The Secret Life of Bob Patterson, The Charming Ex-Con Who Terrrorized High Society With His Column, "Freddie Francisco Observes" In The 1940s

The Secret History of FRISCO

The Secret Life of Freddie Francisco: A Rogue's Rise and Fall

This episode of "The Secret History of Frisco" delves into the captivating, often scandalous, life of Bob Patterson, a writer of prodigious talent and even more prodigious roguishness. Under the pen name Freddie Francisco, Patterson became Northern California's most powerful newspaper columnist in the 1940s for the San Francisco Examiner. His dazzling prose and irreverent insights into San Francisco's elite captivated readers, but his career came crashing down in 1949 when Hollywood Life exposed his hidden past: a convicted criminal who had served four prison stints.

Born Robert Lawson Preston in 1907, Patterson was a man of many aliases and even more arrests—over 40 in his lifetime. At just 18, he was arrested for passing bad checks as "Maximillian Carlton." A year later, he was reporting for the San Francisco Chronicle before moving to New York City to continue his journalistic career. As the host aptly puts it, "criming came as naturally to Bob as breathing: it was simply in his DNA, as was writing." He became a "rococo stylist" who ghost-wrote memoirs for infamous figures like lawyer Jake Ehrlich and San Francisco madam Sally Stanford.

The host, Knox Bronson, reveals a personal connection to Patterson, having known him during the last two years of his life while working as a copyboy at the Examiner. Bronson recounts Patterson's early foray into the criminal underworld, taking a lucrative side job with notorious Prohibition-era gangster Owney Madden, alerting him to police raids for $100 a week. This led to a deeper involvement, with Patterson briefly working for Madden as an "escort" on bootleg trucks and even attempting to ghost-write Madden's autobiography.

Patterson's criminal exploits continued, from confidence games and larceny in Chicago to grand larceny, robbery, and assault in New York, leading to stints in Elmira Reformatory and Sing Sing Prison. He even impersonated a prominent San Francisco socialite, Niles Larsen, to pass bad checks—a clear indication of his "Trickster's natural disdain for the upper crust."

The episode concludes with a reading from Freddie Francisco's September 26, 1946 column, "'Bad' Women, but They Make Good Company," which subtly challenges societal notions of respectability and reputation. Patterson, ever the astute observer, critiques the hypocrisy of the upper crust, highlighting that "bad" women often possess more warmth and humanity than their "reputable" counterparts. The host muses on Patterson's enduring appeal, wondering if such a "rascal" could thrive in today's journalistic landscape.