Sint Millard

On March 23rd, 1928, Leon Goetz filed a "complaint for examination" in the municipal court of Chicago, which began proceedings for the arrest of Elid Stanitch, alias Eliott Stanich, alias Sint S. Millard, who he accused of running a "confidence game."

Leon’s complaint ran as follows: “On the 4th day of November, 1927, at the city of Chicago, county of Cook, state aforesaid [Illinois], [Sint S. Millard did] feloniously and fraudulently obtain from U. S. Health Films, Inc., * * * the sum of twenty-five thousand ($25,000.00) dollars * * *… with the felonious intent to then and there cheat the said corporation.”

In 1927 Sint Millard and Leon Goetz had entered into a business agreement to produce pornographic films through “U.S. Health Films, Inc.”; they were attempting to cash in on a “public health” initiative spear-headed by the Navy in 1919. The film they produced together was titled “Pitfalls of Passion” and played all over the continental USA as a traveling roadshow.

Advertisement from “The Missourian”, March 26th 1928.

Closeup from advertisement in “The Sedalia Democrat”, of Sedalia, MO on September 3rd 1929.

Advertisement from “The West Carrol Gazette” of Oak Grove, Louisiana. Jan 3rd 1930.

Portrait from San Fransisco Examiner, 1926

Sint Millard was a character beyond belief. Originally from that part of Austro-Hungary which became Yugoslavia, in 1924 he was incarcerated in San Quentin for real estate fraud; on release he pulled a high-profile con-job on Queen Marie of Romania; returned to Yugoslavia to do something; then illegally re-entered the USA and used his contacts with the Governor of California and the Chicago police force to not only avoid deportation, but also to be pardoned for his US offenses, and ultimately become an American citizen. While all this was happening, he was in and out of the American press for his violent romantic relationships with actresses and pornographic undertakings. This was the man Leon chose to go into the porn business with, and predictably, got taken by.

Millard’s criminal career is on the surface typical of an early twentieth-century Eastern European pimp who participated in organized international prostitution, or “The White Slave Trade”, as it had come to be known by human rights activists. The early film industry was intimately connected with this organized crime. An “Oakland Tribune” excerpt from June 25th, 1928 describes Millard’s activities in 1923, the year before his San Quentin jail-time:

“Oakland Tribune”, Oakland California. June 25th 1928.

Like many pimps, Millard excelled at manipulating people— particularly through using unrequited love from emotionally-predisposed women— and in a little over two weeks after his release from jail he had already found someone from whom to sponge:

“Oakland Tribune”, Oakland California. February 5th 1927.

The Queen of Romania scam is what brought Millard to the attention of the American public, and I will address it momentarily. The goal of this scam was to give Millard the publicity he need to launch a Hollywood career as an “agent” for actresses and pornographic performers. Millard controlled these women (they were often 18 or 19 years old) by engaging in dysfunctional romantic relationships with them— very much in the manner that old-world pimps sometimes kept several “wives” in play at once, all remitting the proceeds from their punters. A detailed explanation of the psychology behind this pimping can be found in Charles van Onselen’s The Fox and the Flies, or in this December, 2019 reporting on “grooming” for prostitution.

“Oakland Tribute” Oakland, CA. January 17th 1928.

Corliss Palmer was the most notable actress who ever signed on with Millard; she was famous for her many affairs/marriages with men, some of whom were able to help her career as a cosmetics journalist or movie star. Sadly she died of alcoholism at a young age. While she never cut her wrists for Millard like Rose Terry, she did appear in one of his films, which judging by trade journal reports, was an act almost as desperate.

Millard’s client, Georgia-born Corliss Palmer, courtesy of Silence is Platinum. Palmer won a beauty contest similar to Edith May’s, which was judged by Mary Pickford, Tom Ince, Carl Laemmle, and Olga Petrova (among others) and sponsored by Motion Picture Magazine.

Corliss Palmer’s involvement with Millard, as reported by Jessica Keaton of SilenceIsPlatinum.com:

One of her pictures caused quite a bit of scandal and was even banned in at least one city, Cincinnati (it may have even been the whole state of Ohio.) Scarlet Youth (1929) was advertised as "THE MOST VIVID SEX PICTURE EVER FILMED!" and "Because of the intimate treatment of the sex theme: FOR MEN ONLY!" In fact, some Los Angeles theaters only offered the film for women Monday through Friday and for men only on Saturday and Sunday. 

