The Journal News from Hamilton, Ohio • Page 5

.111, Hamilton ft Kaiififld.Olilii Paijf 8 never seen anything like this' No one will ever forget Saturday night SOUTHGATE, Ky. (AP) plush Beverly Hills Supper Club is the kind of place you go to have an evening to remember. No one who went there Saturday right will ever forget Hours after the patrons who were able to drive away had left the scene, scores of cars sat idle in the club parking lot, Fifty to SO bodies of men and women in charred evening clothes lay on the lawn in front of the chapel, which the club used for weddings and religious receptions. Other bodies were piled like cordwood outside the gutted building. A middle-aged woman holding a brassiere in tier hand slumped against the chapel, turned into an emergency ward.

She and her husband were among a party of 30 doctors and their wives who had been dining at the Beverly Hills Supper Club when a fire broke out. "I've counted bodies in the rice paddies of Viet Nam, but I've never seen anything like this," said one fireman. Even as more bodies were being carried out of the smoking ruins, Southgate Mayor Ken Paul ordered police to guard against looters. "Can you believe it, we caught people taking stuff off those dead people," Paul said. "They were even ransacking the cars." Three persons were arrested in connection with taking valuables from cars and bodies.

"They were stacked up five feet in front of the bar," said Darrell Meader, a member of the Red Cross emergency team. "They all ran. They all panicked." The club, five miles south of Cincinnati, had been crowded for the holiday weekend night with guests using rooms for private parties and others who had come to see singer John Davidson. "At first I was going to complain about our table because it was so close to the door, but now I am grateful," said Audrey Everidge of Louisville. "Our seats were some of the worst in the room; but fortunately the best for leaving by a nearby exit," said Russell Krueger of Cincinnati.

The star performer was still getting ready and the crowd was watching a comedy team when the first indication of trouble came. Walter Bailey of Alexandria, a busboy, said later that many people were in such a lighthearted mood that they ignored his warnings, considering them a part of the comedy routine until it was too late. "One minute they are your friends, the next minute they are gone," said orchestra leader Bill Layne. At least five members of his house band perished in the fire. Fire notes Jokes helped those exiting OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) Comedians Jim McDonald and Jim Teter said they combined jokes with exit directions in hopes of calming the crowd that had just been told that the Kentucky supper club they were in was on fire.

"When the people could feel the heat from the flames and smell the smoke anybody who wasn't frightened then wasn't human," McDonald said in a telephone interview Sunday. McDonald and Teter, who started their act at Oklahoma State University, were onstage in the club's Cabaret ROOIJI when a busboy grabbed a microphone and announced that a fire had broken out. McDonald said patrons streamed out the exits while the comedians repeated directions and cracked jokes attempting to keep people calm. But when flames reached a hallway outside the room, panic followed. "We waited until almost all the people had evacuated Cabaret Room.

By that time, the smoke was billowing everywhere," McDonald said. Headllner Davidson shaken LOS ANGELES (AP) A tired and shaken'John Davidson flew to Los Angeles Sunday, only hours after five members of his band and his music director died in one history's worst fires. The 36-year-old singer was headlining a show at the sprawling Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, when the fire broke out in the basement. Davidson said he was in his dressing room shaving for his performance when his drummer rushed in and told him the building was on fire. "We didn't think it was that serious, Davidson told a reporter for radio station KNX.

"It's like any tragedy vou think that it is not going to be that bad. So we very slowly filed out and then the filing got faster and faster. "Just seconds after we got out, the door we came through was engulfed with smoke and flames," Davidson Davidson said the part of the club in which he was to appear was crowded beyond capacity. After he got out of the building, Davidson said he helped hold doors open to let others escape. Southgate fire one of worst By The Associated Press The death toll of between 200 and 400 persons in Saturday night's fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, makes it one of the worst fire disasters ever in.

the United States. The highest number of fatalities recorded in a fire in a S. building was on Dec. 30,1903, when 602 persons died at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago. The worst fire in a U.S.

nightclub was at the Cocoanut Grove in Boston when 491 persons died on Nov. 28, 1942. Other major fire disasters in the United States include a fire at a Columbus, Ohio, penitentiary on April 21,1930, that killed 320- a fire at a Brooklyn, N.Y., theater on Dec. 5 1876 that killed 295, and the Chicago fire of Oct. 8,1871, in which an estimated 250 persons perished.

