Minnesota native trying to get into radio. Lopez is charged with “having aided in the molestation of the juvenile girl.” Sylvia testifies that Lopez held her hand while an associate, Adolph “Eddie” LaRue, attacked her on December 17, 1940 in the apartment she and Lopez shared at the time.

Oh, and Hamalaine is pregnant.

LaRue, recently drafted into military service and stationed at Fort Ord, pleads guilty to contributing to a girl’s delinquency, and requests that Superior Court Judge Thomas L. Ambrose grant him probation.

Atwill’s name gets dragged in when Donald McKay, Lopez’s defense attorney, asserts that, “far worse things happened to her at the hands of others than occurred at the hands of my client.”

Hamalaine isn’t having it. Though she says that three other men have, indeed, mistreated her, they’re irrelevant to the incident at hand.

“I am not going to name anybody else,” she declares. “They do not belong in this case” [emphasis mine].

But Mackay attempts to smear Hamalaine by telling the court that Sylvia is known to have attended “several parties at the beach home of Lionel Atwill, character actor, last December and January, where assorted indecencies took place.”

Outraged by this unfounded accusation—now on the record—Deputy District Attorney Percy Hammond rebukes Mackay and immediately demands a personal apology.

“Mackay apologized,” THE SAN BERNADINO COUNTY SUN reports on May 10, “but insisted that other members of the district attorney’s office were reluctant to investigate purportedly wild and loose parties which Miss Lopez charged had been held in film colony homes and attended by her and the Hamalaine girl.”

“I am not saying that this evidence is not material,” Judge Ambrose says, “but I am saying that it is not wise to admit it in the broad sense of justice. You see, these newspaper people are here taking this down.”

You bet they are…

Conflicting reports proliferate. Was Hamalaine actually raped at Atwill’s house? And what, exactly, is going on there on any given night?

Neil Pettigrew, Atwill’s biographer, attempts to cut to the chase.

“[Atwill] was not prosecuted for showing pornographic films,” he writes in 2014. “He was not prosecuted for holding a wild orgy. He was not prosecuted for raping someone. He was not prosecuted for holding a party at which someone was raped. He was not prosecuted for having sex with an underage girl…The offense for which Atwill was prosecuted, on October 15, 1942, was that of perjury—i.e., lying—in court. His reason for lying had nothing to do with personal gain or concealing some other criminal offense…he got dragged into the affair because the two women involved in the court case had attended one of Atwill’s parties on another occasion.”

However, just because he will not be prosecuted for any of these more sordid charges doesn’t mean that Atwill is not hosting parties where such things might occur…and he very much knows it.

“I might as well make a hole in the water somewhere and jump in!” the actor moans in despair. He begins to imply that he’s being shaken down.

More pressingly, Atwill also knows that Hollywood reputations are made of the thinnest of glass. And he has friends that he doesn’t want smeared. This is why he decides to lie under oath.

[Above: Atwill in perhaps his most famous role in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN. Though he likely did have some perverted sexual proclivities in real life—at least, by puritan standards—he should not be remembered for them. Rather, he should be hailed as the great actor he was…one whose work still brings joy to Monster Kids. Signed image courtesy of author and certified Monster Kid Roger Hurlburt. Many thanks, Roger!]

His strategy works, at least initially. On May 21, 1941, Atwill—wearing a black armband in remembrance of John—spends three hours in front of the Grand Jury. He specifically denies showing “immoral motion pictures.” Things go well.

“I emphatically and categorically denied all charges that any improper acts occurred at my home,” he tells the press, “or that any indecencies took place in the presence of the Hamalaine girl.”

Lopez, meanwhile, is convicted and sentenced to a year. She’s also ordered to pay a $100 fine.

On June 2—much to Atwill’s relief—the Grand Jury suspends the investigation.

“It is indeed regrettable,” the foreman decrees, “that the names of certain prominent people were bandied about so freely and apparently without facts to back up the assertions.”

No doubt feeling like he’s dodged a bullet, Atwill gets back to making pictures. THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET. TO BE OR NOT TO BE with Carole Lombard. THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. RX. PARDON MY SARONG with Abbott and Costello.

But the justice system isn’t done with him yet.

As it turns out, the 1942 grand jury is unhappy with how their 1941 counterparts had handled the affair, and have vowed to reopen the case. This leads to Atwill being recalled to testify on Thursday, June 11, 1942.

“On the advice of Attorney George Stahlman,” THE LOS ANGELES TIMES reports, “the veteran character actor refused to testify concerning the charges and was promptly excused.”

Lopez and Hamalaine are recalled. Ten other witnesses are subpoenaed. Actress Katherine Marlowe, a friend of Atwill’s, testifies that she never observed any misconduct at Atwill’s home at any time.

Lopez begs to differ. Her sordid tale—as told by columnist Frederick C. Othman—is incredibly damning. Her allegations—and let’s remember, these are HER allegations—include:

• Guests having an orgy on a tiger skin rug in Atwill’s bar.

• Atwill showing guests two pornographic films: THE PLUMBER’S GIRL and THE DAISY CHAIN. [2]

• Atwill plying Hamalaine with liquor so Eugene Frenke, ex-husband of actress Anna Sten, can have his way with her.

As for Lopez? She claims to have been sitting at the piano playing Strauss waltzes while all of this occurred.

