On the night of July 18, 1965, actor Paul Lynde and
his lover James “Bing” Davidson traveled from Beverly Hills to San
Francisco and checked into an eighth-floor suite at the ritzy Sir
Francis Drake Hotel.
Lynde was 39-years old at the time and Davidson was
just 24. Davidson, who attended the University of Nebraska, was born in
Hastings, Nebraska and lived most of his short life in Grand Island, Neb. In
1960, he made the move west to Hollywood and worked mostly as an uncredited bit
actor, under the name Bing Davidson, in television and movies, including
"Take Her, She's Mine" and "Prescription Murder."
In 1963, with enough credits under his belt, he
was allowed to join the Screen Actors Guild, but under the stage name
James Davidson. (There was also another up and coming actor named James
Davidson, who appeared in various TV show like "Slattery's People,"
"Wagon Train," and "Combat."
At about 6:00 PM, Lynde and Davidson left their suite
and went out bar hopping. The pair returned to the hotel at about 2:30 that
morning. Lynde went to his suite and Davidson stayed in the lobby. At about
2:45 a hotel security officer escorted Davidson to his room because he was
“boisterous” meaning loud, combative and drunk. About fifteen minutes after
being led back to the suite, Davidson walked to a window, opened it and said
“Watch what I can do, let me show you a trick”
Davidson stupidly grabbed the ledge beneath his feet
and slide down to cling from it, holding on with his fingertips. Within seconds
he started to lose his grip and screamed “I’m slipping. Help me.”
Lynde threw himself toward the window and grabbed
Davidson's wrist, but couldn’t hold on and Davison made things worse by trying
to get back up by lifting his leg and shifting all of 180 pounds to one side
causing Lynde to lose his grip. Davidson plunged 80 feet, fell past the awning
over the hotel's main entrance and landed on Powell Street, dead.
Police officer Richard Fenlason and Charles Warren saw
a crowd of between ten and 12 people stopping to watch Davison struggle to
safety. Three years before, on August 9, 1960, officer Fenlason was on the
scene when Teddy Barron, a singer with the group The Starlighters, had a run in
with the San Francisco police. The group had made an appearance at Ann's 440
Club. After the show, Barron went to the apartment of his former girlfriend,
Barbara Joyce Bledsoe, 24, a waitress.
Bledsoe said that Barron knocked on the glass
door of her apartment, she opened the door, saw who it was and slammed
the door and it shattered, cutting Barron on the hands and face, then, she
said, Barron stepped into the apartment through the door, severely cutting his
leg. Bledsoe said she ran out the back door and hid in a neighbor's back yard
while Barron ransacked her home but took only $30 from her purse.Fenlason
and another cop came to the scene and were interviewing Bledsoe when Barron
sped by in his car, his lights out. The cops leaped into their car and followed
by they lost him. Another squad car picked him up a few blocks away, driving
the wrong way down a one-way street. The cops cut him off and Barron leaped out
of his car, knife in hand, and attacked to the two officers. It took four
policemen to finally subdue him. The two cops pulled their patrol car over
outside the hotel at Powell and Sutter Streets, saw Davidson and radioed for
the fire department and dashed into the hotel and made it up to the suite after
Davidson had fallen and found Paul Lynde, dazed, sitting on the edge of a bed.
All he said was "He weighs about 180 pounds. It was too much for me. I
told him to grab my neck, but he slipped away”
The coroner investigated and based on the
testimony of hotel staff, several citizens and the two policemen, Deputy
coroner Mark Aleeson classified the death as an accident and determined that
Davidson had been drinking heavily.