The Dorsey-Hall fight

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robcat2075
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The Dorsey-Hall fight

Post by robcat2075 »

One Summer night in 1944 Trombonist/band leader Tommy Dorsey and actor Jon Hall got in a fight during a party in Dorsey's apartment where alcohol had been served. There was a disagreement regarding Dorsey's wife.

That is all that can be said with some certainty. Every account of this I've read differs in the particulars

  • Mel Torme's biography of Buddy Rich says Dorsey attacked with a knife and cut off part of Hall's nose after Hall made a pass at Dorsey's wife.
  • Time Magazine reported this...
    Tommy Dorsey, trombonist, swung on Jon Hall, beautiful, bronzed cinemactor. Hall's doctor said that Hall ended up with a broken nose, cut nostril, stabbed neck, sliced head and face, requiring 50 stitches all told. Bystanders reported that Dorsey was joined in the melee by three other men. Scene: Dorsey's Hollywood apartment. Ostensible cause: Hall embraced Dorsey's wife, Actress Pat Dane.
  • L.A. Times
    A jealous Tommy Dorsey reportedly pummeled husky film hero (“Hurricane”) Jon Hall after the actor, according to a Los Angeles Times story, “paid undue attention to (the bandleader’s) actress-wife Pat Dane” at a raucous nightcap party at the Dorsey apartment. The Times reported that actor Eddie Norris (former husband of actress Ann Sheridan) “darn near got killed . . . during the celebrity-infested brawl . . . when he tried to act as peacemaker” between Dorsey and Hall, who “came out of the fracas with his classic nose almost severed from his suntanned face.”

  • An Australian paper carried this...
    DorseyPartyNewVersion-Argus44-Dec06.jpg


Antonio Icaza in the news...
DorseyFigureBan.jpg


Getty Image of Dorsey and his wife after being indicted for assault

Getty image of Jon Hall showing his injuries



Ultimately, it was all dropped. I'm going to say someone got to the judge...
DorseyChargesDropped.jpg

Jon Hall in The Hurricane (1937)...

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AndrewMeronek
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Re: The Dorsey-Hall fight

Post by AndrewMeronek »

Wow, great synopsis!
“All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.”

- Thelonious Monk
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robcat2075
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Re: The Dorsey-Hall fight

Post by robcat2075 »

The above-mentioned party guest and melee participant Allen Smiley was an organized crime "figure" and, famously, in the room when Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was shot a few years later.

SiegelSlain.jpg


Photographed together:Smiley, some lawyer guy, Mrs. Dorsey, Mr. Dorsey...

Image
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>>Robert Holmén<<

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robcat2075
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Re: The Dorsey-Hall fight

Post by robcat2075 »

You've surely heard the Mario Puzo version of how Frank Sinatra got out of his contract with Tommy Dorsey but Sinatra always denied it and the story seems unlikely since Dorsey had his own mob friends to call on, as noted above.

Here is a press report of the publicly acknowledged settlement. Sinatra must have been very young and dumb to sign such a contract in the first place.

SinatraDorseySettle.jpg
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>>Robert Holmén<<

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