“I had an engineering degree and Art knew building materials,” he said. “We had our combined life savings and borrowed from some independent investors who appreciated the wildcat mentality. We started Exley Construction and built cheap houses, then better houses, then office buildings, then the Arroyo Seco Freeway. We flourished beyond my wildest dreams. Now Dream-a-Dreamland, the gentle dreams of millions of people realized on two hundred acres. In a way, it’s a hard one to top.”
Exley smiled. “Ray Dieterling is a visionary,” he said. “Dream-a-Dreamland will give people the chance to live the many worlds he has created through films and animation. The mountain that he’s calling Paul’s World is a perfect example. Paul Dieterling, Ray’s son, died tragically in an avalanche back in the mid-30s. Now there will be a mountain that serves as a benevolent testimony to the boy, a mountain that brings people joy, with a percentage of the revenues earned going to children’s charities. That’s a hard one to top.”
But will he try to top it?
Exley smiled again. “I’m addressing the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the State Legislature next week,” he said. “The subject will be the cost of Southern California mass rapid transit and the best way to link the Southland by freeway. Frankly, I want the job and I’m ready to offer the county an enticing bid.”
And then?
Exley smiled and sighed. “And then there’s all these politico fellows who’ve been pestering me,” he said. “They think I’d be a natural for mayor, governor, senator or whatever, even though I keep teffing them that Fletcher Bowron, Dick Nixon and Earl Warren are friends of mine.”
But is he ruling politics out?
“I rule nothing out,” Preston Exley said. “Setting limitations is against my nature.”
And, as our reporters discovered, his son Edmund, now a detective sergeant with the LAPD’s Hollywood Division, feels the same way. Recently in the news for testifying in a trial related to the “Bloody Christmas” police scandal, Ed Exley sees blue skies ahead– although he plans to keep police work his sole career. Speaking to our correspondent at his family’s Lake Arrowhead cabin, Exley Junior said, “I want nothing other than to be a valuable, ranking detective presented with challenging cases. My father had the Loren Atherton case”–a reference to the 1934 child murderer who claimed six victims, including child star Wee Willie Wennerholm–“and I’d like to be in a position to work cases of that importance. Being in the right place at the right time is important, and I have a deep need to solve things and create order out of chaotic situations, which I believe is a good drive for a detective to have.”
Exley was certainly in the right place at the right time in the fall of 1943, when, the sole survivor of a bayonet attack on his platoon, he single-handedly wiped out three trenches full of Japanese infantry. He was in the right place at the right time for justice when he courageously testified against fellow officers in a massive police brutality scandal. Exley says of the two incidents: “That’s the past, and right now I’m building for my future. I’m getting solid experience working Hollywood Detectives, and my father, Art De Spain and I spend evenings performing mock questionings to help me perfect my interrogation techniques. My father wants the world, but all I want is the most this police department has to offer.”
Preston Exley and Ed Exley survive Thomas, and Marguerite (nee Tibbetts) Exley, the clan’s matriarch, who died of cancer six years ago. Do they feel the loss in their personal lives?
Preston said, “God, yes, every day. They are both irreplaceable.”
On that subject, Edmund was more reflective. “Thomas was Thomas,” he said. “I was seventeen when he died and I don’t think I ever knew him. My mother was different. I knew her, she was kind and brave and strong, and there was something sad about her. I miss her, and I think the woman I marry will probably be like her, only a bit more volatile.”
Two generations for this week’s Profile–two men going places and serving the Southland while they do it.