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The title of my post way back on 7/21/08, five months after I launched this blog, was “‘New’ Bill Finger photo 1 of 9.”
 
But there were no subsequent posts unveiling photos 2-9.

Until now.

(Less three I published in Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, plus one I have found since.)

The title of my post way back on 7/21/08, five months after I launched this blog, was “‘New’ Bill Finger photo 1 of 9.”
 
But there were no subsequent posts unveiling photos 2-9.

Until now.

(Less three I published in Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, plus one I have found since.)

On 5/14/13, as Albert Ching of Newsarama interviewed me over the phone, I mentioned that though Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman is out, I feel like I’m still writing the story because I continue to blog about newly uncovered Bill Finger info as I encounter it.

And literally seconds after I said that, this message came in from Europe on Facebook:

Hi. My stepfather just read an article about Bill/Fred Finger and the Batman comics. He was flabbergasted as he knew Fred [Bill’s son, who died in 1992] very well from 1987 on. He discovered the article in his search for Charles Shaheen [the only person who was named in Fred’s settlement of estate, as recounted in my book], hoping to find him alive and kicking. Now he knows better. If you want to contact him, please feel free. His address is [redacted]. Cheers.

I was born in 1954. I work as a drama teacher and actor in Flanders, Belgium.

At the time I met Fred [Finger], I was teaching Swedish language and literature at the University of Ghent and studying Russian.

I had been in a relationship with the same man since 1978. He also met both Fred and Chuck [Charles Shaheen] and even lived with them for three months when he was doing some work at the Bellevue Hospital in New York. We now have been legally married since 2001 and we raise a son together (my stepson who contacted you on Facebook) with the boy’s lesbian mother.

I got into my diaries and this is what I found.

April 1987

I met Fred on April 13 in the Maiden Lane Sauna [Wall Street Sauna] in New York.

The first afternoon, he told me that many of his friends had died, his address book was empty, he was divorced, he had children, his father was Bill Finger and Bill had drawn Batman comics but had not gotten the recognition he deserved, and he—Fred—was HIV+.

A lot to take in on one afternoon.

He lived at 15 Jay Street with his friend Agnes/Angie. It was a former food dealerhouse [sic; Dirk does not remember what he meant by the word, but said it looked like a huge space (loft) with a small bathroom in the middle]. He worked at [a restaurant called] JF Vandam. He had plans to go work in a nouvelle cuisine kosher restaurant in Brooklyn.

He looked drop dead gorgeous. Slim, dark, nice hair, and a full beard. Wore glasses and was quite shy. I fell for him immediately. We saw each other three, maybe four times during my first stay.

He phoned me a month later to say he had developed AIDS and would I please come as soon as possible.

December 1987

When I got back to New York, Fred worked in another restaurant at 73 8th Avenue [name not recorded]. His summer had been terrible—he lost his job, got into debts, was thrown out of the flat by Angie in October, and now lived with Portia, his mother. He had not paid child support in three months.

He had two daughters, one by him (Athena) and the other one by Bonnie (how that came about I never got clear).

Talked about his relationship with Richard (a transvestite), Bonnie (his ex-wife), and Carl (a painter).

I visited his mother who lived in a small flat that was in a bad state in a beautiful apartment block on 16th Street. Half of New York had [once] come to visit, now nobody! [I asked for elaboration and Dirk said that many years ago, Portia had been very popular and that famous people came to visit]

She sat with grandeur in the kitchen, never moved, was small and fat, had long fingernails, and smoked continuously.

She hated Richard and Bonnie and Carl and Angie—so everybody that Fred ever loved. Now she wanted to see me and appraise the material.

“Show me your left ear, darling! Is that a diamond? Take off your glasses, honey! Oh, my, his eyes are pretty, do not you think so, Fred?”

Fred had kept from her that he was HIV+.

April 1988

I was in New York again.

Fred felt better and is fat. He took pills every 4 hours, had an alarm clock. Fred’s T cells were down to 32 [the T cell count for a healthy person seems to be between 500-1,500].

He worked at a bakery for seven dollars an hour for three days and had 85 dollars in food stamps. He baked for the Living Room [a space where AIDS patients got together to have a cup of soup, talk, etc.] and sometimes I took the cakes to the AIDS people although I was actually not allowed.

