A Loose Leaf: The Unusual Life and Times of Journalist/Celebrity Photographer/Sailor/Spy Earl Leaf

To say that Earl H. Leaf lived a remarkable life is an understatement. While best known as a magazine photographer who, in the 1960s and 70s, photographed hundreds of celebrities—particularly young starlets like Marilyn Monroe, movie stars including Gregory Peck and Clint Eastwood, and musicians such as the Beach Boys, Janis Joplin and Bruce Springsteen— he also worked as a cowboy, a sailor, a logger, a prospector, a bookkeeper and even possibly a spy.

In the mid-1930s, Leaf was employed by United Press in China and was one of the first western journalists to interview and photograph Mao Tse-Tung. Later that decade he became a consultant for the propaganda arm of the Nationalist Government of China in New York City. With the start of World War II, he was a war correspondent/propagandist for the Office of Strategic Services, a wartime intelligence service that was the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency.

In the early 1930s, however, Leaf had a different role: sometime reporter and daily columnist for the Nevada State Journal.

Details of Leaf’s early life are sketchy. It’s known that he was born in Seattle on August 25, 1904 and grew up in San Francisco. He apparently worked for several years as a logger and as a sailor before landing in Nevada in 1931, when the United Press opened an office in Reno and he was hired to serve as Nevada state manager (from about 1928 to 1930, he was a special correspondent for the United Press covering the states of Washington and California). On February 17, 1932, the Nevada State Journal reported, “Earl H. Leif, formerly Nevada manager for the United Press Association and until recently connected with that organization in Los Angeles, today becomes a regular member of the news staff of The Journal. Leif arrived last night from Los Angeles and will take over his new duties with this newspaper this morning. He is widely known throughout Reno and Nevada having been actively engaged in handling United Press work since that service first established a bureau in Reno.”

Leaf’s byline was spelled out, “Earl H. Leif,” in his early United Press and NSJ columns, but after April 5, 1932—perhaps to reflect the name of his popular newspaper column, “Loose Leaf from the Journal,” his last name was spelled “Leaf” and he maintained that spelling for the rest of his life. Interestingly, the last column with the “Leif” name began: “What’s in a name? Practically nothing.” It was devoted to ironic last names of various Reno residents (“None of the fishers sell fish. Not one of the Potters are potters or the Porters porters. Most all of the Walkers have autos.”).

One of the few glimpses into Leaf’s past appeared in a March 21, 1932 column when he revealed: “In the good old days when I was on the wander road carrying a “balloon” [backpack] on my back from here to yonder, we used to work in logging, construction or mining camps for a season or until we had saved a grubstake for the winter and then loaf until the following spring.”

Additionally, in a March 13, 1933 column, in which Leaf announced he was taking a leave from the paper for “a few months” (he never returned, although he sent periodic dispatches from China throughout 1935), he revealed a bit more of himself: “There are only two things I know newspaper work and seamanship. I’ve newspapered for six years and previously went to sea for seven years aboard lumber, oil and navy ships. I still hold a mate’s ticket for a seagoing ship. So in the Orient I may find myself a war correspondent reporter on a Chinese newspaper or mate on some tramp ship. It makes not the slightest difference to me which or why.”

Leaf’s first bylined column appeared in the front page of the NSJ on February 28, 1932. The column began with a plea for Reno to nurture a world -class artistic community: “Reno needs its Parnassus. Paris has its Montmarte, San Francisco has Telegraph Hill, New York has Greenwich Village, every distinctive city has an artists’ colony. There are no doubt many embryo Tricotrins, Lord Byrons, Whistlers, Michelangelos, Gershwins, Rachmaninoffs, Swipeburns, Hugos and O Henrys in Reno, but there seems to be no one particular rendezvous where they foregather to discuss plans for the future when they are famous. Reno does boast one artist of nation-wide note, Robert Caples, whose pencil portraits are as well known in New York circles as they are here.”

The rest of the column was a hodgepodge of local news and gossip, including a short item about how “someone wants to know who is the best looking policeman on the Reno force.” While Leaf provides no answer, he does nominate five “Lotharios” for the honor.

With a witty, informal tone that often utilized the direct address along with short sentences divided into easy-to-digest anecdotes, each separated by a small black line, Leaf’s column, which appeared almost daily during 1932 and early 1933, was clearly influenced by the popular gossip/news columns of the day, particularly the three-dot writing style of famed 1930s columnist Walter Winchell. However, what made Leaf’s column particularly readable was the clear voice he managed to craft with his words. Readers felt they knew the person behind the byline.

