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

by kbronson | Jun 24, 2025 | Episodes

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, this is Knox Bronson at The Secret History of Frisco podcast. I have a great episode for you today featuring one of the most wickedly intelligent and delightfully roguish writers ever to grace the pages of a San Francisco Newspaper: Bob Patterson. Bob wrote a column under the name Freddie Francisco for the San Francisco Examiner in the 1940s. He did another stint there in the sixties and seventies.

He was, for a brief time, the most powerful newspaper columnist in Northern California with his dazzling, erudite, and irreverent insights into the the upper crust of San Francisco society. His newspaper career came to an abrupt end in 1949, when a tattle-sheet, Hollywood Life, exposed him as a shakedown artist and a convicted criminal who had done four stints in prison, among other things.

The Secret History of Frisco

Elmer “Bones” Remmer

After running the Cal-Neva Lodge in the 30s, Bones came to San Francisco and took his mantle as the Bay Area’s the king of vice.

Jimmie Tarantino

Editor of the Hollywood Nite Life scandal sheet, extortionist, blackmailer, Jimmie was the prince of smears and innuendo.

Bill Wren

Managing Editor of the SF Examiner, Bill Wren ran the city, played the horses, and didn’t like to pay up when he lost a bet.

Bob Patterson

As Freddie Francisco, Bob was the biggest gossip columnist of all, also a convicted embezzler and thief. A great writer, too.

Shell Cooper

Bones Remmer’s lieutenant. Cooper and Varni’s bar was a feeder saloon to nearby brothels and filled with b-girls.

Sally Stanford

Sally ran the city’s high-end brothels, catering to the city’s power elite. She eventually became the mayor of Sausalito.

Frank Sinatra

Frank was an early investor in Hollywood Life magazine. After Jimmie shook him down for $8K, Jimmie had to leave LA.

Mickey Cohen

Mickey Cohen was Hollywood’s flamboyant gangster, the southern California equivalent to Bones Remmer

Thomas Lynch

San Francisco’s District Attorney. An ally of Bill Wren, he went after the purveyors sin in the city’s Tenderloin district.

Herb Caen

Gossip columnist at the SF Chronicle and creator of the modern myth of San Francisco, cool grey city of love.

Louella Parsons

Syndicated Queen of Gossip and screenwriter for William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper and radio empire.

Estes Kefhauver

The Senator’s committee revealde the extent and scope of organized crime’s influence over the United States.

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“Will Freddie Francisco, former inmate of Sing Sing, be permitted to sit arrogantly upon a throne of pen and ink and splash spiked words that cause tears and unhappiness to S.F. business men and their families?

“Freddie Francisco, alias Bob Patterson, once posed as a member of royalty. He assumed the title of a Count, under the name of Maximilian B.H.M. Carlton as the son of Marquis of Gahnst and a subaltern in the Black Watch regiment, and as such was arrested in Tucson, Arizona and on Jan. 27, 1928, was arrested for grand larceny by the Chicago Police. (Can you picture columnist Francisco as a count?)”—Jimmie Tarantino, Hollywood Life Magazine.

“It doesn’t take much to produce a good merchant of cash-and-carry love: just courage, an infinite capacity for perpetual suspicion, stamina on a 24-hour basis, the deathless conviction that the customer is always wrong, a fair knowledge of first aid, do-it-yourself gynecology, judo, and a tremendous sense of humor. Aside from these basic talents, a good madam must possess an understanding of female psychology (in the broadest sense), a knowledge of quick therapies for restoring drunks to a state of locomotion (out the door), and a grasp of techniques for the eradication of pimps. With these qualities, and a few others, you may develop into a self-respecting madam. —Madam Sally Stanford (allegedly ghost-written by Freddie Francisco himself)