MADAME FIFIE MALOUF, SHOWN ON THE RIGHT WITH PAULINE PAGE OUT
FRONT OF HER HAPPY HOUR CAFE ON THE STRAND IN REDONDO BEACH
All kinds of stories circulate around Fifie Malouf, who, over time, has been reputed by many, including even a few family members, as having been a "madam" --- that is, running a house of ill repute, otherwise known as a brothel, in Redondo Beach, California --- especially so during World War II and then some eight years thereafter. Others vehemently dispute the fact.
True or not, separating fact from fiction when it comes to her background, that is, who she was or was not, what she did or not do, etc., isn't easy. Why? Mostly because of the two types of people that seem to spend time hashing over her history. Specifically, there are those who make record of her life that have a tendency to lean toward the view that being a madam is kind of colorful, and being colorful, only adds to a wider wanting-to-be-acceptable view of Redondo's onetime, nostalgic, underbelly. The recorders of her history in the other camp, those that do not view prostitution as being nearly so colorful generally, nor that it would particularly present a respectable image or maybe even tainting her image, most often play-down, gloss over, deny, or delete almost any references that place Fifie into any such a role.
My own personal experience is aligned with the first camp, although truth be said, I have no hands on experience participating in any such endeavors so provided by her enterprising offers. Matter of fact, I was just a kid when I first met Fifie Malouf and barely into my teens the last time I saw her.
My parents lived in Redondo Beach when I was born. My younger brother came along three years later and, for reasons unrelated to his birth, it wasn't much longer after that than my mother's health began to deteriorate. As she became more and more immobilized my father started to farm my two brothers and myself out to others on a more-or-less regular basis. She eventually reached a point that she had to be placed into an around-the-clock care facility. Inturn we went from conventional short term babysitting during the day to being with our grandparents overnight or to others several days a week, as my father continued --- because of mounting medical expenses --- to put more and more working hours in to make ends meet. Before most of that happened, unlike my brothers, I was sent to live with a couple that, unbeknownst to my father and without his approval, immediately left the country and took me to India.(see) When the couple returned many months later they dropped me off totally unannounced and without any pre-arrangements at my grandmother's on my father's side in Pennsylvania. In the meantime my mother died and when I was finally returned to California not only had I missed any final goodbyes but her funeral as well. After a short stint with my grandmother on my mother's side I ended up living with a foster couple that I had never seen or heard of in my life who owned a flower shop on Pacific Avenue down and around the corner from the old city hall and jail in downtown Redondo Beach.
Not liking the arrangements for reasons I am not able to remember, I ran away from home. Without anybody knowing where I was or having anybody's consent to do so I ended up staying with an only recently discharged World War II ex-Marine taxi driver that had fought his way up through all the islands in all the major battles in the Pacific from Guadacanal northward. The taxi driver and I would have breakfast several days a week at Fifie's Happy Hour Cafe and sometimes I would hang out in the cafe in the afternoons or evenings while the ex-marine "visited a friend" in one of the apartments attached to or nearby the cafe. As a young boy basically left unattended in the cafe every now and then, it wasn't long before some of the women who were associated with Fifie in some fashion, and who joined us for breakfast once in awhile or bought me a malt or a coke in the afternoon, befriended me.[1]
It was during those breakfasts or afternoons that I, although sitting in on but not typically an active participant because of "just being a kid," overheard a number of interesting stories. Two conversations I recall most vividly. The first involved Fifie. How accurate it is I cannot say, however, going back in time, facts and dates seem to substantiate its accuracy.
Fifie was born in 1887. Apparently, at age 13 she attended the Exposition Universelle of 1900, a world's fair held in Paris, France. By 1907 she had married the first of four husbands then married her second in 1910, divorcing him in 1913. Then for six years she basically disappeared only to show up again in 1919 marrying her third husband. It is during those missing years that the first story shows up.
According to a couple of the women that were associated with her and chit-chatting one afternoon between themselves at the Happy Hour Cafe with me sitting with them, Fifie became enamored with Paris and France when she visited the world's fair and had been chaffing at the bit to get back. When she divorced her second husband in 1913, as soon as she could she headed back to Europe and Paris. However, no sooner had she arrived in Europe and settled in than in 1914 World War I broke out and the whole of the continent went into disarray, and she ended up being trapped somehow with no immediate way out. Without getting into all of the details of how she survived or what she did during the war years in Europe they did say that at the end of the war in 1918 Fifie was sumggled onto a troopship that was returning G.I.s to the U.S. and by the time the ship arrived in New York she was rich.[2]
After that cash was never a problem. In 1919, a few months after the war, she popped up out of nowhere marrying her third husband, Willard Hoster. In 1923 she and Hoster moved to Redondo Beach.
