Jack & Dolly

Most famed Manhattan speakeasy during Prohibition, nearly as successful a restaurant since Repeal is Jack & Charlie's 21 West 52nd St. Last week Hearstpaper readers were titillated, shocked or disgusted by a six-instalment tale of misconduct between Proprietor Jack Kriendler and Mrs. Dorothy ("Dolly") Gaddess, wife of Socialite-Banker Norris Barrymore Gaddess of Greenwich, Conn. Somehow Hearst's Evening Journal had got hold of the transcript of Husband Gaddess' divorce proceedings, which were heard by a horrified referee in private chambers. It included 443 dictaphone records of telephone conversations between Jack & Mrs. Gaddess. The referee considered them "lewd in thought beyond belief . . . greater evidence of depravity than the actual commission of the acts." With insinuations that most of the conversations were unprintable, the Journal delightedly printed some 20 columns.* Sample:

Dolly: Um, baby, baby.

Jack: What, Angel?

Dolly: Ummmm, mooey, mooey, mooey, mooey.

Jack: Mooey, mooey, mooey.

Dolly: Who's got a funny mommy?

Jack: I have, baby. . . .

Dolly: Ah, ah. ah.

Jack: Mommy, poppy wants to go to sleep.

Dolly: It's nice to sleep with you on the phone.

Jack: Boy loves you, baby.

Dolly: I may turn into a little plant and grow on you. Gooch, gooch, gooch.

The mooeying & gooching were recorded over a six-month period. One day other strange noises on the phone interested Mrs. Gaddess.

Jack: I'll have to find out about it. Maybe--ha ha--it's one of those dictaphones.

Dolly: I wonder if they take these conversations down. I bet they're funny. . . .

Jack: They won't be able to prove anything but it would look very badly in the papers.

Husband Gaddess had little trouble proving enough for divorce, but his demand for custody of their two children was sternly denied by the referee, who blamed the husband for having introduced his "heretofore blameless and refined wife" to Jack, "an unprepossessing fellow of low morals." Husband Gaddess filed appeal. Jack Kriendler nonchalantly went about his business of making his guests comfortable at 21. In the telephone booths appeared signs reading: "These wires aren't tapped." At the bar, wags loudly ordered Mooey cocktails.

*Excepting Hearst's American and Mirror, no Manhattan newspaper touched the story, which it would have been obliged to reprint from the Journal day by day without sound knowledge of the story's source or its outcome. One editor explained: ''Following the Journal on a story like that is like following a good-looking streetwalker along Fifth Avenue at noon on Easter Sunday."

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