Chester Gillette

Chester Ellsworth Gillette (August 9, 1883 – March 30, 1908), an American convicted murderer, became the basis for the fictional character Clyde Griffiths in the Theodore Dreiser novel, An American Tragedy, which in turn was the basis of the 1931 film An American Tragedy and of the 1951 Academy Award-winning film A Place in the Sun.

Gillette was born in Montana, but spent part of his childhood in Spokane, Washington. His parents were financially comfortable, but deeply religious, and eventually renounced material wealth to join the Salvation Army. The family traveled around the United States West Coast and to Hawaii during his adolescence. Chester never took to the religious aspects of his upbringing. He attended Oberlin College's preparatory school on the generosity of a wealthy uncle, but left after two years, in 1903. After leaving school, he worked at odd jobs until 1905, when he took a position at an uncle's skirt factory in Cortland, New York.

At the factory Gillette met Grace Brown, another employee. Gillette and Brown soon began a sexual relationship, with Brown assuming Gillette would marry her. In the spring of 1906, Brown revealed that she was pregnant. She continued to pressure Gillette to marry her, often writing him pleading letters. Brown then returned to her parents' home for a time, but returned to Cortland when she discovered that Gillette had been courting other girls. One popular tale featured a Miss Harriet Benedict, a wealthy acquaintance of Gillette who the newspapers later speculated was the "other woman" for whom Chester had left Grace. Harriet heatedly denied this, even going so far as to issue a formal press release proclaiming: "I have never been engaged to Chester E. Gillette ... our acquaintance was of ... a limited duration and that not a word or suggestion was ever made between us [about an engagement]."

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