The second of the two conversations I remember most vividly revolves more around the location of her place the Happy Hour Cafe and some of her associates than Fifie herself. Again, as with the first conversation I was sitting in the cafe with a couple of the women, only this time the ex-marine taxi driver was there as well. Another ex-marine who apparently knew one of the women stepped up to our booth and invited himself to join us. It wasn't long before the two former marines discovered they both had been on Guadacanal and in the process began to dominate the once shared conversation with nothing but war stories. That is, until the self invited ex-marine interjected a story about an unusual situation he observed. In August 1942 he was on Tulagi Island, a short distance southwest of Guadalcanal when he and a bunch of other marines observed some sort of flying objects that were different than anything he had ever seen. He said they were round and nearly flat, shaped almost like an upside down tin pie plate, with no wings or fuselage, glistening with a silver sheen. With that one of the women butted in and told the ex-marine that was nothing because one night in February 1942 right there on the Strand a huge, giant object, as big as a locomotive, came in off the ocean and flew right over the top of the Happy Hour Cafe and the apartments. She had heard a ruckus going on outside, sirens, guns firing, all kinds of stuff, so she went out on to the Strand only to see this "thing" a few hundred feet above the beach slowly glide overhead off the ocean, not making a sound and, because of its length, taking forever to pass over. The two ex-marines just looked at each other and went back to telling their war stories. I knew the event she was talking about because I had seen the object myself. Not only did it apparently fly over the Happy Hour Cafe, it flew right over the top of my house as well. About the object, which has become known as UFO Over L.A.: The Battle of Los Angeles, the following is presented in World War II Comes to Redondo:
"During the intervening period the the giant object of unknown origin, said to be 800 feet long --- the size of a
Zeppelin --- withstood the continued pounding of 1440 direct hit anti-aircraft rounds with no signs of any ill effect. Eventually it headed back toward the coast turning south past the beach cities of Manhattan and Hermosa. When it reached Redondo Beach it turned inland again then south back out to sea between Long Beach and Huntington Beach, never to be seen again. The the true aspects of mystifying incident have never been answered. Some say it was the Japanese, although after the war they completely refuted any implication in the event. Others say it was pure mass hysteria. Without answers, a strong string of out-of-this world extra-terrestrial connontations has blanketed the phenomenon."(source)
Getting back to Fifie herself, as for any potential city or South Bay historians and the like playing down her role or any potential exposure of an undebelly, it is pretty obvious that at onetime Redondo, especially during World War II and slightly before, was a wide open city --- at least along the front. After all, it is a known fact that mobster Les Bruneman, strolling down El Paseo with a couple of molls under his arms, was shot in the back by a contract hitman almost right in front of the Fox theater. So too, there were the gambling ships off the coast as well, so having a brothel one way or the other wouldn't effect an image much. Besides, in the era we are talking about it wasn't just Redondo. In Stepmother, writing about the late 30s and into the 40s in the Los Angeles area and the corruption that existed under L.A. mayor Frank Shaw and his enforcer brother Joe, the following is presented:
"Historian Dr Kevin Starr, in his book THE DREAM ENDURES: California Enters the 1940s (1997), writing about about Shaw's mayoral regime in Los Angeles, tells how by 1937 he and his brother Joe either particpated in or let happen (with substantial kick-backs together with a number of police on the take) a network of brothels, gambling houses, and clip joints, all of it run by well-organized syndicates with reportedly an estimated six hundred brothels, three hundred gambling houses, eighteen hundred bookie joints, and twenty three thousand slot machines."
So, regardless of any underbelly, preceived or otherwise, in Redondo it was mild. As for Fifie herself, although she did not promote being tagged as a madam she didn't run from it either. However, regardless of what she may have learned or earned on a troopship one way or the other she never thrust herself into a madam role, it sort of just took on a life on its own over time. In the early days of World War II and just before, with Redondo having practically a wide-open front along El Paseo --- but being far enough away from the concentrated Navy action in and around San Pedro and Long Beach that Shore Patrol presence was minimal --- Navy personnel and other servicemen found it increasingly attractive. So too did the women who plied their trade. Plus Redondo was psychologically closer for most So Cal based sailors and servicemen than either Hollywood or Los Angeles. It had a more hometown feel and way less pricey with little or no mob presence say like the operations run by Brenda Allen in L.A. for example. With a hands off policy by the city, or at least a more-or-less look the other way policy, it wasn't long before the close-by apartments owned by Fifie along the north part of the Strand with easy access to El Paseo were discovered. It wasn't long after that Fifie discovered that a highly lucrative financial mutual arrangement could be put into place between herself and any women so interested. Thus grew the legend.
SEE:
UFO OVER L.A.: THE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES
WORLD WAR II COMES TO REDONDO
CLICK
HERE FOR
ENLIGHTENMENT
ON THE RAZOR'S
EDGE
THE WANDERLING
(please click)
As to the subject of donations, for those who may be so interested as it applies to the gratefulness of my works, I invariably suggest any funds be directed toward THE WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT and/or THE AMERICAN RED CROSS.
