{{Short description|Australian prostitute}} {{EngvarB|date=December 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2017}} {{Infobox person | name = <!-- use common name/article title --> | image = File:MARKHAM-Dulcie Truth-Newspaper-Brisbane-Australia 19371226.jpg | caption = Photograph of Markham, {{c.|13 May 1931}} | birth_name = Dulcie May Markham | birth_date = {{Birth date|1914|02|27|df=y}} | birth_place = Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia | death_date = {{Death date and age|1976|04|20|1914|02|27|df=y}} | death_place = Bondi, Sydney, Australia | burial_place = Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park | other_names = The Angel of Death<br>The Black Widow<br>Pretty Dulcie<br>Bad Luck Doll<br>The One-Way Ticket | occupation = Prostitute, underworld figure | years_active = 1929–1972 | known_for = | notable_works = }}
'''Dulcie May Markham''' (27 February 1914 – 20 April 1976) was a prominent Sydney prostitute and associate of gangland figures in Sydney during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. She was later on closely involved with the razor gang milieu of that era of organised crime within that city. During her criminal career, she had amassed 100 convictions in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia for prostitution, vagrancy, consorting, assaulting police and the public, keeping a brothel, drunkenness, and drunk driving, and was sent to prison on numerous occasions.<ref>L.Writer, ''Razor'' . Chapter 22: ''Pretty Dulcie.'' Pan Macmillan, Australia</ref> Markham was known in the media as ''The Angel of Death'', ''The Black Widow'',<ref name=Smiths1948>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article234628438 |title=Death walks with the "Black Widow" |newspaper=Smith's Weekly |volume=XXX |issue=23 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=7 August 1948 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=1 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> ''Pretty Dulcie'', ''Australia's most beautiful bad woman'',<ref name=Truth1937 /> ''Bad Luck Doll'', and ''The One-Way Ticket''.<ref name=ABC2023>{{cite news |last1=CALLANAN |first1=Tim |title=Trial briefs released after 75 years offer a glimpse into the criminal underbelly of Sydney and Melbourne |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-01/underworld-trial-briefs-released-after-75-years/101753914 |access-date=1 January 2023 |agency=Australian Broadcasting Corporation |date=1 January 2023}}</ref>
Markham had been described variously as 'beautiful platinum blonde', 'innocent face and baby-blue eyes', and 'ravishing figure',<ref name=Mirror1944 /> and 'tall, curvaceous, slim-ankled, creamy complexioned... glamor girl of the demi-monde, attractive even to a husky voice'.<ref name=Truth1944>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article168756431 |title=Girl's amazing life in underworld |newspaper=Truth |issue=2818 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=9 January 1944 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=28 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
''The Daily Mirror'', a former Sydney newspaper, summed up her career in crime thus: "Dulcie Markham saw more violence and death than any other woman in Australia's history".<ref>Bill Jenkings, "Dulcie Markham Obituary", ''Daily Mirror'' (21 April 1976).</ref>
==Early life==
Dulcie May Markham was born in the inner city Sydney suburb of Surry Hills on 27 February 1914 to John Markham and Florence Millicent née Parker.<ref>NSW BDM</ref>
She became one of Australia's most notorious prostitute and underworld figures. She became a prostitute when she was only aged 15<ref name=Smiths1948 /> and Sydney's most extravagant gangster's moll by the time she was age 18. She was attracted to, and associated with, many major criminals of the era.
==Notable criminal liaisons==
On 13 May 1931, in William Street, Sydney, stallkeeper Alfred Dillon and 21-year-old gunman Cecil "Scotty" McCormack came to blows over the attentions of Markham and in the resultant melee, Dillon stabbed McCormack to death.<ref>Morton and Lobez, 2007:96.</ref> She was present at the time.<ref name=Tele1940 /> Markham and McCormack were planning to marry.<ref name=Smiths1948 />
Her first marriage was to a sideshow worker and small-time mobster Frank Bowen in Brisbane on 4 March 1936.<ref>Qld BDM</ref> Two months later, aged 21, Markham (as Bowen) was in court accused of falsifying a telegram on behalf of her new husband.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article182338860 |title=Girl on charge of sending illegal telegram |newspaper=The Telegraph (Brisbane) |location=Queensland, Australia |date=22 May 1936 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=2 (City final last minute news) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205448068 |title=The mysterious Mr. LEWIS |newspaper=Truth |issue=1887 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=24 May 1936 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=23 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
By 1936, Markham was involved with Guido Caletti, another notorious Sydney gunman, the then-husband of Nellie Cameron, another prominent Sydney sex worker of that period.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17630699 |title=Death of Guido CALLETTI |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=31,733 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=14 September 1939 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=7 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Caletti was shot dead in August 1939 in Sydney at a party he attended with Markham.<ref name=Mail1952>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55746505 |title=Had enough, says Dulcie. Dogged by curse of violent death |newspaper=The Mail (Adelaide) |volume=41 |issue=2,081 |location=South Australia |date=26 April 1952 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref name=Smiths1948 /> Reportedly, Markham was grief-stricken at his funeral.<ref>Morton and Lobez, 2007: 156</ref><ref name=Mail1952 />
By December 1937, Markham had shifted to Melbourne and now had gunman Arthur Taplin as her pimp and lover. Taplin was subsequently shot dead later that year.<ref name=Truth1937>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article206284119 |title=Police seek mystery blonde. May be able to throw light on killing. Well known in Brisbane |newspaper=Truth |issue=1970 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=26 December 1937 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=7 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