In his March 3, 1932 column, Leaf offered a brief description of his column, which had appeared with no explanation a few days earlier, by noting, the “Loose Leaf column isn’t supposed to be primarily funny. It will be serious, informative, instructive, and, we hope, amusing with a light vein of buffoonery here and there.”

A number of Leaf’s early columns reflected his debut column’s call for Reno to adopt a more literary or artistic identity. For example, in his March 26, 1932 column, Leaf urged his readers to “Try you luck and win a buck. Write about the summer breezes, even tho your poem wheezes.” A few days later, he printed several poems submitted for the contest including a short, humorous entry from Bert Cunningham of 44 University Avenue:

“Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep,

They went to The Journal to take a peep.

To see about this fellow Leif;

But, sure enough, they came to grief

He invited them in—one and two—

The very next day he ate lamb stew.”

 

By mid-April, Leaf was occasionally venturing outside of Reno for column fodder. On April 21, 1932, in a column with a Fallon dateline, he wrote: “The weather was too nice to remain indoors and punch a typewriter in the office today (heh’ heh’), so we jumps in the trusty (Editor’s note: Should it be rusty?) Chevy and drives down to this town which grew up around John Fallon’s ranch house years ago.” He also wrote columns after visits to Gerlach, Susanville, Winnemucca, Lovelock and Yerington.

Most columns, however, were a collection of humorous stories, interesting observations about Reno, upcoming special events and the occasional poem. Often, Leaf would spotlight a little anecdote about a prominent local, state or national figure. For example, in a handful of columns in late June and early July 1932, he hyped an upcoming heavyweight fight between Max Baer and King Levinsky, scheduled to meet in Reno on July 4. On June 20, 1932, Leaf noted, “Maxy ‘Beautiful’ Baer was sunning his godlike physique in the sun at Lawtons Springs Saturday morning with a group of awestruck girls gazing at him with bated breath while one tickled his nose with a blade of grass and another patted his forehead admiringly. Into this scene of pastoral beauty strode a dark-eyed vision. Maxy ‘Apollo’ Baer jumped up in sudden surprise and the girlies wondered who in the devil was this woman who interrupted the sylvan peace of their pastime. It was none other than Mrs. Dorothy Dunbar Wells De Garcon Baer, wife of the pugilistic Adonis, who then and there donned bathing garb and sun-bathed with her gorgeous husband.”

While most of Leaf’s output appeared in his daily column, he wrote a handful of stories that appeared in the news columns of the paper. For example, on November 30, 1932, he wrote not only his regular column but a hard-hitting front-page story headlined, “‘I Buy a Gun’ Earl Leaf Finds Sudden Death is Cheap, Available to All.” In the article, he wrote about the ease with which he was able to purchase a .32 caliber Harrington and Richardson revolver with “enough soft-nosed bullets to kill or maim seven persons” for a little over $3 in a second-hand store on Lake Street in Reno. “Life is cheap. Let’s figure it up. Seven bullets for 25 cents. Less than four cents per human life,’ he added. “My $3 gun is good for many many lives at the rate of less than four cents per death.”

With dialogue right out of a gangster movie, Leaf continued:

 “The second hand store proprietor who sold me this engine of death could give no description of me. My cap was pulled down far over my eyes. ‘Sure we got guns,’ he said. ‘How much do you want to pay?’

 “‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I’m a stranger in town I can’t give no references for the gat.’

“We talked in whispers.

“‘You don’t need none here. In California . . .’

“‘I know the California laws on totin’ a gat,’ I said. ‘But don’t I have to tell my name or business?’

“‘No, it ain’t required here,’ he said.

“‘Don’t you have to take the number of the gun in case the dicks want to trace it?’ I asked.

“‘Don’t need that information.’

“‘Listen,’ I whispered. ‘Will the dicks pick up a guy for carrying a gun here?’

“‘Naw, just keep it out of sight,’ he replied.”

Another noteworthy story written by Leaf was a Consumer Reports-style investigative piece about the quality of Reno’s illegal corn whiskey, which appeared in the NSJ on January 8, 1933, some 11 months before the repeal of prohibition. In the feature, entitled, “What Kind of ‘Corn’ Does Reno Drink?—Leaf Learns Facts,” the columnist posed a series of questions: “What kind of liquor are you getting when you step up to a bar in a local speakie? Is it good, wholesome product, or is it poison? Is there any difference between the whiskey sold by the ‘twenty-five-cent’ or the ‘fifty-cent’ joints in town?”

