Ttrue love— like the diamonds that cat burglar William Mason stole — is forever.
The Shaker Heights native spent the 1970s and early ’80s dropping in on everyone from local bigwigs to celebrities, including Robert Goulet and Phyllis Diller (twice), making off with a cool $35 million.
He also stole the heart of Francine Loveman, a socialite who left her industrialist husband for Mason. In January 1985, we profiled the surreal lives of Loveman and Mason, noting one particularly incredible heist that Mason was accused of: $1 million in jewels from “the luxurious Acacia-on-the-Green condominium of Joseph Mandel.” The night of that robbery, Mandel and his wife were eating dinner with their best friends — Francine’s parents! — Milt and Gladys Kravitz.
Later that year, a judge sentenced Mason to five years in prison; the media (including Cleveland Magazine) labeled Loveman a thrill-seeker and offered their relationship considerably less of a run. We were wrong.
“Forgive the pun, but they’re still as tight as thieves more than 30 years later,” says author Lee Gruenfeld, who told the couple’s story in “Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief.” The publicity-shy pair divides its time between New York City and a house in upstate New York where, according to Gruenfeld, “Bill spends his time building furniture. He and Fran also have a business selling jewelry — made from Bakelite, not gold or diamonds.” She is active in the cause of childhood autism, while he is using his “experience” for good: consulting on security issues for several private clients.
We may not have seen the last of Mason. “Bill and I have been talking about writing a second book,” says Gruenfeld, “a novel about a jewel thief who pulls a sensational score in New York City.”
That’s fiction, right?
The Shaker Heights native spent the 1970s and early ’80s dropping in on everyone from local bigwigs to celebrities, including Robert Goulet and Phyllis Diller (twice), making off with a cool $35 million.
He also stole the heart of Francine Loveman, a socialite who left her industrialist husband for Mason. In January 1985, we profiled the surreal lives of Loveman and Mason, noting one particularly incredible heist that Mason was accused of: $1 million in jewels from “the luxurious Acacia-on-the-Green condominium of Joseph Mandel.” The night of that robbery, Mandel and his wife were eating dinner with their best friends — Francine’s parents! — Milt and Gladys Kravitz.
Later that year, a judge sentenced Mason to five years in prison; the media (including Cleveland Magazine) labeled Loveman a thrill-seeker and offered their relationship considerably less of a run. We were wrong.
“Forgive the pun, but they’re still as tight as thieves more than 30 years later,” says author Lee Gruenfeld, who told the couple’s story in “Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief.” The publicity-shy pair divides its time between New York City and a house in upstate New York where, according to Gruenfeld, “Bill spends his time building furniture. He and Fran also have a business selling jewelry — made from Bakelite, not gold or diamonds.” She is active in the cause of childhood autism, while he is using his “experience” for good: consulting on security issues for several private clients.
We may not have seen the last of Mason. “Bill and I have been talking about writing a second book,” says Gruenfeld, “a novel about a jewel thief who pulls a sensational score in New York City.”
That’s fiction, right?
