Modern Screen (Dec 1953 - Nov 1954)

Record Details:

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behind closed doors (Continued from page 37) film in Honolulu. 14. Going to Mexican night clubs with men other than her husband and drinking excessively. All of this, Duke charged, caused him such "grievous mental suffering, embarrassment, and humiliation" that he wanted a divorce at once. Chata, his thirty-one-year-old Mexican wife, charged America's number-one movie attraction with: 1. Pulling her out of bed and beating her. 2. Dragging her down the hallway of the Del Prado Hotel in Mexico City by the roots of her hair. 3. Blacking her eye. 4. Calling her obscene names. 5. Manhandling her in the presence of guests. 6. Swearing at the servants and thereby causing her great pain and humiliation. 7. Refusing to escort her home from parties. 8. On occasions too numerous to specify covering her body with bruises which her masseuse might readily see. 9. Excessive drinking and resultant intoxication. 10. Violent temper and bad manners. 11. Going out with actress Gail Russell on a party and not returning home until the wee hours of the morning. 12. Giving Gail Russell money for a new car. 13. Throwing towels all over the dressingroom of their residence because he was dissatisfied with the number of towels in his bathroom. 14. Belligerent attitude and demeanor which once manifested itself when at a party he tossed his wife's shawl into the mud. 15. Attending a stag party where call girls were brought in and strip teases performed; "and when defendant returned home in the early morning hours, he was very intoxicated and had a large black bite on the right side of his neck." 16. Throwing alcohol in her face. 17. Forcing her to escape into another bedroom, screaming and calling her vile names through the door. 18. Without her consent, moving her effects out of their large residence in Encino into a small Beverly Hills apartment. T^espite all this potent ammunition, the Wayne trial ran only three days. What happened? Who called a halt to the proceedings and why? Why, after weeks of fruitless out-of-court bickering, was a financial agreement satisfactory to both parties reached in a matter of hours? Before they went into the courtroom Duke Wayne had offered his wife $40,000 for two years and $35,000 a year for the next seven years. He had insisted that there was no community property to divide because Chata, in their seven years of marriage, had spent more than he had earned. Chata, in turn, had demanded approximately $9,000 a month in alimony. Whereupon Duke had said, "I hate to do it, but I'm going to fight this one through." Modern Screen is the only magazine with the inside story of the Wayne casewhy it wasn't battled out according to plan, why the trial was cut short and how the settlement was reached. On the morning of the trial's third day, half an hour before Duke, Chata, the lawyers and witnesses were scheduled to appear in Judge Allen Ashburn's courtroom, Lloyd Shearer, a writer who was <f\ covering the trial, rapped on the door of the judge's chambers. He introduced himself to Judge Ashburn, a sternlooking bespectacled man of sixty-eight, and asked permission to use a noiseless wire recorder while Mr. and Mrs. Wayne were testifying. "I'm very sorry," Judge Ashburn said kindly, "but if I let you use a recorder, then I've got to let the newsreel men come in and the tv men come in, and the whole thing will become a circus. It's hard enough to keep order as it is." Mr. Shearer nodded. "I know, Your Honor," he conceded, "but the recorder doesn't make any noise. I also know both of the principals in this case, and neither of them has any objection." Judge Ashburn ran a hand through his short iron-grey hair. "If you know them," he said good naturedly, "why don't you get them to settle this mess?" The writer then agreed that the case was getting out of hand and he said, "The terrible part of it all, Your Honor, is that nothing is involved but money. If children were involved or a matter of principle were concerned, I could see a last-ditch fight. But to parade this sort of evidence because the wife wants more money and the husband won't give it to her seems pretty senseless." Judge Ashburn expressed the opinion that both Duke and Chata had employed Chata's doodles, made during Nick Hilton's stay at her home, were produced in court by Wayne. competent counsel. He assumed that every effort had been made to settle their clients' differences out of court. "There's no doubt about that, Your Honor," Shearer said. "They were pretty close to a settlement at one time. I still think, however, that if somebody puts his foot down and insists that a settlement be reached, such a deal can be made." The writer asked once more for permission to use his wire recorder, and again the judge denied him. Fifteen minutes later when Chata Wayne strode into court — she was late because she'd been stopped and ticketed for speeding by a highway patrolman — she learned that her lawyer and Duke's lawyer, Frank Belcher, were closeted in chambers with Judge Ashburn. What Ashburn said in essence to both lawyers was that the case was taking a nasty turn and that he felt a property settlement could be reached if all the parties concerned really got down to business. He was recessing court until two o'clock that afternoon, and he wanted both lawyers to return with a settlement. While court was recessed, Duke, Chata, their two lawyers, and Bo Roos, Duke's business manager, succeeded in making their way into an adjoining court room. The door was locked and the final settlement conference began. There was much haggling over financial details. Chata wanted her debts to be paid. She insisted upon having her community property rights recognized. In the end, Duke agreed to pay Chata approximately $50,000 a year for the next six years, to pay all of her debts (estimated at $22,000), sell the property they own and give her half the proceeds and pay her legal expenses. The settlement ran to $500,000 give a little, take a little. One reason Duke wanted to settle was that he was afraid his two oldest children might be subpoenaed and asked to testify against their father. Duke felt sure that if the trial continued, his children would be forced to share his humiliation, that they would be compelled to answer the most soul-searing personal questions, that the battery of photographers and newsmen would descend upon them and that the two children, Mike, eighteen, and Tony, sixteen (the daughter's name is Mary Antonia but everyone calls her Tony), would bear the stigma of this experience and would carry the memory forever. He was determined to avoid this no matter what the price in cash or future financial indebtedness. What he did not and could not know was that before the trial got underway, Chata had emphatically told her lawyer, Jerry Rosenthal, "I love Duke's children, all four of them. They are fine children, and under no circumstances must they be called or connected with this trial in any way. If Duke wants to fight, I'll fight him. I'll fight him all the way. But those children are not to be called. Is that understood?" "I agree with you 100%," Rosenthal had said. "They will not even be mentioned." "Good," Chata said. "I will fight him alone." And what a fight this fiery Mexican lady put up. Sparks flew the very first day she and her lawyer stalked into court. The lawyer, shrewd, boyish-looking, well dressed, painted his client as a frightened, innocent young girl from Mexico who came to Hollywood only to find herself enmeshed in an alcohol-saturated net. "Are you going to show," the judge asked, "that her husband taught her to drink?" "I surely am," Rosenthal said. "She was swept into a mode of living where life came from the mouth of a whiskey bottle." He offered to prove that naive Chata came to the United States and lived with her "hard-drinking" actor for two years while he was still married, technically, to his first wife, Josephine Saenz, the mother of his four children. Chata Wayne then took the stand. She was dressed conservatively in a dark blue suit ($165) a white and blue pin-striped blouse ($15.95) and white gloves ($2.98). She toyed nervously with her fingers as in an almost inaudible voice, she told of Wayne's alleged mistreatment. Here are random excerpts from her testimony: "In December, 1946, we went to Honolulu with friends (Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Grant. Grant is Wayne's writer) . . . We were at the Grants' suite at the Moana Hotel. Mr. Wayne was intoxicated. Mr. Grant was even worse. They were talking and I was tired, so I lay down on a twin bed. "Mr. Wayne grabbed me by the foot and dragged me to the floor. I said, 'What's the matter?' He just insulted me and berated me and I cried. I was so upset. My eyes ; 'Be t