Met his mother and [his aunt] Irene and cousin Judy and her husband George

We went to lots of shows and benefits and it [was at one of them], The Michael Bennett Tribute, that I met Chuck Shaheen and his lover Richie Salgado for the first time.

New Year’s Eve 1988-89

Fred now lived at 233 Dean Street with Chuck and Richie and Alvin.

They all had AIDS and got [a drug called] AZT, although Richie and Chuck [would] sell it on the black market. (In the years following, I sometimes doubted whether Chuck really had AIDS.)

They lived in a social welfare flat for $950 a month.

Chuck [had been] to be the manager of La Cage aux Folles for six years and went to Las Vegas with it. [Chuck and Richie] were quite well off; Chuck bought Richie a Mercedes for Valentine’s Day.

Afterwards they dealt in antiques, got even richer…then suddenly their house burned down and they had to flee the state [Dirk didn’t know why]. Then somehow Chuck “lost” his passport—I mean they took it away from him [Dirk didn’t know why]. I believe he also went to prison.

Chuck [had] a lot of money hidden in a bank in Zurich, wanted to go to Europe with Richie and Fred to collect the money, rent a house and a small staff. We made plans to see each other this side of the ocean [Europe].

[I asked why, if Chuck had money, did he and Richie live in a welfare flat; his response: Indeed. He had money but not during the years we knew him. Thought he would be able to lay his hands on the Swiss money, but that never happened as far as I know. I asked how he had this money: Rumors: money he had come by in a “strange way”—insurance?]

August-September 1989

(I had gotten back from a six-week course in Russian at MGU [sic; Moscow State University] and met my husband in New York to leave for New England.)

They did not go to Europe; Chuck still did not have a passport, a false one would cost him $25,000. It is a bitter pill he cannot afford it as he has $750,000 in a vault in Vienna that can be opened only with his fingerprints.

Portia died on August 26 [according to the social security office, she died January 2, 1990] and left Fred exhausted. Bonnie became his fresh nightmare (said Chuck). Nagging and guilt and what have you. Fred had a new boyfriend, Ricardo, from Venezuela. They all decide to go to Puerto Rico.

July 1991

Fred, Chuck, and Richie lived at 386 Sackett Street in a nice souterrain. Richie died. Fred looked old. Chuck completely fell for an Irish boy—a nurse—John (it could be Maloney but maybe I am confused). During my stay John gave up his work and came to live with the others.

Fred borrowed some money from Chuck, forgot to pay his bills, and lost his Visa card.

He really had no money anymore.

April 1992

Fred died [in February]. I was in Europe so I could not attend the funeral. [Now, in April] I stayed with Chuck and John in Brooklyn; they had a little money as John sold his house.

In the meantime, the state discovered that Fred Finger took money as Richie Salgado [after he] had died, and they wanted $7,000 dollars from Fred. But since Fred had died, the state wanted it out of the estate. So Bonnie was going to trial [Dirk had no idea what happened as a result]. Chuck still got Fred’s [Batman] royalties as he forged Fred’s signature.

And a common Russian friend goes to Seattle and worked there with Fred’s social security number.

April 1995

I visited Chuck and John. John bought off his life insurance and now they had money to pay off the credit cards.

1997

I heard from Chuck’s neighbor from Brooklyn, John McFadden, that Chuck had paid bail for his lover, drugs, and lawyers. [John also said] that John Maloney’s trust fund and life insurance all went the same way. That Chuck borrowed money from loan sharks and then suddenly one night he left with one bag and left everything. Absolutely everything. And was never heard of again.

Chuck and Fred were never partners or lovers [contrary to what I had been told so contrary to what it therefore states in Bill the Boy Wonder]. They were roommates, that is all.

[Despite the shady things they did to protect themselves from the state], to me they were kind, friendly, hospitable. I was a window to the world. Chuck called us lifelong friends; indeed we saw him through various boyfriends and deaths. He had the impression we had always been there. But of course we realized he had had a completely different way of living before he met us.

I have a weird feeling about this drifter [Jesse Maloney, as explained in the author’s note of Bill the Boy Wonder]. He could be the boy that Chuck got out of jail in New York.

On the other hand John [Chuck’s partner, whose last name Dirk thought might be Maloney] had a twin brother. I thought he was called Jess? But I am not sure…

Lyn was Bill Finger’s companion in the 1960s and his second wife from 1968 to 1971. She was unknown to the comics world before I discovered her.