Footnote [1]
Some people have asked just who was the marine? After all I was just a kid and he was a grown man. Was he a friend of the family, a relative, somebody I knew from the past? The answer is he was none of those things. I basically just met him out of nowhere --- fate as some might say. The eventual meeting between the two of us started when a huge old dancehall on the waterfront called the Mandarin Ballroom was renovated in April of 1946. A fairly well established western bandleader by the name of Texas Jim Lewis approached the Redondo Beach City Council to run the newly renovated ballroom under a new name: Texas Jim's Redondo Barn --- which they approved. Lewis turned it into a western swing venue with himself and his Lone Star Cowboys playing at the top of the card, sometimes with as many as 10,000 people showing up on the weekends.
It wasn't long before the flower shop couple discovered it could be quite lucrative to sell corsages and boutonnieres to couples attending the dances. They also discovered that by putting a tray full of gardenias on a strap around my neck like a cigarette girl and have me walk through the crowds in the dance hall, the cute little kid I was, sold lots of flowers.
There was a female vocalist that sang for Texas Jim or possibly Spade Cooley that, even though I was a kid, I had become smitten with. I don't recall her name and research has come up with little or no positive results, however as I remember her she looked a lot like a cowgirl version of a popular movie star of the time named Veronica Lake, with long platinum blonde hair, ruby-red lips, and dressed in the finest female western singer regalia --- white cowboy boots, just below the knee white satin skirts with big embroided roses and arrow-ended pockets on white satin western-style blouses with snap buttons.
Whenever she came on stage to do one of her numbers and I was selling flowers I would go sit on the edge of the stage and just stare at her. Somehow, and I do not remember how, we began talking to each other and over time I told her my tale of woe. In any case, her friend was the marine. Between sets and after the show the three of us would go down to the Wagon Wheel Cafe, basically just below the dancehall to get something to eat. One day I decided to run away. I gathered up what few things I had and went down to the waterfront and got in the shotgun side of the marine's taxi and never left his side to speak of until my grandmother came and got me. The singer always told me she would take me away with her someday and my dream was that she and the marine would get married and we would live happily ever after. Of course, such was not the case. I never saw either of them again after my grandmother took me back with her the day she found me. For more on that particular aspect of my life see:
THE MEETING: An Untold Story of Sri Ramana
AND NOW THIS:
A few people have emailed asking me if the female vocalist could have been Betsy Gay. What I have been able to determine from the information and background material I have seen so far, including photographs and various biographies, it does not seem so. For some reason, from what I remember about the female vocalist, Betsy Gay just doesn't fit the bill --- plus the timing isn't right. It has been reported that sometime in 1946 Besty Gay left the Los Angeles music scene to tour the east coast. Texas Jim ran a contest to find a female vocalist to replace her. Who that replacement was I have not been able to find out. When Betsy was asked who replaced her she wasn't quite sure, but thought it might have been Becky Barfield. As for the information I have been able to garner on Barfield, like that of Betsy Gay, she does not seem to fit the bill either. For me, the question is still open.(see)
Footnote [2]
Anyone who may have been in Fifie's Happy Hour Cafe may recall a sort of out of context small framed photograph on one of the walls that depicted a very handsome World War I French military officer. That officer was Charles Nungesser, a member of the Lafayette Escadrille, and France's number three flying ace with 45 confirmed kills.
During World War I Paris was crawling with French, British, Canadian, and American pilots. They lived fast and died fast, of which Charles Nungesser was one --- at least one of the live fast kinds. The following is written about Nungesser that shows up over and over in biographies about him, although the originating source for the quote is not known:
"One of Nungesser's drinking buddies was Jean Navarre, another flamboyant ace. The two of them almost created the image of fighter pilots as handsome, reckless, hard-living, womanizing rakes. They disliked military discipline and enjoyed Paris' many attractions as often as possible. Nungesser was known to show up for a morning patrol in a tuxedo, perhaps with his woman still on his arm. Once, Nungesser was driving into Paris, amidst heavy traffic, when he spotted his own aircraft heading that way. It was Navarre! He had borrowed Nungesser's airplane; he explained that his own had been shot up and that he 'had forgotten what a woman looked like.'"
When questioned about the person in the photo, without identifying who he was or his background, Fifie would simply raise her eyebrows a couple of times and say, "Ooh, la, la," hinting strongly that in the old days the two of them had been lovers.
How I learned the French officer in the photo was Nungesser was through an 'old man' that tended the oil derricks not far from where I lived after I moved back to Redondo and started high school. In ZEN ENLIGHTENMENT: The Path Unfolds I write that every year on the Fourth of July the 'old man' would take a bunch of us kids to the top on one of the derricks to watch the fireworks being shot off in the surrounding communities. He lived in a combination caretakers shack, repair shop near the wells. On his wall were several framed photographs of biplanes with men standing around in front of them dressed in World War I flight regalia. Come to find out the oil well man had been a pilot fighting for the French in the Lafayette Flying Corps during the war and was one of the men in the photos. He knew both Nungesser and Fifie and some years before, after seeing the photo in the cafe one day, talked to her about her connection with Nungesser. Although he never saw the two of them together, from what he could remember from their conversations in the cafe he was convinced she knew him, and most likely so in Paris.
