Griffith J. Griffith

At the entrance to Griffith Park, off Los Feliz Boulevard, stands a 14-foot bronze statue of a proud, portly Victorian gentleman. He is Griffith J. Griffith, who donated 3,015 acres of the former Rancho Los Feliz to Los Angeles in 1896, to be used specifically as a park for the “plain people” of the city. His face, decidedly noble and assured, lords over his “princely gift” to the city, which is no doubt one of L.A.’s greatest public resources. While portraits and photos of Griffith are plentiful, there are hardly any in existence of his wife, Tina — from whom a great part of his fortune and prestige sprang — and none after the year 1903. Because that year, Griffith J. Griffith shot his wife in the face, permanently disfiguring her. This very peculiar L.A. tragedy began half a world away. According to Paul McClure, author of “A Benefactor Tragedy Starring Griffith J. Griffith ,” Griffith Jenkins Griffith was born in South Wales on Jan. 4, 1850, the son of a farmer who also worked for the nearby mines. The eldest of a large, impoverished brood, the young Griffith was taken to America by an uncle when he was still a child. The ambitious, brash young man was educated in Pennsylvania, and then went into the newspaper business. This trade brought him to San Francisco in the 1870s, where he worked the mining beat for the Alta California. Becoming an expert on western mines, he made his — probably much exaggerated — fortune as a consultant to mine owners. In 1882, Griffith, drawn to the wide-open opportunities of boomtown Los Angeles, moved to the City of Angels permanently. In December of that same year, he bought the sprawling rural Rancho Los Feliz — long said to be cursed — from Thomas Bell. Griffith quickly became a well-known figure in Los Angeles, lording over his mountainous rancho astride his horse, overseeing numerous improvements. Griffith attempted to make the rancho, then outside the city limits, into a prosperous ranching operation. According to McClure , he would eventually build a rickety railway to his land and have “6,000 sheep, 50 horses, and 150 dairy cows on the rancho.” “Were you going to make a pen portrait of him you would see a man of somewhat average height in the prime of life, of well-knit, muscular frame,” the Los Angeles Times wrote of Griffith. “Altogether a powerfully built man…Keen, dark eyes rest on you but with such an open, frank look as to inspire confidence, while the clear ringing laugh which invariably accompanies the story he is telling proclaims a man who enjoys every moment of his existence.” Griffith also annoyed many people by forcing himself into SoCal civic life. Wags called him not only a "roly-poly pompous little fellow" with an “exaggerated strut like a turkey gobbler," but a “midget egomaniac” and a braggart. This did not stop the wealthy Louis Mesmer, owner of a large furniture store on Main Street, from introducing Griffith to his daughter Tina. The Mesmers were descendants of the legendary Verdugo family, and therefore aristocracy in rough and tumble Los Angeles. Tina and her sister, Lucy, were also the heiresses to a quarter million- dollar fortune, left to them by family friend Andre Briswalter. Believing Tina to be the heir to the entire Briswalter fortune, Griffith began courting her. They were soon engaged, and announcements for the wedding appeared in all of the local papers. However, ten days before the wedding, Griffith discovered the Tina was only heir to half the Briswalter fortune. He wrote his betrothed a brutal letter, breaking off the engagement. Her Catholic family was appalled and begged Griffith to not disgrace their daughter in this way. He agreed to go through with the marriage, but only on the condition that Tina inherits the entire fortune — and that it be transferred to his name. Griffith claimed that this was not to steal the money, but to ensure that (according to the Times) “after marriage there would be no interference with his wife’s money on the pa