Boardwalk Empire And The Strange Case Of The Real Great Gatsby
Meet George Remus, lawman-turned-outlaw.
His name was George Remus, and in the America of the 1920s, he was among the most highly respected - not to mention, highest paid - defence attorneys in the land. But earning $50,000 a year and being a society darling wasn't enough for George. So with Prohibition beginning to bite, Remus (above left, with actor Glenn Flesher about more whom later) set out to reinvent himself as a bootlegger. In so doing, he mapped a path that F Scott Fitzgerald would adhere to when creating his most celebrated character, the 'Great' Jay Gatsby.
What was ironic about Remus's change of career was the fact he was a lifelong teetotaler. Still the legal eagle had no qualms about buying up government liquor stocks and illegally importing whisky, beer and rum. As he could turnover $75,000 in a single week, it was easy to understand why the German-born Remus was so happy to have swapped the bar for the speakeasy. And being sufficiently rich to pay off any police officers who took an interest in his activities, there was a near complete absence of risk.
Arguably Prohibition's biggest beneficiary after Al Capone, Remus rapidly acquired a taste for the finer things in life. These included a huge mansion, a fleet of cars and a comely new wife in the shape of his former secretary Imogene. For a while it looked as if Remus would never need to worry about money again, especially since the dry lobby was powerful enough to prevent the repeal of Prohibition for the foreseeable future.
Then, as it must to all people who overreach themselves, disaster visited the door of George Remus. A renewed push to eliminate bootleggers from the US saw our man fall foul of one Franklin Dodge, an undercover Prohibition agent. Despite his impressive connections and legal savvy, Remus couldn't save himself from imprisonment. What's more, while the ex-lawyer was sent to Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for a two-year term, Dodge - who had been carrying on with Remus's wife - convinced Imogene to liquidate her husband's assets. By the time Remus was a free man again, the liquor had gone, the garage was empty and the mansion house was bare from top to bottom.
Understandably outraged by Imogene's betrayal, Remus didn't hesitate to petition for divorce. Then, on the way to the first court hearing, a quite astonishing happened - spying his wife and young son in a taxi while driving through Cincinnati's Eden Park, Remus ordered his driver to run the other vehicle off the road. With the automobiles brought to a halt, George Remus walked across to the cab, drew a revolver and shot his wife. Imogene would die later the same day.
Arrested and charged with murder, it seemed that Remus was set for a rapid return to choky. Come the trial, however, the proud Ohioan - who would provide his own defence - played an absolute blinder. Pleading temporary insanity, Remus would be sentenced not to life but to six months in a state hospital. The jury took just 19 minutes to come to this favourable verdict - it would have been quicker but they decided to take lunch before returning to the courtroom.
His brief sentence served, George Remus tried to return to bootlegging but with Prohibition's repeal imminent and the industry now overrun with gangsters, he wound up moving to Kentucky where the far safer task of conveyancing kept him busy for the last 20 years of his life. If the end came not with a bang but with a whimper, Remus's legend was already assured. And it continues to live on today for, in actively pursuing a life of crime simply because it pays than going straight, he paved the way for one of modern American fiction's great anti-heroes, Breaking Bad's Walter White.
What’s more, George Remus is a key supporting character in the Martin Scorsese-produced Boardwalk Empire. As played by Glenn Flesher (True Detective’s Errol Childress), Remus is smug, entitled and obsessed with high living. What’s more, he shares the lawman’s habit of referring to himself in the third person. My, if there’s one thing Richard Luck can’t stand…
That makes Paul Brazill peeved too ...