Armed with a $4 expense account, Leaf wandered into four local speakeasies where he purchased a half-pint of whiskey from each. He took the liquor to the state food and drug laboratory where it was analyzed for harmful ingredients. The results showed varying percentages of alcohol and natural coloring but “nothing particularly harmful or injurious to the organs was found,” according to Leaf. However, his investigation did indicate one surprise. “One fact stands out like a fly in a wedding cake,” he wrote. “There is very little difference between the whiskey sold by the most exclusive speakie in town at four-bits a throw than in the lowliest dive on Peavine street at two-bits a shot with the house treating drink for drink.”

But perhaps Leaf’s most memorable reporting for the Journal was a series of dispatches he wrote about posing as a hobo and riding the rails through Nevada and Utah, which appeared in late October and early November 1932. In his October 11 column, Leaf explained he would be missing from the pages of the Journals for a while while he undertook an undercover assignment.

“With only the clothes on my back and a few odds and ends in my pockets I shall walk down to the Park street bridge, hop over the fence and approach the fire under the bridge and then for one week or one month I shall live the life of the homeless wanderer, the jobless itinerant, the migratory worker, and be a member of that great shifting army of unemployed,” he wrote. “I shall live their life, eat their food, sleep where they sleep, talk their language . . . my assignment is to bum my way from Reno to Salt Lake City, returning by a different route, starting with the sum total of 50 cents in my pockets, no more, no less.”

He returned to Reno on October 20, a fact reported by the Journal in a front-page story titled, “Leaf to Tell Adventures Of His Trip.” In the short article that carried no byline, the Journal noted that after a 12-day, 1,500-mile “hobo trip” that completed a triangular journey from Reno to Salt Lake City to Las Vegas and back to Reno, “Earl H. ‘Loose’ Leaf,” had completed his assignment “with an exciting and intensely interesting story of life among the homeless wanderers who roam the land, tattered and hungry.” The paper said the first installment of his series about his experiences would begin the next day.

Leaf’s first report about the hobo life appeared on the front page of the October 22, 1932 edition of the Journal. In the story, headlined, “Leaf, As Jobless Wanderer, Tries to Find Shelter in Winnemucca Jail,” Leaf wrote of befriending a handful of tramps under the Park Street Bridge in Reno, who nicknamed his “Slim” because of his very tall and thin appearance, before hitchhiking to Winnemucca. Once there, he panhandled two nickels on a street corner, which he used to buy a loaf of bread. That evening, he had a bread and coffee dinner and then joined another fellow traveler in trying to find shelter for the night at the local jail.

“A light was burning dimly in the jail but there was no answer to our knocks. We huddled up on the doorsteps of the mail and waited for what seemed hours, as the temperature slowly but surely dropped,” he wrote.

“‘Let’s see if there ain’t an open window to the office,’ he said.

“We tested them all, but they were locked. My comrade found a small stick in the grass.

“‘I’ll jimmy that window open,’ he said. ‘ Damned if I’m going to lay out in the cold all night. My lungs went back on me last winter and this front won’t do them no good.’

“With the stick as a jimmy, he pried at the window of the jail office.”

And with that, Leaf ended his column with the words, “—More Tomorrow—“. It was an effective cliffhanger that was sure to make the reader return the next day.

The next day, Leaf revealed that the two were unable to pry open the jail window and spent the night huddled around a campfire to stay warm. The following day, Leaf split from his partner and spent some of his money for a room in a local flophouse, where he was able to finally get some sleep. The next day, while wandering Winnemucca, hoping to trade work for some food, he encountered a familiar face, R.C. Stitser, publisher of the Winnemucca newspaper, who pretended to not know him and helped him get a few hours of work in a hotel kitchen in return for a large breakfast. From there, he hopped onto a freight train and continued east.

The next day, Leaf found himself riding in a freight car with 18 other people (17 men and a woman). He said the group included several young boys and a particular dirty hobo who at one point in the evening took off his shoes. “A terrible odor began to pervade the car,” Leaf wrote. “The whole car reeked. Several moved away from him. I opened the door of the box car wide and hung my face outside in the clean but mighty cold air.”

The man with the smelly feet became angry because the open door was letting in cold from outside. He threatened Leaf, who said he would shut the door as soon as the man put his shoes back on his feet. The man bellowed curses and rushed at Leaf, who slammed a fist into the man’s nose. At this point the story ended and readers were told more tomorrow.

