"Suddenly it seemed the whole panorama of his life was a race and he was running last.... There was something in him that had to come out. He had to find a way to get it out, to free himself of it. Something that would give him a chance to feel and know things. To blend all of the things which were in him: the matter, the spirit, the flesh."
--Thomas T. Chamales, "Go Naked in the World."
"Chamales is a writer who can and must write. Even his partial failures
are more impressive than some fancy-Dan success we've seen in recent
years."
--Robert Kirsch
If you were ever looking for a prototype of the alcoholic, brawling, self-destructive author, you might consider Thomas T. Chamales,
a veteran of the OSS who wrote the 1957 bestseller "Never So Few,"
which The Times' Robert Kirsch called, "Easily one of the best novels to
come out of World War II."
Before he died at the age of 35 when
he was trapped in a burning apartment, Chamales wrote "No Rent in His
Hand," an unpublished novel; another novel, "Go Naked Into the World";
a play, "Forget I Ever Lived"; an outline for screenplay, "The Mill";
and 550 pages of an unfinished novel titled "Run and Call It Living."
He
also spent a fair amount of time in jail during his stormy marriage to
big band vocalist Helen O'Connell, whom he married in 1957, with
novelist James Jones as best man.
In October 1958, Chamales
and O'Connell had a violent argument at a Wilshire Boulevard
restaurant, but police said she refused to press charges. A month
later, O'Connell's 14-year-old daughter from a previous marriage called
police from the family home at 445 Homewood Ave., to report that
Chamales had threatened O'Connell with a butcher knife. While he was in
jail on those charges, he was accused of passing a bad check in Florida.
In
June 1959, he was fined $500 and given two years' probation for
wife-beating and the next month, five LAPD officers showed up at the
home to evict him.
He lived hard! He fought hard! And he fell hard!
And then, on the night of March 20, 1960,
Chamales smoked his final cigarette. He was living in a fourth-floor
apartment at 1441 S. Beverly Glen Blvd., and evidently fell asleep. The
cigarette set the sofa on fire and soon the apartment was in flames.
Firefighters found him on the floor in his shorts; blackened hand
prints on the walls of the apartment showed where had desperately tried
to find the door.
He was survived by a daughter from his marriage with O'Connell and two sons from a previous marriage.
Curiously, and perhaps tragically, Chamales'
novels appear to be largely forgotten. "Never So Few," was made into a
movie with Frank Sinatra, but the book is long out of print after being
reissued in 1972.
Larry Harnisch. The leading Black Dahlia expert and a collaborator in the 1947project, Harnisch has been a copy editor at The Times since 1988. He has appeared on many TV shows discussing the Dahlia case, notably "James Ellroy's Feast of Death."
Join him for a spin through old Los Angeles in the Mirror's radio car. Keep your eyes open for Mickey Cohen and Tempest Storm. It's quite a ride.
The reporter's badge belonged to Sid Hughes (1908-1958), legendary reporter who worked at nearly every newspaper in Los Angeles.
Keith Thursby. Keith has been an editor at The Times in news, sports and design since 1986. The Rams moved to St. Louis on his first day as assistant sports editor of the paper's Orange County edition. He grew up in Norwalk and lives in Irvine.
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A "butcher-knife fracas"?
More evidence times have changed; just allowing that phrase to be printed in the LAT.
Posted by: LPBeron | November 21, 2008 at 08:55 AM