By mid-1940, the 24-year-old 'prettiest and most notorious woman in the Australian underworld' was romantically involved with 26-year-old Fred Erick James 'Paddles' Anderson, and once divorced, was going to marry him (being still married to Bowen); where she was also nicknamed the 'Hoodoo Girl' given of three previous lovers, one had been stabbed, and two shot.<ref name=Tele1940>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article247542383 |title=Hoodoo Girl's 3 lovers killed |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) |volume=I |issue=36 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=21 July 1940 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> In the same year her first husband, Frank Bowen, was shot and killed in Kings Cross.<ref name=Truth1944 />{{efn|No newspaper article for 1940 has been located about the shooting of Frank Bowen; only mentioned without detail in articles of later years.}}
In 1943, Markham relocated to Queensland's Gold Coast to take advantage of the influx of American GIs. When picked up for vagrancy by local police,<ref name=Mirror1944>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article75938792 |title=Perth knew lovely blonde whose husband & lovers were murdered |newspaper=Mirror |volume=22 |issue=1132 |location=Western Australia |date=22 January 1944 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=1 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> 'Pretty Dulcie' protested that she lived with her current ''de facto'' husband, taxi-driver (J)ames Arthur Williams, and that while he gave her money and groceries, she was not involved in the local sex industry at that time, and was not aware of Williams' involvement in the sly-grog or bootleg alcohol distribution networks that flouted wartime beer and spirits rationing mandates.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article169360934 |title=Notorious woman of underworld blamed for man's downfall |newspaper=Truth |issue=2895 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=15 July 1945 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=35 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> She also used the pseudonyms and aliases: "Dulcie Williams", "Dulcie Bowen", "Tosca de Marquis", "Mary Eugene", and "Tosca de Merene" during that period.<ref>Vince Kelly. ''Rugged Angel'' (Angus & Robertson, 1961).</ref><ref>Morton and Lobez, 2007:106.</ref><ref name=Mirror1944 /> In September 1945, her then-boyfriend and leading Melbourne criminal Leslie Walkerden, was shot dead in Richmond, Victoria.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article963888 |title=Killed in shooting at Richmond |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=30,901 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=13 September 1945 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
In 1947 aged 30, Markham was accused and stood trial for conspiracy to murder Valma Hull,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article79611441 |title='Angel Of Death' Charged |newspaper=The Daily News |volume=LXV |issue=22,568 |location=Western Australia |date=9 August 1947 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=7 (Late sports) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49324266 |title=Woman charged on murder plot |newspaper=The Courier-Mail |issue=3343 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=12 August 1947 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> the wife of Keith Kitchener Hull, who had shot and killed another Sydney gangland figure, Donald "The Duck" Day, in January 1945.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17943455 |title=Self-defence plea hint. DAY murder charge |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=33,418 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=31 January 1945 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Markham and Edwin Martin, her current liaison, had visited a boarding house owned by Mrs Hull and had demanded to see her. Charges were later dropped when another pair of local gunmen, Charles Martin and George Barrett, were charged with an attack on Hull, but also acquitted a month later.<ref>Morton and Lobez, 2007: 128</ref><ref name=ABC2023 />
On 25 September 1951, Markham was shot in the hip at a wild party that turned violent in St Kilda, Victoria. Her then-boyfriend, and ex-boxer, Gavan Thomas Walsh was shot and killed at the same party.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article216471737 |title=Dulcie MARKHAM denies 2 men did shooting |newspaper=Brisbane Telegraph |location=Queensland, Australia |date=21 November 1951 |access-date=1 January 2023 |page=16 (Last race) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Three months later, while still recovering from the shooting, she married Leonard "Redda" Lewis, who was later shot in Melbourne on 22 April 1952. They didn't live together again and were later divorced.
Markham faced Central Police Court for soliciting one final time in 1957 before retiring from prostitution. In January 1959, Markham stood before a special Federal Court on a charge of not having filed a tax return for 1957. She was found guilty and fined £50 with £1 costs.
==Later years==
Markham married Martin Rooney in 1972 in Sydney (according to her death certificate), and gave up her criminal career. After this period, little more is known about Markham's subsequent life, until her death in a house fire at her home at 12 Moore Street, Bondi on 20 April 1976. Markham had outlived most of her criminal contemporaries from Sydney's tempestuous razor gang era. Markham's funeral was held at St Patrick's Catholic Church, Bondi and the eulogy was given by Detective Frank "Bumper" Farrell. She was cremated at Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park.<ref>"Dulcie May Rooney" death Notice, ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (22 April 1976).</ref>
In 2009, Markham was one of the figures from that era featured in an exhibition about that era at Sydney's Justice and Police Museum, entitled "Femmes Fatales: The Female Criminal."<ref>{{cite web|title=Lure of the Bad Girl|website= ABC News|date= 17 March 2009|url=http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2009/03/17/2518406.htm}}</ref>
==Notes== {{notes}}
==See also==
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==Further reading==
* Blaikie, George. ''Wild Women of Sydney.'' Rigby Australia, 1980. ({{ISBN|0 7270 1394 7}}) * Kelly, Vince. ''Rugged Angel: The Amazing Career of Policewoman Lillian Armfield''. Angus & Robertson, 1961. * Lipson, Norm and Tony Barnao. ''As Crime Goes By...'' Ironbark Press, 1992. ({{ISBN|1 875471 14 6}}). * Morton, James and Susannah Lobez. ''Gangland Australia''. Melbourne: Victory Books, 2007. ({{ISBN|9780522857375}}) * Writer, Larry. ''Razor.'' Pan Macmillan Australia, 2001. ({{ISBN|0 7329 1074 9}})
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Markham, Dulcie}} Category:1914 births Category:1976 deaths Category:Australian female gangsters Category:Australian gangsters Category:Australian female prostitutes Category:People from Sydney Category:Deaths from fire Category:Organised crime in Sydney