Woman Says She Booked Bets, but Only as Favor to Friends

July 9, 1947
Hollywood

It’s a friend indeed who sits around the house all day, taking horse-race bets from her buddies and passing ‘em along to a real bookie, for nothing but the joy of helping out.

This is the happy task claimed by Mrs. Kleo Marie Prince, 43, of 1737 N. Whitley Ave. While the perfectly-named officers G.F. Tillett and D.J. Lightfoot, who raided their apartment, report that Kleo and hubby Edmond, 38, Hollywood Boulevard shoe store owner, were both heard taking bets, and that they tossed the slips out the window when the cops busted in.

Mais no! says Kleo. Edmond was just home for a little lunch, and knew nothing of her hobby. Superior Court Judge Walter S. Gates evidently found this a convincing explanation—aquitting the husband while convicting the missus on a charge of bookmaking.

And not for the first time in these pages, I wish my great-grandpa Louis Prupis was still around. He had a shoe store on Hollywood Boulevard around this time, and was a betting man. I’m quite certain he had the dirt on the Princes and their little Whitley Flats operation.

suggested reading: Love Me, Love My Bookie: A Novel About Gambling and Marriage