The Lady Vanishes...up in Flames?

                                                         A LITTLE NIGHT MYSTERY

On the night of the tragic Cocoanut Grove fire, the guest of honor, cowboy star Buck Jones sat with his party of 24 movie dignitaries. The large number of guests and close friends were at the club for a combination testimonial dinner in honor of the cowboy star, and a promotional event for his "Rough Rider" series for Monogram Pictures.  Sadly, Buck was not destined to be one of the survivors.  He died two days later in a hospital.  His body had been so badly burned in the Cocoanut Grove fire that skin from his fingers had been pulled off onto the fingerprint card sent to the Technical Section of the FBI's Identification Division.  It took nearly 48 hours to identify the prints because so many fingers had to be searched in so many different places.  One wonders who were those among the 'large number of guests and close friends' and 'movie dignitaries' there that night...?

We do know John Quinn, a 21-year-old Navy seaman, was there wining and dining his date at the popular Boston nightclub, oblivious to the horror that would soon engulf the gathering and leave almost half of the revelers dead. He and a friend, Dick Vient, had taken their dates to Cocoanut Grove after a football game and were seated in a booth near the main dance floor. Mr. Quinn danced with his girlfriend, Gerry Whitehead, and remembers literally bumping into the huge Buck Jones, the cowboy star, on the crowded dance floor.

“When we'd bump I'd look up and say, 'Hi Buck,' and he would look down and say, 'Hi, sailor.' ” Mr. Quinn recalled. “He had been my favorite cowboy and I felt honored.”

 Who was Buck dancing with?

Clipping from a Tuesday, December 1, 1942 newspaper ...

Mysteries remain  -

· The fire’s cause most often has been attributed to a bus boy who lit a match, which ignited a fake palm tree. But the fire’s speed and characteristics has led to theories that an accelerant or leaking refrigerant gas, was responsible. Officially, the cause is deemed “of unknown origin."

 Gloria Doherty of Newton, a bank teller who survived Boston's Cocoanut Grove fire in 1942, never let anyone around her blame a teenage busboy named Stanley Tomaszewski for sparking the blaze. "She always said, for as long as I can remember, it wasn't his fault. She remembered leaning against the wall that night and the wall was so hot," said her daughter Maura Simmons of Medfield.

(On his death-bed, Stanley Tomaszewski swore that he had not started the fire at the Cocoanut Grove in 1942.)

· Other theories:  The fire was caused by faulty wiring; it was set by rival gangsters to scare the club’s owner; Nazi saboteurs were to blame.

· Who really owned the club?  On paper it was lawyer Barney Welansky, who was convicted of manslaughter for the fire. But documentation was confusing, and Welansky repeatedly said he was a “fall guy.”  Boston Herald archives

City officials and the managers of the Grove were indicted, but only the Grove's owner, Barnet Wilansky, was given a prison sentence. He died of cancer after serving three years.

We Didn't Start the Fire...

 

 

 

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