Under the advice of his new attorneys, the high-powered Isaac Pacht and Willard Burgess, Atwill changes his strategy and testifies. His rebuttal?

• There is no tiger skin rug at his home. There is only a moth-eaten bear skin.

• There were no orgies; everyone kept their clothes on, and the only films he showed were travelogues.

• Hamalaine had nothing to drink stronger than soda pop.

Pacht insists that Atwill is only being prosecuted because he has refused to be blackmailed. He advises the film colony to withhold judgement on Atwill until he can “tell his story to a jury.”

On June 30, Atwill is indicted.

“The jury specifically accused Atwill…” the U.P. reports, “of exhibiting in his home two lewd films called ‘The Plumber’s Wife’ and ‘The Daisy Chain,’ and then denying that he ever heard of them.”

Atwill posts $1000 in bail, worth a bit more than $19,000 at this writing. He has until July 12 to enter a plea. When he does on July 2, it’s “not guilty.” Trial is set for August 17.

On August 11, he receives the unwelcome word that a second indictment for perjury may be forthcoming. Trial is pushed back to September 28. He and his attorneys attempt to stop the bleeding.

On September 24, Atwill withdraws his plea, and enters a plea of guilty. His attorney reads into the record that Atwill “lied like a gentleman to protect my friends.”

“I want to make it clear,” Pacht states, “that Atwill again denies the incidents at his Pacific Palisades home testified to by two witnesses before the grand jury.”

Sentencing is set for October 15. Meanwhile, Atwill is scheduled to start shooting what will become FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN on October 12. When D-Day comes, he’s given five years of probation. Though this means a weekly visit to the local police, he’s at least avoided jail time.

Still, the Hays Office advises that movie studios steer clear of him on the grounds that he is now a convicted felon. The other shoe could drop at any time on FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN. However, Universal keeps him on the picture.

“But for the courage and magnanimity of one particular studio,” he’ll say later, “I guess I should be a dead egg now.”

Still, work dries up after the production is complete. Heading into the spring of 1943, there are no offers on the table. He asks his attorneys if there is anything they can do.

On April 16, they file a plea asking the court to overturn the sentence. They argue that Atwill has been humiliated, and that his career has been almost fatally damaged. They also point out that Atwill’s probation officers have found Atwill’s conduct to be exemplary.

“[T]he ends of justice have been have already been accomplished,” they submit.

A week later, the judge agrees. Atwill is allowed to plead “not guilty,” and the charge is dismissed. The judge informs him that Atwill can now truly say that he has not been convicted of a felony.

But film work still doesn’t come. And to make matters worse, on June 18, his divorce from Louise is finalized, costing him ten percent of his income—capped at $2,400—every year.

Atwill needs a change. He heads back East, intending on rekindling his Broadway success. He gets good reviews in a revival of THE PLAY’S THE THING, taking it on the road to Philadelphia and Boston. But Broadway isn’t interested, so Atwill switches gears and stages THE OUTSIDER. This fails to get to Broadway as well. A revival of MY DEAR CHILDREN doesn’t cut it, either.

Discouraged, he trudges back to California. Once returned, he takes roles in PRC and Republic productions.

But in April of 1944, Universal finally comes calling with a part in THE DEVIL’S BROOD, which—of course—becomes HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. He racks up a number of other credits over the next two years for Universal, PRC, and RKO.

[Above: Lionel Atwill’s last film, GENIUS AT WORK. Sadly, Atwill would die fairly young—especially by today’s standards—leaving behind a beloved fourth wife and a young son.]

He even begins dating. Mary Paula Pruter is a radio producer and singer. On July 7, Atwill, 59, and Paula, 27, tie the knot in Vegas. And the couple is delighted to welcome a son, Lionel Anthony Guille Atwill, on October 14, 1945.

But his pleasure isn’t destined to last. While shooting Universal’s serial LOST CITY IN THE JUNGLE, he begins feeling poorly. Soon, he’s diagnosed with bronchial cancer complicated by pneumonia. Angered by the fact that he’s going to leave behind a wife and son that he loves—and bitter about the way Hollywood has treated him in light of the scandal—he’s soon bedridden and wasting away at his Pacific Palisades home.

The end comes on April 22, 1946. Paula is with him when he goes. It can’t be easy for the now 29-year-old mom.

“The obituaries had the decency to avoid mentioning the court case,” Pettigrew notes.

How much of what Virginia Lopez and Sylvia Hamalaine said about Lionel Atwill is true? We’ll likely never know. But, as Pettigrew points out, many who pointed the finger at Atwill were shady characters with criminal records themselves. And it’s very likely that the press, smelling blood in the water, sensationalized their coverage to sell papers. As such, we might be wise to consider the sources; we might be wise to revise what we THINK we know about that Christmas party in 1940.

More appropriate it is, then, to remember Atwill for his talent and his accomplishments on stage and screen, including his marvelous performance as Paul Rigas in MAN MADE MONSTER…“His maddest doctor of them all!”

Lionel Atwill, RIP.

SOURCES

Fleck, Bill. CHANEY’S AUDITION. Wurtsboro, NY: Just Pay the Ransom Publishing, 2024. Print. (A detailed list of sources can be found therein.)

NOTE: The photographs utilized herein are intended for educational purposes only. I do not own the copyrights, nor do I make any money from this website.