The French film theorist Nathalie Léger, in her brilliant 2012 book Suite for Barbara Loden, a hybrid of biography, memoir, fiction, and criticism, identified the woman as Alma Malone. (“She might have been the daughter of Samuel Beckett’s Malone, the one who says at the beginning of the book, ‘I shall soon be quite dead at last in spite of all.’”)
Léger found the discovery of Loden’s real-life inspiration deflating: “All the thrill of the quest evaporated. An overwhelming sense of sorrow overtook me during the exhausting period of going through these pages and I immediately lost all interest in the subject for a period of several weeks, filled with regret for ever having allowed myself to be overtaken by the urge to pinpoint the source of the story.”
For Léger, finding out about Alma detracted from her own work, opening up questions she knew she wouldn’t have time to investigate. But had Léger persisted, she’d have discovered a remarkable tale of a woman more like Loden’s creation than the filmmaker herself had ever realized. One whose story has never been fully told.
THE DOORBELL RANG AT SEVEN A.M. HERBERT FOX WENT to answer. The bank manager’s two daughters, 18-year-old Marilyn and 10-year-old Bonnie, continued to eat breakfast. His wife, Loretta, was washing the dishes.
William Ansley and Alma Malone were at the door.
“Our car broke down. May we use your telephone?” said William. Alma, the taller of the two, peered over Ansley’s shoulder.
“Why, uh—”
William thrust his foot into the doorway. Then, pointing a .45 at Fox, he went inside with Alma. Fox grabbed at William. Alma set down a hatbox and pulled an automatic handgun from her red handbag. “Let him go!” she cried.
Loretta Fox stuck her head out from the kitchen. “What is it, dear?”
“Come in here!” cried Alma. The girls appeared in the doorway. “You too!”
The Fox family assembled in the living room. Alma pulled some cord from her handbag and began to tie them up, one by one. William pointed to the hatbox.
“See that? That’s a bomb. A real, live bomb. You cooperate with us and we’ll be back here to disarm it before the time it’s set to go off.” William turned to Fox. “You are going to take me to the bank.”
“Wh-wh-wh-what for?”
William chuckled.
“To rob it, of course.”
No one said anything further. A ticking sound came from the hatbox.
“You just sit still,” Alma said. “If you joggle around trying to go free, the bomb will go off.”
William motioned for Fox to get his coat and hat. Fox put a rosary beside Bonnie, still tied up. “Pray for all of us,” he said, and walked out of his home with William and Alma following behind. “Go to your car,” ordered William. “Act natural.” Fox obeyed.
As they got into Fox’s car, Alma got into a blue Ford with a white top, intending to follow them. But when the men arrived at the bank, she was no longer behind them.
EDDIE LEE WAITED AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE LORAIN Avenue branch of the Cleveland Trust. He greeted Fox with a smile that evaporated when he saw William, who spirited both men into the bank.
William gave the same spiel to Eddie that he recited to the other dozen or so employees filing into the Lorain Avenue branch: there was a bomb at Fox’s house that would go off if they didn’t follow instructions. Fox was then ordered to fill a cardboard box with money.
He was about to hand off the box stuffed with bills to William, when a policeman appeared at the window.
“Stall him off!” said William. “Get out there, at the center of the floor.” Fox moved slowly, wondering if his family would survive because of his decisions.
Then he saw a second cop.
THE FICTIONAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WANDA AND Mr. Dennis is quite faithful to what Loden knew of the relationship between Alma and William. The film version of the heist stays true to the details of what happened at the Fox residence, down to the ticking hatbox. Wanda’s existential ennui could have, and likely did, come straight from what Alma later told reporters.
So one could imagine the real Alma reacting to William as Wanda does to Mr. Dennis when he says this on how to dress and act, and how to stop being so passive: “If you don’t want anything, you won’t have anything, and if you don’t have anything, you’re as good as dead.”
Or when Mr. Dennis slaps Wanda, and it takes her several beats of quiet shock before responding with a tepid, plaintive, “Hey, that hurt.”
“COME ON, WE’VE GOT TO HELP DADDY!”
Marilyn Fox had broken free of the cord that kept her tied up. She untied her mother, Loretta, and sister, Bonnie. The hatbox kept on ticking. For 15 minutes, the trio prayed. Then they ran over to a neighbor’s house. It was 8:20 a.m. The radio reported “some kind of disturbance” at the Lorain Avenue bank branch.
Patrolmen James Gatter and Thomas McNamara were on duty that morning. They heard the police scanner and stopped their car near the bank. Gatter grabbed a shotgun. McNamara fetched his service revolver. They were at the entrance when Eddie Lee ran out the door.
A hand holding an automatic gun rose over the bank counter.
The robber fired. Gatter fired back. They exchanged fire two more times, as glass shattered around them. Gatter first aimed at the wood near the top of the counter. The next time he aimed at the floor.
He reached for more ammunition and found it gone—William’s shot had ripped a hole in his pants, right at the ammunition belt.
Gatter got ready to draw his revolver again when a third policeman rushed in. “After that,” Gatter later recalled, “just about every policeman in town came up behind us. It was just like a movie thriller.”
Police swarmed up to nearby rooftops by the dozens, dropping tear gas into the bank through an open window. “Come out in ten minutes or we’re coming in,” Cleveland police chief Frank Storey intoned through a megaphone. “It’s your funeral.”
William fired more shots. A bank employee jumped through a window, shouting, “Hold your fire! He’s letting us out!”
The bank staff streamed out. This included Fox, who learned—to his relief—that his family was safe and the bomb had not gone off in his house. The hatbox turned out to be harmless: it held two dry cell batteries, a timer, and fuses of coal dust. That was it. Nothing explosive.
Detective Jack Hughes entered the bank. He saw William on the floor, clutching an automatic. Hughes kicked away the gun from the robber’s hand. That’s how he learned William was dead. A shot had gone right through his temple, which had blown off his blond wig and exposed the bald head underneath.
THE CLEVELAND POLICE SEARCHED FOR ALMA AND found her rented blue Ford, abandoned on the city’s east side. In it, cops discovered a picture of her with William from a New Orleans nightclub. They also found an ID card with the name Billy Jean Carroll, a blond wig, and her maternity-dress disguise. There was also a book on child care, some food, a cosmetics case, and men’s and women’s clothing.
Alma knew something had gone terribly wrong. Following Fox and William, she would later say that she had “made a wrong turn somewhere”—and by the time she got near the bank, “there were so many people around, a traffic cop directed me away.”