Was the film all it was cracked up to be? Did women faint in the aisles and did the men turn into sex crazed maniacs upon viewing this vivid sex film? Not so much. One critic wrote, "Supposed to have a big social message; one of those medical films that plays to 'men only' and 'women only' audiences. Don't let them kid you. It's just to get the easy money off anyone simple enough to be taken in by the sensational advertising." (Photoplay, June 1928) Unfortunately, I believe the film is lost because I can't find any other information about it. Aside from Corliss, I don't recognize any other cast member's name that appeared in the film.

Palmer’s film career was over two years later (by 1931)— for a more detailed post on her tragic life, see Jennifer Ann Redmond on SilentStanzas.

All this publicity was done, as I mentioned, on the back of a brazen con involving the recently widowed Queen Marie of Romania. Newspapers across the US carried stories on the Queen swindle, during which Millard impersonated a Romanian General:

Pottsville Republican, Pottsville, PA. November 17th 1926.

“Santa Ana Register”, Santa Ana, California. December 15th 1927.

Queen Marie of Roumania by Philip Alexius de Laszlo in 1936. In 1927 she undertook an American tour after the death of her husband, Ferdinand.

In what must have been a publicity nightmare for the queen’s staff, her name was used to add interest to the press coverage of Millard’s pornography work, which would hardly have been newsworthy otherwise. Not only was Millard a sleazy film maker, but he was a shifty boss who stiffed his actors their pay:

“San Fransisco Examiner”, December 16th 1926

“Oakland Tribune”, December 17th 1926. The lack of female defendants probably doesn’t suggest that the film was homosexual pornography. My belief is that the female actors also served as prostitutes under Millard and didn’t want to draw attention to themselves— or raise Millard’s ire. Millard was never convicted of prostitution-specific offenses to my knowledge.

For all of Sint Millard’s promotional ability (and the bizarre amount of attention paid to him by the “Oakland Tribune” newspaper, among others) he was rarely able to follow through on his schemes. In 1928 he moved out of California and settled in Chicago, where he teamed up with Leon Goetz. As mentioned, this didn’t end well.

“Chicago Tribune”, April 15th 1928.

By 1930 Sint was trying to recreate his Corliss Palmer ‘success’ (or recruit for other reasons) in Alabama by hosting his own beauty contest:

“The Birmingham News”, Birmingham, Alabama. June 15th 1930.

Beside this rather questionable-looking beauty contest, Millard’s unconventional personal life suggests he continued to groom women into the mid 1930s. A new marriage to a fan dancer, followed a month later by a bigamy lawsuit against her, makes me believe that the wheels were coming off Millard’s harem. It was some unspecified time after 1928 and before these personal disasters that Millard took his trip to his homeland Yugoslavia and illegally returned to the United States.

Vidette-Messenger of Porter County, Valparaiso, Indiana. November 20th 1933.

“San Fransisco Examiner”, Sunday December 3rd 1933. Multiple husbands, wives were not atypical living arrangements between pimps and prostitutes who saw each other as means to an end. Millard’s response suggests he was not staying ahead of his marks.

Why would Sint compromise himself by leaving the USA and then re-entering in a way contrary to the law? One answer may lie in his difficulty maintaining relationships with exploitable women. While prostitution was illegal in the US, it was legal in Yugoslavia until the Communists took over after World War II, according to Croatia Times:

But only a century ago, situation was completely different. Ladies of the night were not just allowed to practice their art; they were literally advertised as a tourist feature. Prostitution was legal and regarded as an important economic branch, as bordellos were paying taxes to the state. And in the world without internet and adult magazines, you can only imagine how much money they earned.

[The same Croatia Times article notes that houses of ill repute marked themselves only by a lantern, which would have an unusual colour, say green. This may explain why Sint’s earlier pornographic film company was called “Lantern Motion Pictures Company”.]

Human trafficking, then as now, was a serious problem in this region. If Sint Millard was looking for immigrant employees who would be less self-assured than women like Rita Gentry Bishop, his Eastern European homeland would have been a good place to recruit. However, Yugoslav trafficking networks were well established and Millard, the hustler, would have to have worked with the right fixers. Whatever happened, whatever he was doing, he ended up returning to the United States illegally and entering into an unwise ‘marriage’.

This is where things get really kooky, because for some reason the Governor of California was concerned that Sint not face deportation back to Yugoslavia for his violation of US laws. Not only did Governor Rolph issue Sint a pardon for his California felonies, he issued it under the name Millard used nearly ten years earlier in 1925 when he was working real estate swindles. Apparently, there was some confusion in the justice system about “Sint Millard” being the same man as real estate con-artist “Elliott Stanich”. My friends in lawmaking tell me that Christmastime is the best time for passing legislation under the public’s radar; Millard seems to have benefited from this.

San Bernardino County Sun, San Bernardino, California. Dec. 27th 1933.

