The Trials and Tribulations of Dudley Field Malone

Dudley Field Malone was one of the most interesting personalities of the 20th Century. Orator, lawyer, politician, activist and actor, Malone’s legal career included his defense of John Thomas Scopes of “Monkey Trial” fame and Alice Paul and the suffragists who picketed the White House. He also represented sports figures like Gertrude Ederle and Gene Tunney, hobnobbed with celebrities like Charlie Chaplin, appeared regularly in Ed Sullivan’s and Hedda Hopper’s gossip columns, and portrayed Winston Churchill in three Hollywood movies. In 2024, the Broadway musical Suffs commemorated his break with President Wilson over woman suffrage. But Malone’s life also included a Paris divorce mill scandal, three marriages and divorces of his own; financial profligacy, unpaid bills, tax liens and bankruptcy. Malone died in 1950, leaving no assets except a claim for $114.34 in salary owed him. Legal scholars and American historians will be fascinated by this charismatic, and tragic, figure.