Posted on 06/03/2021 6:26:53 AM PDT by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1955, Barbara Graham was gassed at California’s San Quentin Prison, along with two confederates in the brutal murder of an elderly widow.
Following the classic sob-story vector from orphan to juvenile delinquent to petty criminal, Graham found her calling as femme fatale.
She entered adulthood with World War II, and spent the war years alternating between failed marriages and the working-girl beat for Pacific military bases.
“Sure, I was a prostitute — and a damn good one,” she later confided to a reporter. “Why do people make so much of sex anyway? It’s part of our natural make-up, like getting hungry for food. If you want to eat, you go to a grocery store or a restaurant. If you need sleep, you sleep. If you want sex, why not get it?” (Source, a thorough .doc file)
Police made a bigger deal of perjury when she unwisely tried to help out some underworld friends by swearing to a demonstrably bogus alibi for them. She did some real time, tried to go straight in a boring Nevada town, and inevitably — for the likes of this site — returned to the siren lures of California.....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
The great Susan Haywood played her in the film, “I Want to Live!”
Barbara Graham should be remembered for this:
Prison guard Joseph Ferretti told her 'Take a deep breath when she smelled the gas and it would go easier.'She said, 'How the hell would you know?’
A movie that was sympathetic to her and tries to make her look not so guilty. The april 1959 issue of Cavalier has an article tearing apart the falsehoods of the movie.
Probably from observation
Susan Hayward was great in that role.
I remember “Why Must I Die” with Terry Moore. Heart wrenching. Is it about the same person?
Sadly that performance made a lot of people anti-death penalty. Loved it, as I did most all of her movies.
What I remember most about the movie “Dead Man Walking” is that it reinforced my support of the death penalty.
An anti-capital punishment movie.
I think she won the academy award for it.
An anti-capital punishment movie.
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