Some books are light like an appetizer; others are dense and a complete meal; and then there are the books that you read because you know they’re good for you, sort of like eating broccoli. ‘Beverly Hills Confidential’ is like a decadent chocolate dessert that you keep sneaking back to when no one is looking’and it never disappoints. The nonfiction book, written by Palisadian Barbara Schroeder and Clark Fogg, is drawn from the files of the Beverly Hills Police Department and is subtitled ‘A Century of Stars, Scandals and Murders.’ Schroeder, an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker, met Beverly Hills CSI inspector Fogg when trying to convince him to give her a sneak peek of the files regarding the highly publicized death of Hollywood publicity agent Ronni Chasen in 2010. Schroeder, like many, was suspicious of the police account that a random gunman killed Chasen, who was gunned down inside her Mercedes-Benz. A former Fox investigative reporter, Schroeder reminded Fogg that they had met when she was reporting on the Menendez murders, the sex-capades of Madam Heidi Fleiss and the shoplifting escapades of actress Winona Ryder. Although Fogg never let her see the Chasen file, he instead showed Schroeder the archives of the past 100 years of crime in Beverly Hills. ‘They were sensational stories, like the one about the pretty 25-year-old maid who hacked her boss to death after an argument about how to cut a roast,’ Schroeder writes in the introduction. ‘And the story of the nymphomaniac wife who hid a teenage lover in her attic.’ The two found a publisher (Angel City Press) and began collaborating, producing a 126-page book of crime vignettes, including never-before-published crime scene photos found in the police files. The book is divided into chapters by decades: The 1910s and 1920s’And So It Begins; The 1930s’Mansions, Moguls, Movie Stars; The 1940s’Gamblers and Gangsters; The 1950s’Trials and Tragedies; 1960s and 1970s’The Times They Are A-Changin’; 1980s and 1990s’Sins, Sons and Sorrow; and the 2000s’Paparazzi Paradise. A 1955 vignette, ‘The ‘Fur King’ Al Teitelbaum Case,’ is remarkable not only because the owner was caught for staging a robbery in his own store, but for the historical background it provides. In 2005, when Teitelbaum was interviewed as a 90-year-old, he talked about how Howard Hughes bought furs for his starlet lovers and in one year alone purchased two dozen coats. Teitelbaum also revealed that Carole Lombard was wearing one of Teitelbaum’s coats when she died in a plane crash in 1942. His son Ronn founded the Johnny Rockets hamburger restaurant chain and died of brain cancer at age 61. Although Perry Mason was a fictional lawyer who rarely if ever lost court cases, his real-life counterpart was Earl Rogers, one of the most famous criminal attorneys in Beverly Hills, who lost only three of 73 murder trials. In 1918, Rogers was hired by Howard Smart, an accountant, who had been accosted by his wife and two hired thugs. Smart had wildly fired a .45 automatic in his home to scare them out. Although he did not hit anyone, the thugs accused him of attempted murder, and Smart had to stand trial. Rogers passionately defended Smart’s right to protect his home, and Smart was acquitted. In the book, there is one particularly beautiful black-and-white photo of Helen Lee Worthing, a Ziegfeld Girl and an international dance star in the 1920s before coming to Hollywood. The authors write, ‘After she dies in a shack in the Forties, officers find a thick scrapbook by her side, full of old yellowed clippings extolling her long-gone beauty. She has spent the last years of her life a pitiable skid row drunk, roaming Beverly Hills and Hollywood, begging for money.’ The police chief at the time, Clinton Anderson, later wrote abut Worthing’s wasted life: ‘Fame is cruel. In their race to fame and fortune, people forget the most important thing about living, which is to live right.’ Fogg is the senior forensic specialist at the Beverly Hills Police Department crime lab, where he has worked since 1983. He has conducted more than 30,000 crime-scene investigations, participated in more than 100 homicide/death investigations and testified in federal and state courts in more than 200 cases. A resident of the Palisades for 13 years, Schroeder has won multiple Emmy awards for her work as an investigative reporter. She received a Gracie Award for a documentary on child abuse and was part of the news team that received a DuPont Award for her coverage of the Rodney King trial. She also wrote, produced and directed the Paramount film ‘Talhotblond,’ which won several best-documentary awards.
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