Why did Governor Rolph give two hoots about Sint? It turns out that Rolph was influenced by a female police officer in Chicago to make a special exception for Millard:

Oakland Tribune, Oakland California. Dec. 28th 1933.

The Baltimore Sun, Maryland. December 28th, 1933.

Officer Folkenberg’s involvement with Millard’s case offers a measure of clarification about what was going on with Sint. Women officers were exceptionally rare at this time and her intercession almost certainly points to Sint Millard acting as an informant on other White Slavers in Chicago.

According to the Chicago Historical Society’s online encyclopedia: “‘Policewomen’ were formally appointed beginning in 1913, to work with women and children.” These women’s days were typically spent dealing with pickpockets and prostitutes, however Milwaukee-native Alice Clement, the first female detective in Chicago, is remembered for her sensational “Dulcimer” investigation:

One of her most famous cases inspired an Agatha Christie serial, The Dulcimer, which involved the murder of a young woman who was most likely a prostitute gravely ill with Typhoid. The male detectives on the force assumed that she’d simply succumbed to her “lifestyle” but Clement remained unconvinced. Further investigation revealed that the woman had, in fact, acquired Typhoid as part of a murder plot, the germs entering her body via the strings of a dulcimer she played.

The young woman had recently come into a sizeable inheritance, and an aunt of hers wanted to claim it as her own. Looking for a way to kill the young woman and claim the property as hers, the aunt infected the dulcimer strings with Typhoid bacteria, which succeeded in killing the young woman. Clement’s hunch, and subsequent investigation, revealed that in between the plucking of strings, the young woman would often lick her fingers — giving the aunt’s plan to infect the instrument full credence.

When Clement went to apprehend the aunt for the murder, she got a confession — but never got her to fully admit the motive. Before they were able to remove her from the home, the woman stabbed herself in the neck with a pen knife, a mortal wound from which she did not recover.

Unfortunately, the Chicago of this era was a hot spot for the “White Slave Trade”: the sexual exploitation of women and children, which was often perpetrated by venal family members similar to the “dulcimer” aunt. This network of criminals was well organized and the families who ran it came from ghettos in urban Austro-Hungary, particularly Galicia. Clement’s job involved a measure of advocating for the victims of this international network— even though the trade had protection from powerful politicians:

Clement also walked the city streets, rescuing runaways and destitute girls, giving them hope when she could. Years of these types of interactions inspired Clement to create a film, Dregs of the City, which ran in theatres alongside Ethel Barrymore films and had quite a favorable response—in every city except Chicago, which forbade her to show it there. The city archives, unfortunately, have not been able to locate the film; all we have are a few promotional stills.

In the wake of the film, Clement collaborated with the media to profile several girls who ruled Chicago’s streets: teenage runaways, prostitutes and showgirls graced the front page of the paper, sharing their stories and giving some humanity to the much wider social issues for women of the day.

Still from celebrity policewoman Alice Clement’s film “Dregs of the City”, which highlighted the exploitation of vulnerable women and children. Allthatsinteresting.com Prostitutes were often denied access to street-appropriate clothes to prevent their being able to leave the bordello.

Clement’s film has been lost, so it’s hard to tell how much was genuine public information (if any); how much was Alice Clement promoting herself; and how much was just more exploitation of these prostitutes. We can hope that as someone who was faced with the fallout of this trade everyday Clement would have only worked on a beneficial film, but the reality is that quite often police officers were complicit.

Because the criminal network that serviced organized international prostitution was involved in much more than slavery and prostitution alone— things like financial fraud, voter fraud, and even espionage— the type of information Sint Millard was in a position to supply would have stretched far beyond the sex trade. An informer valuable enough to justify action by the Governor of California was probably something more like an international spy than just a neighborhood snitch.

Things did not end well for Sint, who seems to have descended into alcoholism. His behavior toward the women he used became increasingly irrational, as did his behavior toward law enforcement.

Santa Cruz Sentinel, California. February 26th 1936.

Oakland Tribune, February 28th 1936.

Millard only had two press mentions after the sad spectacle above: In 1941 he was convicted for showing “indecent pictures” in Oakland, California, though in 1952 his films were still being shown locally:

Oakland Tribune, February 28th, 1952.

It’s difficult for me to understand why Leon would choose Sint Millard as a business partner, Sint had a clear public record of criminality by 1927. However, if Leon was running in the same circles— and his 1921 indictment for violation of the Mann Act suggests he was— perhaps Leon had become acculturated to this type of behavior. Leon’s next business partner would be even more colorful, if less criminal, and would inspire a personal vendetta from the WWII era head of the F.B.I., J. Edgar Hoover.