King of the Con Men

If it is true that Joseph Seide is really dead, then it is fitting that he should have died on Friday the 13th. Joe always had a flair for the unusual.

I am aware that his wife, Mandy, says he is dead, and that his best friend and benefactor, bail bondsman Joey Barnum, says he is dead, but I am still not convinced.

Joe Seide had been hustling me for years to write a column about him or one of his clients, but except for Barnum, I had resisted.

He was, however, a man of many cons, and it would not surprise me to learn after this appears in the paper that he had faked his own death in order to get his way.

I am not alone in assuming this is possible. Mandy told me that two of Joe’s friends who are old-time comics came by their Westside apartment a day after Joe had allegedly passed away.

Told he had died, they laughed and said sure he has, what’s the old bastard up to now? Then they searched the apartment. Only when they didn’t find him, and after listening to Mandy, did they become convinced he was gone.

But I remain skeptical and am hedging my bet until after they cremate him and scatter his ashes over Hollywood or some other appropriate locale.

Joe was never to be taken at face value. A judge who sentenced him to federal prison for tax evasion in 1980 called him the world’s greatest con man, a title Joe carried with pride until the day he is said to have died.

It stemmed from his effort to corner the sugar market which, like a lot of his deals, didn’t quite make it.

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I never knew when Joe was telling the truth and when he was lying for the sake of his own image. He was, and perhaps still is, a big, bombastic man with a bellow like the mating cry of an elk, and he’d shout down anyone who challenged his veracity.

He told me he had once worked for the old L.A. Herald, which is impossible to check since the Herald no longer exists. He also told me he was the personal manager and press agent for Janis Joplin, Susan Hayward and Lee Marvin, which is also unverifiable since they too are gone.

The story goes that Joe got into show biz in the first place when he was hired to keep actor Broderick Crawford sober when Crawford was the star of a television series. They fired Joe when they learned that instead of helping Crawford he had become his drinking partner.

This too, by the way, is impossible to check, since Crawford is also dead.

What I know for sure about Joe is that he spent three years at Terminal Island and that, while there, he worked with the FBI to expose corruption in the prison administration. As Joe put it at the time, “They’re bigger crooks than I am.” It won him an early release.

I also know that while in prison he met Mandy, who had come to visit a friend, and who fell in love with him possibly for the same reasons everyone sort of liked Joe even when they were being conned. Joe could laugh at himself, and that is a rare quality among men.

After he was released from the slammer, Joe pursued Mandy, who was working in a Fresno tomato cannery, and wooed her with the same kind of fervor he applied in trying to corner the sugar market, only this time it worked.

Later, sensing the possibilities, he tried to sell their story as a movie of the week. He was still trying when he is said to have died. With Joe, nothing was ever wasted.

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Joe owed money all over town, much of it to Joey Barnum. “Two weeks after I bailed him out of prison he borrowed a thousand dollars and I’ve been giving him money ever since,” Barnum says. He estimates the tab at about $250,000.

Joe was charging Barnum for trying to sell Barnum’s story as a television series. It is ironic that, after Joe’s alleged death, his efforts may be finally bearing fruit. A studio is interested in the project.

Someone ought to tell Joe about it before they cremate him. If he is dead, that would spur him back to life. “One more deal,” he would shout with characteristic bombast, “just one more!”

The last time he contacted me he was selling $100 tickets to raffle off a six-unit apartment building. He wasn’t even sure it was legal, but had the tickets printed just the same. He wanted a column on it. I passed.

“He lived by his wits,” Mandy said, “but even those he conned loved him.” Joe was 61 and suffered from a heart condition. Mandy found him on the morning of Friday the 13th. He was either not breathing or simply holding his breath for effect.

In any event, his wit lingers on. Going through his stuff, Mandy found a note that said, “If I die first, have Joey Barnum pay for my funeral.”

Barnum laughed and said he would . . . assuming, of course, that big, loud, lovable Joseph Seide is actually, irrevocably dead.