page_title: Frank Tinney
section_title: Affair with Imogene Wilson
hierarchical_section_title: Frank Tinney / Personal life / Affair with Imogene Wilson
caption_attribution_description: English: Actress Imogene Wilson, aka Mary Nolan
context_page_description: Frank Aloysius Robert Tinney was an American blackface comedian and actor.
  Tinney achieved considerable success in vaudeville and on Broadway in the early 20th century. Comedian Joe Cook considered Tinney "the greatest natural comic ever developed in America." Tinney's career and marriage were ruined after he was accused of beating his mistress, Ziegfeld girl Imogene "Bubbles" Wilson in May 1924. Although he was never formally charged, the ensuing publicity ruined his reputation.
  Tinney suffered a number of health problems after the scandal and eventually had a nervous breakdown. He never regained his health and died in November 1940.
context_section_description: On the night of May 29, 1924, Tinney was arrested at his home in Baldwin, Long Island and later transferred to Manhattan to face charges of brutally assaulting Ziegfeld Follies dancer Imogene Wilson. Earlier, Wilson had appeared before New York City Magistrate Thomas McAndrews covered in bruises, claiming Tinney had attacked her after discovering her alone in her apartment with a newspaper reporter. Despite the physical evidence, a month later a grand jury refused to indict Tinney, apparently agreeing with his lawyer’s assessment that the incident was nothing more than a publicity stunt by Wilson.
  Davenport filed for divorce on August 6, 1924, the same day Tinney sailed for England and some hours after an early morning incident in which he destroyed the camera of a press photographer attempting to take a picture of Tinney and Wilson as they were leaving a New York night spot. Wilson later had to be escorted off Tinney's passenger ship after ignoring the captain’s final All Ashore Who’s Going Ashore warning. She eventually followed Tinney to London, where the two resumed their abusive affair until Wilson was lured away with an offer to perform in German motion pictures. In 1941, Wilson described her affair with Tinney, that she said began when she was age 14 as a "nonsensical mixture of fights and laughs, and half and half."
caption: Imogene Wilson in The Delineator (vol. 101, 1922)
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