I interviewed her for Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman and am now posting many of those previously unpublished interviews. 

Part 1.

6/25/06

[first few words cut off but she was saying that she told her son Andrew] that you were going to give Bill the credit that he never got and deserved and Andy said that was great, ‘cause Bill was wonderful to my children.

When did you and Bill marry?

We married quite late, actually. We were together for, I don’t know, 13 years and then we married in 1968.

In Great Neck?

Yes. Then I came out here because of my son and Bill and I got divorced. But we were on the phone all the time and I feel that had he lived, we would’ve gotten together again.

When did you move out there and get divorced?

I moved out in ‘71 and that’s when I got divorced. He had a lot of problem about my moving out. I don’t think you need to know about that.

After you divorced, did he move back into Manhattan?

Yes.

[asked about the article Lyn’s daughter Eve mentioned, she’ll send]

Did you know [Bill’s son] Freddie?

Yes I did. Freddie when he was little used to come out and visit in Roslyn. I had a house in Roslyn, Long Island. That’s where Bill moved when we were married. He was a sort of disturbed young boy.

His wife, I never met her, but I understand she was obese. Bill was rather short and slim and she had a lot of gay friends. I think they may have influenced Fred quite a bit. Bill was pretty upset about that. Bill had faults. He was not too good on the alimony. He was not too good with his deadlines. But he was the kindest man in the world, really. It just beset (?) by his own certain weaknesses. When I first met him and he came out to the house with a whole bunch of comic books, my kids went crazy. He had the early, not the Batman, the ones before that that he was writing. I forget the publisher but the Green Lantern. Bill had first editions that he was selling very happily for five or ten dollars and feeling he was making quite a profit. They probably sell for a couple thousand now.

Some of them would sell for five figures, if they’re in good condition.

Oh my god.

They’re very valuable. You know what else would go for a lot of money? Any memento from the Golden Age. So if Bill had any notes, I know that a lot of that stuff was thrown away, but all that stuff is highly collectible now.

Oh my god. I don’t have any of that.

Do you happen to remember Fred’s middle name?

His real name, his first name was Milton, and he hated that. He changed it to William. And everybody knew him by Bill.

Oh, you’re talking about Bill?

Whose middle name?

Freddie’s.

No, I don’t know.

And Bill’s real first name was Milton?

Yes, but don’t put that in. He didn’t like it. [she later gave permission]

So he was born as Milton William Finger?

No, he just changed it to William. I don’t know whether William was his middle name or he just changed it to William.

As long as anyone knew him, he was Bill.

Yes.

Did he have a middle name?

I don’t know.

[said I’m hoping to find some of his Freddie’s friends]

You haven’t found out where he is?

Well, he’s deceased. He passed away in the late ‘90s.

He died?

Yeah, he died.

Oh my lord. I knew nothing about him after I came out to California. … Was he married?

No, I believe he was gay and I heard he died of AIDS.

[asked if she might have any documents that would show Bill’s middle name]

No. If he had one. I didn’t have a middle name. I don’t think Bill did. We didn’t give middle names in those days. Maybe Freddie had one, I don’t know.

Bill was not in WWII?

No, he wasn’t.

Did he not get drafted?

I guess he didn’t. He didn’t get drafted. He had some problems, maybe some problems, I don’t know what it was. He never talked about it. One thing I wanted to tell you about. Bill and I were on the phone a lot in the years before he died and I was out here. One day I called him and he didn’t answer. I just had a feeling to call him late at night and there was no answer. I thought that’s very strange because he’s always in late at night. So next morning I phoned his friend Charlie who lived in the same building as Bill in New York. And I said take a look in at Bill, see if he’s okay, ‘cause I called last night, he wasn’t there. So Charlie looked in and a little while later he called me back. He said oh my god, you must be psychic, Bill is dead. He had died in his sleep on the couch sometime that night. That was quite amazing and I cried quite a bit.

So Charlie was the one who found him?

Yes. They brought up the manager of the building. My son was having operations and this was his third one that was coming up and I couldn’t go in for anything. He was very very sick, he almost died, so I had to stay with him. I don’t know what happened. His wife called me before this happened.

You mean his ex-wife Portia?

His ex-wife called me and she said that…wait, I may be getting mixed up here. I am getting mixed up. This was before I moved out to California. She was very mean. She called me about how sick Bill—she went to see him, he was sick, he had had something with his heart. I said I didn’t want to hear this, and so she said goodbye, and of course I visited him and he stayed with me when he recuperated, in Roslyn. He was alright but he had had a heart problem before.

