THE VERDICT -- Robert Gardner

In 1920, when I came to Balboa to live with my older sister, the first

thing I wanted to do was go to the local picture show. It was called the

Balboa Theater, a large wooden structure located where the Balboa Inn is

today.

I had never been to a real picture show. Oh, in Wyoming we had movies,

but a movie there was shown on a sheet hung from the ceiling.

My sister said the Balboa Theater was a fire trap, but agreed to take me.

She also said the theater was owned by a Madame La Rue.

Where I came from, there was only one kind of a madam -- the kind that

ran the local brothel -- so I presumed this madam carried the same kind

of occupation the “madam” in Green River did.

We bought our tickets from the manager, a man named Frank Rinehart who

was later the famous (or infamous) city clerk.

As soon as we had sat down, we heard a trickle of water. My sister looked

over and said, “Oh, heavens, that’s Madame La Rue. She’s passed out and

is urinating on the floor.” I knew what she was doing, but the word

“urinating” was new to me. We called it something else in Green River.My

sister yanked me out of my chair, Mr. Rinehart gave us our money back,

and that was my introduction to Madame La Rue.

I became better acquainted with her when I was working at the Green

Dragon soda fountain, which was just down the block from the Balboa

Theater.

My job was to catch Madame La Rue when she tried to steal magazines from

our magazine rack. Madame would come stumbling down the sidewalk, drunk

as usual. She would try to slip a 25-cent Cosmopolitan inside a 10-cent

Saturday Evening Post. I would catch her, and she would submit to me a

really inspired burst of profanity.

Then one day she came in with a boy about my age and two little girls.

She said they were her nephew and nieces, who were orphans named Merritt.

She said they were orphans because their family had been wiped out in a

mountain feud in Tennessee.

They were pretty primitive. For example, the boy, Epps, was eating a

piece of meat when he said, “This is the first piece of meat I’ve ever

ate that weren’t hog meat with hair on it.”

Shortly after the arrival of Madame La Rue’s family of orphans, the

Balboa Theatre burned down, and she and her brood left town.

That’s really all I know about Madame La Rue -- except that H.L. Sherman,

in his history of the city, says she had another name: Osgood.

So one of the more interesting personalities in the early history of

Newport Beach left us with more questions than answers. Where did she get

the name Madame La Rue? What did it mean? Who was Mrs. Osgood? Who were

the Merritts?

All I really know is that she was a two-fisted drinking woman, probably

an alcoholic, who had a masterful command of profanity. That’s not very

much to know about one of the town’s more colorful characters.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and former judge. His

column runs Tuesdays.