Sydney model Shirley Beiger charged with murder of lover in 1954

It had sex and crime … little wonder 1950s Sydney was fascinated by the trial of model Shirley Beiger, accused of shooting dead her lover outside a popular Sydney nightclub.

Showgirls at Chequers nightclub in Sydney in the 1960s. Picture: News Corp

It wouldn’t have taken long for the crowd that gathered outside Chequers Nightclub on August 9, 1954, to notice the familiar face among them.

As 23-year-old Arthur Griffith lay dying on the footpath outside the Pitt St, Sydney, nightclub, Shirley Beiger stood nearby with her mother Edith. Anyone who paid attention would have recognised the pretty blonde woman as the face that had graced magazine covers and the pages of newspapers for years.

But as the hours ticked over into August 10, two things happened: Griffith died from his gunshot wounds and Beiger, the dead man’s girlfriend, was charged with his murder.

And so began one of the most sensational murder trials in conservative 1950s Sydney.

Sydney model Shirley Beiger was charged over the shooting murder of her boyfriend.

Arthur Barry Griffith was shot dead outside a Sydney nightclub in 1954.

Historian Michael Adams covers the case in a two-part episode called The Model And The Murder Case in his podcast, Forgotten Australia.

“Sex sells,” Adams says.

“So does crime, scandal and violence. This had all four – and tabloid papers ran splashy front pages with plenty of photos. The case was also the gift that kept on giving when sobbing Shirley went to trial and all the sordid details came out in her surreal defence.”

Shirley Patricia Beiger was born in March 1932 to inner-city working class parents Maurice and Edith.

Adams says her childhood would have been one of struggle and she would have witnessed the domestic abuse between her parents that saw her father up on charges while her mother was charged several times with selling illegal alcohol.

Shirley got her modelling break when she was discovered working at the Orchid Bar in David Jones at age 17.

Her career began with a shoot in July 1949 where she posed in a swimsuit to promote the Miss Press Photographer Contest, which she enjoyed so much she joined the June Dally-Watkins School for Deportment to learn all about grooming and posing for the camera.

One of Shirley Beiger’s magazine covers.

A flurry of modelling jobs followed and in 1952 she made the finals of the Miss NSW quest.

“Back then there was no TV, let alone reality TV or Home And Away,” Adams says.

“So being a young magazine cover girl put Shirley close to the top of the small Sydney celebrity pile. She would’ve been known everywhere.”

That same year Shirley turned 21 and moved into a flat in Kellett St, Kings Cross and met Arthur Griffith, the son of a well-known bookmaker. The pair fell in love.

On the evening of August 9, 1954, Arthur told Shirley he was going to see the dentist, but Shirley suspected otherwise and followed him to various locations around Sydney, seeing him enter Chequers Nightclub with another woman.

In her police statement, she said she confronted Arthur inside the nightclub and told him they were done, then her mother drove her to her unit where she gathered some of Arthur’s belongings to return to him.

Back at Chequers, her mother went into the nightclub and brought Arthur out to talk to Shirley who was in a car near the corner of King St.

As Arthur leaned into the passenger side window, a gunshot rang out and he fell back on to the footpath. Arthur had been shot above the eye.

Shirley is said to have cried “I’ve hurt Arthur, I’ve shot him” and was charged with murder later that night.

Although she had Sydney’s No.1 criminal lawyer, Philip Roach, representing her, she was repeatedly denied bail and remained at Long Bay Jail until the trial – where she pleaded not guilty – later that year.

Shirley Beiger arrives at court. She was later acquitted of murder.

“What’s fascinating is that she was acquitted by an all-male jury the prosecutor had worried would be wooed by her beauty,” Adams says.

“Given the coverage, it’s amazing Shirley pulled off such a disappearing act (after the trial). Rumours had her going to England, or living quietly in Melbourne. But they just vanished – even from electoral rolls and immigration records.

“My guess is they changed their names and left the country. But if anyone knows more, I’d love to produce a Forgotten Australia update.”

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LAWYER FOR THE DEFENCE

Philip Norman Roach began practising law in Brisbane in 1921 before moving to NSW in 1925.

Once in Sydney, he practised from his law offices in Castlereagh St in a career that lasted 50 years and during which he defended some of Sydney’s most notorious characters, including underworld figure Kate Leigh, bank robber Darcy Dugan and Dulcie Markham, dubbed the “Angel of Death” after eight of her lovers were shot dead.

In 1954 he assisted counsel on the Shirley Beiger case in which she was acquitted despite strong circumstantial evidence and her own admission of guilt in a handwritten statement.

CHEQUERS PUT ON A SHOW

Opened in the basement of The Strand Arcade on Pitt St in 1951 and later moved to Goulburn St, Chequers was Sydney’s top nightclub and was even voted in the top 10 in the world.

It was owned by Chinese entrepreneurs, brothers Keith and Denis Wong, who attracted some of the biggest names in the entertainment world to perform at Chequers, including Dionne Warwick, Shirley Bassey, Sammy Davis Jr, Liza Minnelli, Peter Allen and Ginger Rogers.

But it operated at a loss, probably due to the high fees the brothers paid their artists. And in August 1970 it closed.

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