You mean you came back from California to visit him?

No, this was before I left for California.

So you divorced and then you moved? You didn’t move first?

No, I moved first. We were in the process of getting the divorce and then I got the papers out here.

Then after ‘71—

We were in touch all the time.

Did you see him after that?

No.

He never came out to visit?

No. Well, he had a kind of reluctance to travel. He had a kind of anxiety about traveling.

I’ve been told that he didn’t drive.

Yeah, he didn’t drive.

Why?

I don't know. He just never got a license and he never drove. He never had a car.

How did he get around in the suburbs, like when he lived in Great Neck?

Well, he took the train into work, which was walking distance from where I lived. Then I drove him around, everywhere.

And it never came up why he didn’t want to drive?

Well, no. (laughs) I think I did tell him to get driving lessons a couple times. And he said I will, I will, I will. And he didn’t.

His reluctance to travel, what did you think—

Some anxiety about it.

You mean like getting on a plane?

Yeah. Leaving his familiar spaces.

Did you ever talk to him about his Batman work and what he thought of his fans? Did he know that he had fans?

No, he never thought of that at all. Not at all. He was very humble, very unassuming. He was just doing comics. He said “I’m a hack writer.”

So he wasn’t proud of his work?

Well, yes he was. He thought he did good work. But he said “I’m a hack writer.”
 
Did he have aspirations that he was working toward?

No. Well, he may have. I don’t remember that.

He was just content to continue writing comics and not try something else?

Yeah. Well, he and Charlie wrote a movie and they did some television scripts, so he did something more.

Did you read his work before he sent it to the publisher?

Sometimes.

And you gave him suggestions?

Sometimes.

What did he like to do for fun?

He loved theater, which we went to. Ballet we both loved. He loved classical movie and he had a very complicated [stereo] setup that I wasn’t allowed to touch.

Was that in his workspace?

Yeah, and then it was up in my house. Actually, when he moved up, he didn’t move to Roslyn. He stayed there quite a bit. But he moved up to my Great Neck apartment. I had sold the house in Roslyn in 1964. And I was in an apartment in Great Neck.

So he never lived in Roslyn? He just visited.

Yes.

And then he moved to Great Neck—

When he moved from New York he moved to Great Neck.

Did you have wedding photos?

No, we got married by a justice of the peace in Great Neck. We had no photos at all. We weren’t camera people. What he did for fun is we traveled, locally. We didn’t go abroad. We went to the Hamptons, we went to Cape Cod, we went to Maine.

Always by car?

Yes.

He never left the Northeast his whole life?

No, he never did. [I later found out that at least once he made it at least as far as Texas]

Part 3.

Twice in back-to-back columns, “Comic Book Legends Revealed” at Comic Book Resources covered revelations that came out of Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman. 

Part 1.

This is an interview with Dean Badolato, who was friends with Bill Finger’s first wife Portia and their son, Fred, for twenty years.

What was Portia’s opinion about Batman?

Portia respected all serious and legit art and artists. As [for] Batman, I know she was amused at the huge culture that it created. She probably thought it was pretty lightweight compared to the serious literature she enjoyed (she was an avid reader). Gore Vidal and Truman Capote are two authors she admired. She really loved Vidal’s Burr. She also read Mary Rennault’s series of books about ancient Greece like The Bull from the Sea.  

Did Portia tell you any stories about Bill’s work on Batman?

I don’t recall anything too specific about Bill and his work on Batman.

Did you spend any time with Fred? If so, what was he like?

Fred returned from Oregon shortly after the explosion of Mount St. Helen’s. He had become quite a good upcoming nouveau chef. With wife Bonnie, he had opened and run a restaurant, I believe near Portland. He had sired a child, Athena, with Bonnie; at that time, I am not sure if Bonnie and Fred had split up yet. But their marriage did not last and Freddie was interested in opening a new restaurant in New York.

He worked at a couple of high-end restaurants as chef and we sampled his work on several occasions. He was really talented and would have competed well, I believe, with the most successful of today’s chefs. Not surprising since Portia was herself a great home cooker and we often were treated to suppers at Portia’s with fantastic, simple but excellent cuisine. She turned me on to really dark strong French roasted coffee! Also, Freddie and Portia would enjoy seeing us perform when we were lucky enough to be appearing in shows. Fred was a great guy who loved his family; a gentle kind of guy and quite hardworking.

