Melvin Purvis

Melvin Purvis
Born	Melvin Horace Purvis, Jr. October 24, 1903(1903-10-24) Timmonsville, South Carolina
Died	February 29, 1960(1960-02-29) (aged 56) Florence, South Carolina
Cause of death	Self-inflicted gunshot (possibly accidental)
Nationality	American
Education	University of South Carolina School of Law
Employer	FBI
Known for	Leading the investigation on the John Dillinger case
Spouse	Marie Rosanne Willcox Purvis
Children	Melvin Horace Purvis III (1940-1986) Alston W. Purvis (b. 1943 ) Christopher Peronneau Purvis (1950-1984)
Parents	Janie Elizabeth Mims (1874-1927) Melvin Horace Purvis, Sr. (1866-1938)

Melvin Horace Purvis, Jr. (October 24, 1903 – February 29, 1960) was an American law enforcement official and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent. He was given the nickname "Little Mel" because of his short stature.^[1] He is noted for leading the manhunts that tracked such outlaws as Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and John Dillinger.

Early life

Purvis was born in Timmonsville, South Carolina to Melvin Horace Purvis, Sr. (1869–1938), a pig farmer, and Janie Elizabeth (née Mims, 1874–1927) as the fifth of twelve siblings.^[2][3]

Career

Purvis received his law degree from the University of South Carolina and had a brief career as a lawyer.^[4] Purvis was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order while attending South Carolina. He joined the FBI in 1927, and headed the Division of Investigation offices in Birmingham, Oklahoma City and Cincinnati. In 1932 he was placed in charge of the Chicago office by Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover. He was a well-educated man, known to be a crack shot.^[5] He captured more public enemies than any other agent in FBI history, a record that still stands.^{[citation needed]}

Purvis led the manhunts that tracked outlaws Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd, and most famously John Dillinger, which ended in Chicago on July 22, 1934. However, after Purvis became a media figure for this feat, Hoover claimed that Purvis had been demoted and that agent Samuel P. Cowley had been put in charge of the Dillinger case.^[6] Cowley was later shot by Baby Face Nelson, and Purvis visited him in hospital shortly before he died. Purvis was praised for his actions.^[7] He reportedly incurred the wrath of Hoover, who had previously supported him, as Purvis sought and achieved publicity for his own role, overshadowing Hoover and the rest of the FBI. In a 2005 book co-authored by Purvis's son Alston, Hoover is portrayed as jealous of the attention given to Purvis after Dillinger was killed.^[8]

At least one of Purvis' official accounts of his exploits was later called into question. Purvis' story of the death of Pretty Boy Floyd indicated that Purvis and his agents had killed him with no assistance from local law enforcement. This was later refuted by Chester Smith, an officer with the East Liverpool, Ohio police (Hoover would later state Smith had shot Floyd first). Officer Smith said that Purvis and his agents never fired until after Purvis had attempted to question Floyd. After Floyd responded with curses, Purvis ordered Agent Herman "Ed" Hollis to shoot Floyd, who was lying wounded on the ground. This claim was discounted later by retired FBI Agent Winfred E. Hopton, who wrote in a 1976 letter to Time that local law enforcement, including Captain Smith weren't even present until after Floyd had died. Of course, this version conflicts with the one from local authorities which has Smith initially wounding Floyd. Neither claim has been clearly proven.

Purvis resigned from the FBI in 1935, and afterward practiced law.^[9] In 1937 he became engaged to actress Janice Jarratt, but they never married.^[10][11][12] He later married Marie Rosanne Willcox, and they had three sons.^[13] Purvis bought radio station WOLH in Florence, South Carolina. During World War II, he served in the Army as a colonel.

In 1936, Purvis published a memoir of his years as an investigator with the Bureau, entitled American Agent. In the 1990s, the writers Curt Gentry and Anthony Summers, who both published biographies of Hoover, assert that the director, who initially supported Purvis, was jealous of his fame after the Dillinger escapade and demoted him. Purvis left the FBI.

Death

On February 29, 1960, while at his home in Florence, Melvin Purvis died from a gunshot wound to the head fired from the pistol given to him by fellow agents when he resigned from the FBI. The FBI investigated his death and declared it a suicide, although the official coroner's report did not label the cause of death as such. A later investigation suggested that Purvis may have shot himself accidentally while trying to extract a tracer bullet jammed in the pistol.^[13] He was 56 years old.

Other media

• Purvis was portrayed by Ben Johnson in the 1973 film Dillinger.
• He was played by Geoffrey Binney, opposite Martin Sheen in the title role of the 1974 TV movie The Story of Pretty Boy Floyd.
• Purvis was portrayed by Dale Robertson in two TV movies: Melvin Purvis, G-Man (1974) and The Kansas City Massacre (1975).
• In the 1991 TV movie Dillinger, he was portrayed by Will Patton.
• Purvis was originally portrayed by Chuck Wagner in the 2002 musical Dillinger, Public Enemy Number One.
• In the 2009 film Public Enemies, Purvis is portrayed by Christian Bale.
• In Kim Newman's 1997 alternate-history novel Back in the USSA, Purvis appears with Eliot Ness as an agent of the Federal Bureau of Ideology who are in pursuit of labor activist Tom Joad.

Documentary film

• G-MAN: The Rise and Fall of Melvin Purvis from SCETV's Carolina Stories documentary series
• Melvin Purvis was portrayed by Scott Brooks in the History Channel documentary on infamous gangsters, Crime Wave: 18 Months of Mayhem (2008).

References

Further reading

• One Account of the Death of Pretty Boy Floyd
• Potter, Claire (1998). War on Crime: Bandits, G-Men, and the Politics of Mass Culture. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-2487-3. 
• Purvis, Alston; and Tresinowski, Alex (2005). The Vendetta: FBI Hero Melvin Purvis's War Against Crime and J. Edgar Hoover's War Against Him. Public Affairs. ISBN 1-58648-301-3. http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=9781586483012. 

• J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets, by Curt Gentry (1991).

• Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, by Anthony Summers, Putnam (1993).

External links

• Melvin Purvis at Find a Grave