Crime vacations on Balboa Island

ROBERT GARDNER

I have often accused early Balboa Island of being a stodgy place in

comparison to old Balboa. Balboa had bootleggers, gamblers, rum

runners and their ilk. Balboa Island had ... residents.

However, in fairness, I must point out that Balboa Island was at

one time the scene of a criminal case that made national and maybe

even international headlines. The case was People vs. Spreckels, and

it occurred about 50 years ago in quiet, peaceful, boring Balboa

Island.

I suppose that today, the name Spreckels doesn’t mean too much,

but in its day, the name ranked right up there in newsworthiness with

Rockefeller, Ford or Carnegie. The Spreckels family was incredibly

wealthy, with holdings in sugar, railroads, hotels and real estate.

Everything a Spreckels did was news.

Thus, whatever Adolph Spreckels Jr., son of the head of the family

did, was news. Unfortunately for the family name, Adolph Junior was

something of a problem. “Little Adolph,” as he was called by his

family, had a mean streak that kept erupting in unpleasant but

newsworthy ways.

However, everyone’s good at something, and what Little Adolph was

good at was getting married. Staying married -- that he wasn’t so

good at -- but when it came to tying the knot, he was up there with

people such as Elizabeth Taylor and Aly Khan. And so it was that some

50 years ago, Adolph Spreckels Jr. arrived on Balboa Island for a

summer vacation with his sixth wife, an actress of no particular note

named Kay Williams.

They hadn’t been in their rented house long when the police were

called one night. At their arrival, the sixth Mrs. Spreckels reported

that Little Adolph had beaten her. Because it was a Spreckels, it was

news, and in a flash, Balboa Island was famous, the dateline “Balboa

Island” appearing in the national press. Of course, when the case was

actually tried, it was tried in the old red sandstone courthouse in

Santa Ana, and that city became the dateline. Nevertheless, brief

though it was, Balboa Island had its moment in the sun.

The case itself didn’t live up to the headlines. In those days,

wife beating was handled as a misdemeanor, simple assault. In this

case, however, the police got a little excited over the notoriety of

the assailant, and they responded by charging Little Adolph with a

felony, specifically assault with a deadly weapon.

Unfortunately, the so-called deadly weapon was a soft bedroom

slipper. A high point in the trial occurred when one of Mr.

Spreckels’ attorneys addressed the jury.

Holding up the slipper, he said: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is

the alleged deadly weapon. The only way this would become deadly

would be if I tried to eat it and strangled in so doing.”

The jury quite properly found Mr. Spreckels guilty of simple

assault, and I couldn’t send him to prison, so I sent him to jail.

Jim Musick, the sheriff, was at first worried about sending such a

rich and famous man to jail. It wasn’t that Jim had any sympathy for

Little Adolph, but he worried about how the other prisoners might

treat him.

Not to worry. Adolph Spreckels had found his niche in life. He

took to incarceration like a Labrador retriever takes to water. He

liked the prisoners, and they liked him. I think that the time he

spent in the Orange County jail may have been one of the more

pleasant episodes in Adolph Spreckels’ life. When he left the jail,

he proudly wore a T-shirt on which was printed “Orange County Jail.”

He was released shortly before Christmas, but he didn’t forget his

ex-inmates, sending all his fellow prisoners Christmas presents.

As for Mrs. Spreckels, she divorced Little Adolph shortly after

the beating and wed Clark Gable. She may not have been much of an

actress, but like Little Adolph, she had a certain skill in getting

married.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge.

His column runs Tuesdays.