Foxes

Bald, sad-eyed William Fox, onetime film panjandrum, was prevented by a U. S. Supreme Court decision last year from using basic patents that he thought he owned to hoist himself back into the cinema business (TIME, March 18, 1935) Immediately Fox creditors streamed out in full cry. Harried by many a suit, suave Mr. Fox finally took cover in bankruptcy last May, listing $9,535,261 in claims against assets of $1,600,000. Later he testified that most of the latter had vanished, that even $100 listed as cash in hand had gone. Said he: "I paid it to a lawyer and borrowed another $100."

Of the 43 Fox creditors who sneered at these protestations, there was only one from whom Mr. Fox might conceivably have borrowed another $100. That one, All-Continent Corp., quickly became a target for all the others. All-Continent Corp. was created by Mr. Fox in 1931 as "an irrevocable trust" for his wife and two daughters. Mr. Fox transferred to it securities worth about $6,900,000. Since bankruptcy hearings opened in Atlantic City last June, creditors' lawyers have pooh-poohed All-Continent's present $417,258 claim against Fox, have tried assiduously to show that All-Continent remains his own principal asset.

Last week from their home on Atlantic City's swank Delancey Place the officers of All-Continent went down town to testify. Defiantly Mrs. Eva Fox, All-Continent president, maintained that she knew nothing of All-Continent affairs, had left them all to her lawyers. Ordered to be prepared to answer questions next day, Mrs. Fox took to her bed, sent in a doctor's certificate.

Next up were William Fox's brunette daughters, Mona and Belle. Daughter Mona testified that as All-Continent secretary she had signed minutes without going to meetings. Daughter Belle, vice president, remembered little in a business way except that last year her mother had given her $75,000 which she kept around her room for several months in a black bag. Then she gave it to Fox attorneys.

"I gave them $20,000 at one time, $12,000 another, $15,000 another and so on," said Belle Fox. "Did they tell you why they wanted the money?"

"No. When I gave it to them, all they would ever say was 'Is that all?'"

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