Sprinklers weren't required SOUTHGATE, Ky. (AH) When the Beverly Hills Supper Club burned down in 1970, the owners rebuilt without including a water sprinkler system. Fire struck the plush club again Saturday night, killing more than 200 persons. As a result local and state officials hope the harsh lesson will be noted throughout At "hel'iine the club was rebuilt after the 1970 fire in which there were no injuries, a sprinkler system was optional according to state law. It became mandatory state law a few years after the club resumed operations.

The law was not retroactive. "I guess it is going to take a tragedy like this to get a sensible law on the books," said Mayor Ken Paul. Gov Julian Carroll said, "There should be some serious consideration of making the law retroactive in structures like this. "Even if they had to shut down for a couple of weeks, it would be worth it," Carroll said Sunday following a tour of the debris on the 17-acre site. Carroll said he was directing the investigation of the fire "so we can see that it never happens again.

There was no suspicion of arson, me governor said. Workers move and help identify victims of Saturday night's Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in a makeshift morgue set up at an armory in Ft. Thomas, Sunday. More than 200 persons were killed in the Saturday night inferno that gutted the well-known club. (AP Memories of Cocoanuf Grove revived BOSTON (AP) The tragic supper club fire in Southgate, stirs up painful memories here of a similar holocaust nearly 35 years ago the Cocoanut Grove blaze that killed 491.

About 1,000 persons were jammed into Boston's largest nightclub the evening of Nov. 28, 1942, when flames, thick smoke and carbon monox-ide turned the place into a furnace. The nightclub, built to hold 750, had ex-its but all except two were locked and bodies were piled up by the doors in heaps. Some survivors said the first fire they saw was when a girl with blazing hair ran screaming through the club. Other accounts tell of sheets of flame racing across the ceiling shortly after a busboy lit a match to change an overhead lightbulb.

But the Boston Fire Department closed its books on the case in 1970, still listing the cause as "unknown." Among those killed in the fire were cowboy movie star Buck Jones, all 22 members of a parly celebrating an engagement atid many college students rejoicing over a Holy Cross football victory. Hundreds of fireman and other rescue workers rushed to the scene in the city's theater district, and medical personnel were called in from all parts of Massachusetts. Taxis, jeeps and mail trucks were used as makeshift ambulances. Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital tried out what was then a new burn treatment technique on the hundreds of victims brought to their emergency room. Previously tannic acid was the usual treatment, but physicians decided that night not to try cleaning the wounds but just to smear on petroleum jelly, cover the burns with bandages, and administer drugs, oxygen and plasma.

Afterwards, the new technique became standard procedure. The fire prompted Boston and many other cities to stiffen their safety codes with provisions that became known as "Grove laws." Smoking was forbidden in many public places, seating limits were imposed, exit requirements were established and combustible decorations were outlawed. Nightclub owner Barnet Welanksy was convicted of manslaughter in connection with the fire and served three'years in prison before dying of cancer. One of the ircnies of the blaze involved Clifford Johnson, a young Coast Guardsman who spent 21 months in a hospital recovering from his burns. He married his nurse and later moved to Missouri and became a farmer.

Fourteen years later, a pickup truck ha was driving crashed and he died in the flames. This 1942 file photo shows the interior of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston after a fire in which 491 persons died. The death toll of 200 and 400 persons in Saturdny night's blaze at Beverly Hills ranks it with the Cocoanut Grove fire, one of the worst fire disasters ever in the U.S. (AP Wirephoto) Guests didn't believe youthful hero SOUTHGATE, Ky. (AP) "The worst thing of all is that most of the people didn't believe there was a fire," said Walter Bailey, the 18-year-old busboy whose calmness and quick thinking helped save lives in the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire.

"They're probably still in there," he added, glancing at the smoldering wreck of what a few hours before had been a.posh nightspot in full Saturdaynight swing. Authorities had taken out more than 150 bodies by Sunday morning and said between 50 and 250 remained trapped in the ruins. When word of the fire reached him, Bailey jumped on stage before 600 persons in the Cabaret Room and pointed out fire exits. Then, after leading groups of panicking patrons outside, he returned to rescue stragglers. "I had just finished carrying trays and 1 was watching the show," said Bailey, an Alexandria, native who graduated last week from high school.