The next part of Leaf’s journey picked up with the reporter and the man with the stinky feet rolling around on the box-car floor. At one point, a Good Samaritan hobo jumps on top of the two in order to remove Leaf’s glasses. The scuffle soon spreads and eventually nearly everyone in the car is trading blows and tussling. The fighting finally stops when the train begins to slow, indicating it had reached Carlin. The combatants quickly quieted down, fearful someone from the railroad might discover their presence and throw them all out of the car. After about half the car disembarked at Carlin and Leaf continued on to Elko.

For the next week, Leaf related the often-sad stories of the various folks he met on the road. He wrote of the challenges posed by “riding the rods,” including being harassed by brakemen and railroad “bulls,” which were thugs hired to remove anyone found riding in a freight car. Many such toughs resorted to beating the hoboes, sometimes with blackjacks, and tossing them from moving trains. As one fellow traveler told Leaf: “If a bull tells me to get off a train, I’ll do it. But if he started slugging and sapping me with no good reason, I’d kill him and it wouldn’t worry my head. What the hell.”

The series ended with a bang: while hitchhiking from Las Vegas back to Reno, the car in which Leaf was riding suffered a tire blowout and the vehicle flipped over. Fortunately neither the driver nor Leaf was injured and the pair was able to right the car and, with help from a passing motorist, fix the tire and any other damage in order to continue north. “We rolled into Reno about 5:30 that night and I was a mighty happy man to be home again after nearly two weeks on the road as a bum and tramp,” he wrote.

“The new hobo as he might well be called wants to work and live as normal men do. He does not want to be a bum, to live hand-to-mouth, starving and undernourished, cold and in rags. He is used to better times but has no other alternative. He cannot sit at home, jobless and idle, waiting for world conditions to improve,” he concluded. “And thus my narrative ends, with the admonition—be charitable to those less fortunate than you.”

In the March 12 issue of the Journal, Leaf revealed that “Washoe Pete” would take over his column in two days but revealed little more—beyond making jokes at “Pete’s” expense, such as claiming he suffered from “slight incapacitation” that day because he’d been tossed out of 38 Reno speakeasies the night before. However, Leaf continued, Pete was in favor of reducing the number of speakeasies in town so there won’t be so many of them to be thrown out of in the future.

The following day, Leaf bid his readers goodbye and explained why it time to depart the Biggest Little City: “For nearly three years (with the exception of three months in San Francisco and Los Angeles) I have lived in Nevada enjoying a fair-sized and assured income, knowing always where my next meal was coming from and where I would sleep each night (with the exception of a two weeks’ bumming trip to Salt Lake and Las Vegas).

And I feel as though I am growing soft like a woman. A life of ease, the hearthside, an assured income, a lack of danger—these things have never appealed to me.

And so every once in a while I have to go off and chase rainbows. That’s all this trip really amounts to.”

With the exception of about a half-dozen dispatches from China written for the Journal over the next four years, Leaf disappeared for good from Reno’s journalism scene. He went on to write and provide photos for a 1948 book, “Isles of Rhythm,” which was devoted to describing the native folk dances of various Caribbean islands including Haitian voodoo, Cuban rumba, and Jamaican obeah as well as to write and/or provide photos for articles in several national magazines including Colliers, Popular Photography and Eye.

By the early 1950s, however, Leaf had reinvented himself as a colorful Los Angeles-based photographer with a goatee/Abe Lincoln-style beard, and hip, casual garb (often wearing a safari jacket and an ascot) who was often described as the Beatnik Photographer. He joined the staff of Teen Magazine, writing a monthly gossip column called “My Fair and Frantic Hollywood,” and was a regular photo contributor to Hot Rod, Movie Play, Movie Time and several others. Additionally, he became a much in demand photographer for various up-and-coming movie stars and musicians. He has been described as Marilyn Monroe’s favorite photographer, who he first met and photographed in 1950. In the 60s, he befriended the Beach Boys, shooting a few cover shots for the band’s albums and even becoming the subject of one of their songs, “Bull Session with the ‘Big Daddy.’”

Leaf also was in-demand as a pin-up photographer. During the 50s and 60s, he photographed dozens of nude, semi-nude and provocatively posed models and actresses. In a later interview, recounted by author Robert Graysmith in his book, “The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock’s Shower,” Leaf said that his interest in shooting pin-up poses began when he was living in New York in the 1940s and he spotted a sign offering nude model classes for amateur photographers. “Then and there I decided to become a photographer,” Leaf said. “I began to hire my own models to come to my house at night. Pretty soon, I was selling some of the figure studies. Then I went as far as to put a few clothes on the girls started with cheesecake. After a while I was earning as much money with my girl pictures as I was at my regular newspaper job.”

Earl Leaf died in Los Angeles on February 5, 1980 at the age of 75.