If you're going to fete Dillinger, call this man first
By Judy Keen, USA TODAY
John Dillinger and his legendary gang made history in Mason City, Iowa, on March 13, 1934. They stole $52,000 from the First National Bank, shot bystander R.L. James in the leg and raced out of town with hostages perched on the running boards of the getaway car.
Mason City leaders decided in March to organize a festival marking that unforgettable day. They envisioned a re-enactment of the bank heist, an exhibit of vintage cars and other activities. They thought they might call it Dillinger Days.
They didn't know then that a Dillinger descendant is on the lookout for such events across the USA, ensuring that anyone who uses Dillinger's name sticks to the facts and pays licensing fees. If they don't, they face the prospect of a lawsuit.
After getting a call from Jeff Scalf, whose grandmother was Dillinger's half-sister Doris, Mason City officials are now working with him on the Sept. 15 event. Scalf, 49, a marketing director in Indianapolis, says he wants Mason City and anyone else who uses Dillinger's name to tell the true story.
"They all have to sign a clause stating that they won't present him as a murderer, cop killer or vicious or mean-spirited," he says. "It's fair to say that he was accused of one killing but was never convicted."
'Kind of a happy villain'
Under a 1994 Indiana law, Scalf and other family members control rights to Dillinger's name and portrayal for 100 years after his death, says Jonathan Polak, an Indianapolis lawyer representing Scalf. Just because Dillinger — and Marilyn Monroe and Rosa Parks, whom he also has represented — are dead, Polak says, "doesn't mean they are suddenly thrown into the public domain. … You're stealing a piece of property."
That rankles some who have tangled with Scalf. Richard Oseran, owner of the Hotel Congress in Tucson, has been holding Dillinger Days for about 15 years and is being sued by Scalf.
"We're not going to let somebody own our history," says Oseran, who plans to continue marking the 1934 capture of gang members in Tucson.
"Doing history is different from doing 'Dillinger Days,' " Scalf says. "They're trying to make money off it." Polak says his firm has filed a half-dozen lawsuits on Scalf's behalf since 2000 and has reached dozens of agreements with businesses using Dillinger's name.
In 2006, the Lake County Convention and Visitors Bureau closed a small Dillinger museum in Hammond, Ind., after being sued by Scalf in 2001. Officials there wouldn't comment on the ongoing case because they're under a gag order.
Mason City has about 28,000 residents. Its other claim to fame is being the hometown of Meredith Willson, who wrote The Music Man.
Terry Harrison, archivist/historian at the Mason City Public Library, says Scalf "doesn't own the city's history." The Dillinger robbery was "the single most famous individual incident in the city's history and … many residents' lives," he says.
It was for Art Fischbeck, now 87. He was in high school and arrived at the bank just after the robbery. He says people were excited when they realized the robbers included Dillinger, a folk hero during the Depression because of his good looks and skill at eluding police and escaping from jail.
"He wasn't quite a Robin Hood, but he came off as a Robin Hood," Fischbeck says. "It was dire times economically and people needed a hero. … You've got to realize that he was a villain, but he was kind of a happy villain."
That's the image Scalf wants to perpetuate. Many accounts of Dillinger's exploits say he shot and killed patrolman William Patrick O'Malley of East Chicago, Ind., during a 1934 bank robbery. Dary Matera, author of the 2004 book John Dillinger: The Life and Death of America's First Celebrity Criminal, says there's "clear evidence" that Dillinger did shoot O'Malley. "It troubled him for most of the rest of his short life," Matera says.
 THE DILLINGER FILE | |
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Born: June 22, 1903, in Indianapolis. Died: July 22, 1934. Shot by FBI agents after seeing the movie Manhattan Melodrama at Chicago's Biograph Theater. He is buried in Indianapolis' Crown Point Cemetery. Career: He began robbing banks in 1933 after serving an 8½-year sentence for trying to rob a grocery store. His gang robbed about a dozen banks, staged three jailbreaks and eluded capture on several occasions. The FBI's website doesn't describe Dillinger as a murderer, but it says the gang, which sometimes included Baby Face Nelson, killed 10 men and wounded seven others. In 1934, he was declared the first Public Enemy No. 1. Legend: Some researchers questioned whether Dillinger really was shot outside the Biograph because an autopsy report included descriptions of physical characteristics that seemed inaccurate. He had undergone crude plastic surgery, and most historians now believe he was killed that day. |
New Dillinger movie?
Scalf says Dillinger was not there, and the FBI's recounting of his crimes on its website does not call him a murderer. It says Dillinger's gang was responsible for O'Malley's death.
Dillinger's descendants plan a book with new details about his life, Scalf says, and several Hollywood studios are considering new movies. He says he plans to use money from licensing fees to help troubled youth.
Organizers in Mason City have asked residents to help name the Dillinger festival. Scalf and Mary Sue Kislingbury, spokeswoman for the planning committee, say they haven't reached a final agreement.
"We're hoping to make this a big annual event," Kislingbury says. "We don't emphasize our own history enough."
Harrison says the festival will celebrate heroic residents: bank cashier Harry Fisher, who locked himself inside the vault and handed over only small-denomination bills; Dorothy Ransom Crumb, a polio survivor who refused to let the gang take her mother hostage; Margaret Johnson Giesen, a bank switchboard operator who yelled out a window for help and was confronted by Baby Face Nelson, who replied, "You're telling me, lady?"
There are few signs that interest in Dillinger is waning 73 years after his death. He was "the Brad Pitt of his day," Matera says. "He had the best cars, the best suits, and he died with a woman on each arm."
