The year 1920 was a pivotal one for the Lemp family in St. Louis, and not just because of the enforcement of Prohibition. One hundred years ago this week, the front page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch proclaimed that Elsa Lemp Wright — then part of a local beer dynasty that had long rivaled Anheuser-Busch — had taken her own life. “This is the Lemp family for you,” her brother William Lemp Jr. said at the scene of her death. But was that really what happened? Local filmmaker Franki Cambeletta explores this question in his soon-to-be-released documentary from Shift Films, “Lemp’s Last Wright.” In this segment, host Sarah Fenske talks with Cambeletta about the project, which represents the culmination of many years of interest and research into Lemp Wright’s life.
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