Yukon who is who

Wilson “Bill” Mizner (1876 – 1933)

Wilson Mizner was born in Benica, California to father Lancing Bond Mizner, envoy extraordinary to Benjamin Harrison (23rd president of the United States) and minister plenipotentiary to Central America. The family lived in Guatemala for a year.¹⁾ Wilson and brother Addison arrived in Dyea in December 1897. In the spring of 1898, Wilson was a singer, dancer and a piano player in Dawson.²⁾ Mizner put on shows in the Klondike, particularly Uncle Tom's Cabin in which he used a malamute puppy instead of a pack of bloodhounds. He worked as a gold weigher at Swiftwater Bill's Monte Carlo saloon in Dawson and carried home some of the gold. Jack Kearns was a weigher at Nome and said Mizner taught him various tricks like putting syrup on his hair and running his gold-dusty fingers through it.³⁾

There were lots of stories about Wilson Mizner. One was that he was so in love with Nellie Lamore that he held up a fancy store in Dawson wearing a mask and stole all the chocolate for her. He then ran next door and jumped up on stage to do his act. He escaped criminal charges because Nellie swore she was with him the whole time. He teamed up with Tex Rickard in the promotion of fights at the Monte Carlo saloon where [they] tended bar.⁴⁾

Mizner was managing the stage shows and arranging fight cards at the Monte Carlo in the summer of 1987. Prize fighting was a big attraction in Dawson at the time and Mizner worked to make his fights even more attractive. He and Tex Richard set up Australian heavyweight Frank Slavin, “The Sydney Cornstalk,” to fight his close friend and business partner Joe Boyle in a so-called grudge match. They pretended they were angry and went around town insulting each another. The match was sold out at $25 a ticket.⁵⁾ Mizner left Dawson for Nome in 1899.⁶⁾

After he left Alaska, Mizner was a professional gambler in San Francisco and then joined his brother Addison in New York. He became a dilettante, raconteur, and Broadway playwright. His best-known plays were The Deep Purple (1910) and The Greyhound (1912). He was briefly married to the wealthy widow Mary Adelaide Yerkes. He became a gambler on the luxury liners travelling between New York and London before managing the Ran Hotel in New York. He managed several boxers including Stanley Ketchel, the greatest middleweight of his day.⁷⁾

Mizner was convicted in 1919 for running a gambling den and then he was severely beaten before he again joined his brother, this time in Palm Beach, Florida. Their Boca Ratan resort went bankrupt and Wilson returned to California. With backers Jack Warner and Gloria Swanson, he bought into and managed the Brown Derby and wrote screenplays for the early talking movies. He was better known for his witty repartee than his many artistic works. A character in the movie San Francisco was based on Wilson Mizner, portrayed as an idol of low society and the pet of high.⁸⁾