Eunice Pringle
Encyclopedia
Eunice Irene Pringle was an American starlet who garnered notoriety for accusing movie mogul Alexander Pantages
, a Greek immigrant success story, of raping her on August 9, 1929 in his downtown Los Angeles office when she came to audition for him. The trial that followed in the fall of 1929 found Pantages guilty and he was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
He was successful, however, on appeal.
Hollywood myth alleges that Pringle was to be paid $10,000 dollars to enter Pantages's office and accuse him of rape so that Joseph P. Kennedy, the patriarch of the famous American family, would buy the Pantages theatre chain (Pantages adamantly refused to sell him the chain when Kennedy approached him).
What is known is that the trial brought notoriety to Pantages and sympathy to Pringle.
Newspapers at the time, thanks to the arrival of tabloid newspapers in the USA in 1919, already convicted Pantages before the trial even started in September 1929. Particularly virulent was the Los Angeles Examiner owned by press baron William Randolph Hearst
.
Alexander Pantages
Alexander Pantages was an American vaudeville and early motion picture producer and impresario who created a large and powerful circuit of theatres across the western United States and Canada.-Early life:...
, a Greek immigrant success story, of raping her on August 9, 1929 in his downtown Los Angeles office when she came to audition for him. The trial that followed in the fall of 1929 found Pantages guilty and he was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
He was successful, however, on appeal.
Hollywood myth alleges that Pringle was to be paid $10,000 dollars to enter Pantages's office and accuse him of rape so that Joseph P. Kennedy, the patriarch of the famous American family, would buy the Pantages theatre chain (Pantages adamantly refused to sell him the chain when Kennedy approached him).
What is known is that the trial brought notoriety to Pantages and sympathy to Pringle.
Newspapers at the time, thanks to the arrival of tabloid newspapers in the USA in 1919, already convicted Pantages before the trial even started in September 1929. Particularly virulent was the Los Angeles Examiner owned by press baron William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
.