"One of the waitresses told me there was a fire in the Zebra Room. It is up near the front entrance of the building, next to the bar. "I ran back to the showroom and asked the lady in charge if I could go to the microphone and tell everybody History of Beverly Hills was star-studded but grief-stricken SOUTHGATE, Ky. A Once was the "Showplace of the Midwest" and lately they called it the "Showplace of the Nation." People came from around the nation to drink at the Beverly Hills Supper Club gold-tufted bar. When it burned down in 1970, the Beverly Hills was rebuilt.

It continued to attract the big names in show Of course, in the 1940s and 1950s, the club had the added attraction of gambling. It was reported that Frank Sinatra dropped $30,000 one night at the tables. Other entertainers of that era who appeared included Ted Lewis, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Sophie Tucker, Milton Berle, Pearl Bailey, Xavier Cugat and Abbie Lane. Though the gambling may have been an attractive lure to business, it was also a periodic headache for the management. Three moths after it opened in 1937, an automobile carrying four employes to the club from a Newport hotel was forced off the road by six men carrying submachine guns The bandits robbed the employes of $10,000, In 1950, in a case that eventually reached the U.S.

Supreme Court, the owners of the club were ordered to pay to a woman who claimed her husband in visits to the club had run through a $22,000 home, two automobiles, $10,000 worth of furniture and a used car dealership that did $1 million business a year. A new county sheriff cracked down on gambling at the nightclub in 1961. The club's fortunes sputtered afterwards and in June 1970 a fire of undetermined origin caused $700,000 damage. Beverly Hills is not the only northern Kentucky nightspot to he charred by fires in recent years. he White Horse Tavern, the Lookout House and the Town and Country Restaurant were all damaged extensively by fire over the years.

When it reopened, the club again campaigned to lure big name talent, which he hoped would attract chente from the Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio areas. The club is located five miles south of Cincinnati in the Instate area. Customers at Beverly Hills never expected to be treated'in an ordinary manner at the 17-acre club situated on a high bluff. Lush carpets and massive murals were everywhere along with crystal chandeliers and sculpture. After dining in one of a number of rooms, customers would adjourn to drinks and a show in another part of the complex.

If they decided they wanted to formalize their relationship, a man and woman could even get married in the chapel and then have their reception at the club. A regular evening out at Beverly Hills was something not to be considered a steady diet for the average wageearncr. Many guests reported that they spent an average of $50 for an evening's diner and entertainment. The club offered a weekday package of $13.95 each. to get out.

She didn't say anything, so I did it anyway," said Bailey. "I walked up to the stage and took the mike away from the two comedians (Teter McDonald). They just stood there, surprised. I told 'em (the crowd) not to go out the front. I told them to walk slowly out the doors and I pointed to tsvo exit signs.

"After we got out of the room, you could see the smoke coming up the halls. It really spread fast," he said. "In five minutes, it was all over the building. All the lights went out in the Cabaret Room, or else the smoke was so dense it was dark in there." After fleeing the building, Bailey said he and some fellow workers decided to re-enter the smoke-filled halls. "I heard people moaning and calling for help.

We went back in and started carrying people out. Most of them were down on the floor. We grabbed people by the shirts and hands, anything we could grab. Bailey, leaning shirtless against a chapel converted into an emergency hospital ward on the grounds of the club, looked across a lawn littered with the dead and dying. "We saved a lot of lives, maybe 20 or 30," he said.

Looting began early SOUTHGATE, Ky. (AP) Three persons were arrested Saturday night for taking valuables from cars and bodies of the victims of a fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club that killed more than 200 patrons. "People were looting bodies," said Mayor Ken Paul. couldn't believe it. They were ransacking the cars.

Can you believe it, we caught people taking stuff off those dead people." Police charged Mohamad Noorzad, 31, of Cincinnati, with abuse of a corpse and resisting arrest; Slarash Noorzad, 32, of Cincinnati, with resisting arrest, and a juvenile with abuse of a corpse, according to the Fort Thomas police department, which was holding the three. An appearance in Southgate city court was scheduled Tuesday. Sentence for abuse of a corpse is up to one year in jail and a $5,000 fine..