FRISCO—The Secret History
Join us on a cinematic journey through the last wild years when San Francisco was still wide-open. The cops ran the town in the Thirties and Bones Remmer ran the town in the Forties.
Battles raged between the factions of dark and light in the hidden realms of San Francisco’s power elite, behind the headlines, from the celestial dominions of Nob Hill eateries and private clubs down to the nether depths of the dive bars in the heart of the Tenderloin, up to the Barbary Coast and jazz joints of North Beach and over to the banks and brokerages in the Financial District …
FRISCO will bring alive that wild and bygone era of the Cool Grey City of Love that seduced the world.
FRISCO—The Secret History
Latest Episodes
Freddie Francisco's Post-Mortem On The Green Street Theater, January 1, 1947
Welcome to the Frisco: The Secret History Podcast. I'm your host, Knox Bronson. I have a great episode for you today about the Green Street Theater, which we have focused on in the last couple of episodes. Although this time I'm just going to r...
Elaine Worth Pt. 2—Where There Is Honey, There Are Dead Bees
Frisco, 1928. A French sex farce at the Green Street Theater in North Beach, and a blonde in the title role who turned it into the hottest ticket in town. She claimed to be a ballerina, Naana Wartova, from Moscow. Offstage she was Elaine Worth....
Elaine Worth Pt. 1 - Star of the French Sex Farce "Easy For Zee Zee" at the Green Street Theater
North Beach, September 1928. There's a walk-up playhouse on Green Street with a stage the size of a dining table and fourteen actors crammed onto it. The show is a French farce called "Easy for Zee Zee." Opening week, it's bombing.Beauti...
Bones Remmer, Jack Ruby, and Frisco's La Cosa Nostra
Frisco in 1928 was a town with fog in its lungs and money in its pockets, and somebody had to decide who got to keep it. Frank Lanza, a quiet Sicilian who ran Fisherman's Wharf and sold grapes to half the bathtub wineries in America, sat ...
The Millionaire, the Madam, and the Marriage That Rocked Frisco
In October 1893, San Francisco society was rocked by the secret marriage of millionaire Charlie Fair and Maud Nelson, a well-known madam. The couple quietly crossed the bay to Oakland intending to elope without attracting attention. Instead, th...