Portia had friends in the gay community and Fred was gay himself. Which came first and do you think one affected the other?

Can’t really say which came first. Probably both evolved at the same time.  

How did Portia respond to Fred’s homosexuality?

This is a really difficult one to answer. I believe Portia really wanted the very best for Fred in terms of having a loving, productive family life with the usual components of mom, dad, kids, etc. I think she felt he might have been able to have that kind of life, but at the same time she may have also realized that Freddie was living a gay life and actually seemed to be quite happy. There is a real paradox of thought here because Portia was a very liberal and progressive-thinking human. She also deeply believed in psychology and psychiatry and had a very important therapist in her own life. Despite this fact, I think she felt with a lot of hard work, Fred might have been successful in living a more conventional straight life. I know nevertheless that Portia loved and adored Fred, straight or gay, very much.

How did you find out that Bill died? If you were around Portia at that time, what was her reaction to Bill’s death?

This is a bit eerie: I hardly remember Bill’s passing because Portia barely mentioned it. In 1974 [the year Bill died], I was touring with the DC ballet, but I know she had no service. Honestly, I can say she never really felt good about the man (he had done some really crummy things to her friends) and I believe she felt that he was less than an ideal dad to Fred.

What happened with Portia and Fred after Bill died in 1974?

As far as I know, Fred and Portia’s life did not change much at all after Bill’s death.

How did Fred come to get some kind of royalty from DC Comics?

I’m pretty sure that when Fred returned from the west coast after Mount St. Helen’s blew, Portia urged him to go to DC Comics and let them know who he was and that he deserved royalties. I remember Portia saying that they had given a small token payment of about $500 but that was it. I never heard of any other payments going to the family.

What did Portia think Bill’s legacy should be?

Honestly, Portia never spoke of Bill in regards to a legacy. She always assumed that the truth would probably never be known. But she did know that he was indeed the real creator of the character. I’m telling you she was really, really angry at Bill for things he did.

Are you still in touch with anyone else who knew Bill or Portia?

I am in touch with Portia’s very, very, very favorite and dear friend, Shirley Hendrick. Shirley is well into her 90s and in an assisted living situation. My brother and I [recently performed] a dance concert for her and the other residents. Shirley was a brilliant oil painter and fast friends with Portia and family. Shirley has two sons, Vern and Gregory, who also knew Fred and the family. The two families lived close to each other in Manhattan and vacationed in the same Pocono area in the summers.

What do you do for a living?

I am a professional director/choreographer/performer, a lifelong career.

Have you seen any of the Batman movies?

As a kid, I followed Batman, like all the other kids. I’ve not seen the recent movies. At the ripe old age of 60, that stuff is quite honestly old hat for my taste. The stuff I saw Heath Ledger into when he played the Joker made me really, really sad. They went way too far into darkness for my tastes. I have a feeling Batman was a lot better in its earlier incarnations than today’s. I’m so sick of the massive violence in almost all the current cinema ventures today. We have enough violence in our real neighborhoods.

If you have seen my book, what was your reaction to it?

I haven’t read the book yet; looking forward to. Your trailer looks really good.

Anything else you’d like to share about the Fingers?

It was an honor and a gift to be a part of the Fingers’ lives. Portia was an incredible teller of tales and an educator of life’s lessons like no one else. She was full of love of life and art and joy and beauty. It was heartbreaking to see her and Fred struggle throughout their lives to make ends meet when they legitimately were deserving of so much credit and financial reward for the contributions to America’s (and the world’s, for that matter) popular culture that Batman made and continues to make to this day.

Thank you, Marc Tyler Nobleman, for caring enough to share with the world this most interesting and unusual story.

In August 2012, after I’d appeared on NPR for Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, I received the following (excerpted) message on Google+ from a man named Dean Badolato:

I was a very close personal friend of Bill's wife Portia Finger and their son Freddie. I knew them from 1970 until they both passed around 1990. I knew through Portia her husband's involvement with Batman but many others neither understood nor believed her story. I am actually quite moved that the truth is out and although the Finger family is no longer with us to share this event, it is still wonderful that justice will lie with the written word. I am so proud to know that someone cared enough to write the truth!