From the Archives: I’m Free!
The next morning’s Los Angeles Times story reported, “She ran from the main entrance and refused to look back as the big chain link gates, topped with barbed wire clanged shut on the past. She was greeted by her sister, Mrs. Wilma Sannar...”
California Gov. Earl Warren pardoned Meredith after 2 1/2 years behind bars because of questions about the evidence in her trial for kidnapping her business manager Nicholas D. Gianaclis.
In 1947, Meredith, whose legal name is Marjorie May Massow, was convicted of kidnapping. But in March 1951, the California Assembly Interim Committee on Crime and Corrections issued a report stating Meredith was “framed” by her former business manager.
According to a Los Angeles Times story on March 27, 1951, the Assembly committee stated: “Had Miss Meredith been properly defended in a court free of prejudice she would have undoubtedly been proven innocent of the crime. ... There is shocking evidence of perjury, suppression of evidence and an almost unbelievable reluctance on the part of defense counsel to investigate the cause of defendant Meredith.”
After her release, Meredith sued Gianaclis, winning back her home lost after her conviction. She returned to television acting in the 1950s before retiring in the early 1960s.
This photo appears in the Los Angeles Times book, “High Exposure: Hollywood Lives– Found Photos from the Archives of the Los Angeles Times.”
This post was originally published on Sep. 22, 2010.
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