The Executive
Hotel Mark Twain - Union Square, 345 Taylor Street, formerly the Ramada
Inn Union Square, formerly the Mark Twain Hotel. |
On
January 22, 1949, jazz great Billie Holiday, who fifty years later would
be recognized among artists who defined the 20th Century, was busted in
a raid on Room 203 at the Mark Twain Hotel, 345 Taylor Street. Holiday
had previously spent ten months in a federal slammer in West Virginia on
a heroin charge in 1947. Holiday, 29 and already known around the world
for her great singing talent as well as for her drug addiction, came to
San Francisco with her manager-boyfriend, John Levy, 41, to perform at
Cafe Society Uptown on Fillmore Street on the week of the bust at the Mark
Twain. In a raid led by federal narcotics agent George H. White, the cops
said they found the singer in posession of opium and a pipe. White testified
that Holiday ran into the bathroom and tried to flush the evidence, which
he retrieved. Fifty dollars worth of opium and part of a pipe were introduced
into evidence. What's startling about the case against Billie Holiday is
that she faced state prosecution rather than federal because federal courts
would not permit evidence obtained without a search warrant. What's startling
is that state courts would! Levy was also arrested but was later released.
Only Holiday was charged in a grand jury indictment. On the weekend before
jury selection, Levy beat Holiday, took her money and fur coat, and split.
The greatest female jazz singer in world, who was free on bail, appeared
in court with a black eye and a well worn beige suit. Her attorney was
the great San Francisco legal figure Jake Ehrlich. The maverick attorney
had previously defended Sally Stanford and drummer Gene Krupa. Ehrlich,
whose 1955 biography was titled, "Never Plead Guilty," was the subject
of an unsold 1960 TV pilot by Gene Rodenberry starring DeForest Kelly as
attorney Jake Brittin in "333 Montgomery Street." Ehrlich's office was
at 300 Montgomery. A second series, Sam
Benedict, was also based on Ehrlich. In the trial of Billie Holiday,
Ehrlich brought to light evidence that Levy and Agent White had been chummy
for more than year before the raid and that Levy wanted to get rid of Billie
rather than marry her. The foreman of the jury of six men and six women
said they believed the defense contention that Holiday was framed. Moments
after her acquittal on June 3, 1949, Holiday said that although Levy had
beaten her, stolen all her money, then deserted her, she loved him and
would take him back in a minute. "He's my man," she said. Holiday was the
godmother of District 8 Supervisor
Bevan Dufty.
Dufty's father, William Dufty, co-wrote Holiday's autobiography, "Lady
Sings the Blues." Billie's account of her arrest and trial in San Francisco
jibes with the public record, except that she doesn't name the hotel and
says her room was #602. "You can get in just as much trouble by being dumb
and innocent as you can by breaking the law," says Holiday, "I've learned
the hard way. If you're doing something wrong, you know it and you've got
at least one eye peeled looking for trouble. That way, you're in some position
to protect yourself. The other way, you're just a pigeon."
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More
about Billie Holiday
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