Charles H. Crawford

Olive Day and the ‘Love Mart’ Case

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Olive Day was the madam involved in the 1931 prostitution ring newspapers called the Love Mart/Love Market/Love Bazaar/Girl Bazaar. Like others before her and those still to come, the story played out the same way: lurid headlines, young girl victims’ parades for the photographers, a little black book containing the names of wealthy and/or famous men clients said to be shaking in their boots for fear of exposure (which never came), the madam is left holding the bag while the underworld bosses behind the operation are not charged (or even named) and simply start again with a fresh madam and new girls once the public outcry dies down.

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Lee Francis

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“You’re a cog in the organized traffic when you’re running a house, a spoke in the wheel of the underworld.” 

-Call House Madam

Lee Francis was the madam of multiple brothels in Los Angeles under Charles Crawford and his successors. Almost all that is known about her, or believed that is known about her, is information that came from Francis herself and is not reliable. The following is based on my own original research.

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Who Was Mumsie McGonigle?

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A typical reaction from anyone who reads Geoffrey Homes’ hard-to-find 1946 novel Build My Gallows High (basis for the film noir Out of the Past) is: how on earth did he come up with a name like Mumsie McGonigle? The short answer is: he didn’t. There was a real Mumsie McGonigle, and she was much in the news in early 1940s Los Angeles. Her story involves depravity and corruption to equal any hardboiled fiction plot.

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