Photo: Dick Lane and Helen Wallace in “Sioux City Sue,” 1946. In 1975, while still in college, I did a short series of interviews. There was no real purpose to these, other than they were with people who interested me … Continue reading
Items from the Florentine Gardens – souvenir photos, matchbooks, menus, cocktail napkins, etc. – aren’t particularly rare, but this item is unusual. According to the vendor, this menu is autographed by Errol Flynn and Sophie Tucker (no, they weren’t an … Continue reading
Photo: The Wall Street Journal’s slide show on “How to Dress a Victorian Lady.” Credit: Wall Street Journal. To make sure their bodices are correctly ripped (it’s harder than it looks), the annual convention of the Romance Writers of America … Continue reading
I have procrastinated about looking at Bill James’ “Popular Crime” because, as curious as it may seem, I don’t care much for “true” crime books. Even when they are well done (which is almost never) the subject matter is depressing … Continue reading
Would you pay for $46.95 for a page cut from a magazine? Here’s a vendor who thinks someone will. We’re always looking for photographs by the studio of C.C. Pierce and spotted this item on EBay. But, hullo, what’s this? … Continue reading
Photo: Dick Lane and Helen Wallace in “Sioux City Sue,” 1946. Coming up Wednesday: Biographer James Curtis shares his interviews in L.A. Voices, beginning with Part 1 of a 1975 Q&A with actor Dick Lane.
“Rope” opens in Los Angeles, Sept. 24, 1948. Credit: Los Angeles Times [Update: This is a 1949 photo of Joan Chandler (d. 1979), who appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope.”] Here’s our mystery gal! There’s another photo on the jump!
Photo: Times President Gen. Harrison Gray Otis. Credit: Press Reference Library, 1912 Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, the favorite pinata of Los Angeles historians, is the subject of a new biography by Mike “City of Quartz” Davis, now being serialized in … Continue reading
Photo: New, horse-drawn hearse for sale on EBay, $9,500. Credit: Justin Carriage Works Queen of the Dead—dateline July 18, 2011 • All the silent movie stars are long-gone, now we are down to memorializing their children. Rex Bell, Jr., … Continue reading
Photo: Leesa Jo Shaner An attempt to resolve one of the nation’s most baffling unsolved crimes is quietly unfolding in federal court in Tucson: The mystery of Leesa Jo Shaner, who vanished May 29, 1973, on her way to the … Continue reading
We’ve been rambling about “navy blue ghosts” and otherwise reciting “Facade” at the Daily Mirror HQ after finding this cocktail shaker from Oviatt’s on EBay. Bidding starts at $99.99.
Photo: Mail sent by airplane from the 1912 Aviation Meet at Dominguez Field. Credit: New York Public Library 7|17|2011DEATHSArdis Butler James, 85, co-founder of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum at the University of Nebraska. Margalit Fox in … Continue reading
Photo: The Dodge House. Credit: latimes.com SPOTLIGHT The New York Times’ Michael Kimmelman visits the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. Kimmelman writes: Devised like most true collections from somebody’s crazy obsession, the Mütter dressed up good old ghoulish midway spectacle in … Continue reading
The disappearance and return of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson made 1926 a prolific year for Los Angeles author Louis Adamic (d. 1951), best remembered today for his 1931 book “Dynamite.” Like Morrow Mayo and other writers in H.L. Mencken’s shock … Continue reading
Speaking of CARMAGEDDON, here’s an April 6, 1964, profile by The Times’ Dorothy Townsend of freeway engineers Marilyn Reece, who designed the 405-10 interchange and Carol Schumaker, who designed and 405-605 interchange. It may be a man’s world, but don’t … Continue reading
July 15, 1941: Defense attorney Samuel Rummel (shot to death Dec. 11, 1950) breaks a door and seizes a dictograph wired to a microphone in his office in the William Fox Building, 608 S. Hill. Rummel was defending Deputy Charles … Continue reading
Photograph by Larry Harnisch/LADailyMirror Someone has hung this little figure from an overhead wire at Hill and College streets on the way into downtown. Until I got a good look, I thought it was Boris Badenov – and maybe it … Continue reading
“Bastille Day” by Marion Eisenmann It’s Bastille Day, so I thought I would repost a sketch Marion Eisenmann did a year ago during a gathering in Elysian Park. July 16, 2010: Marion Eisenmann called Sunday and suggested we visit a … Continue reading
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Here’s a better look at the courthouse at Temple and Broadway, where Wednesday’s photo of Broadway was probably taken. In what I call “seismic Darwinism,” the courthouse was demolished after being damaged in the Long Beach quake. The Hall of … Continue reading
Photo: Los Angeles Public Library. Credit: LAPL FEATUREDA celebration will be held at the downtown library on Monday at 9:30 a.m. as the L.A. library system restores Monday service at all branches. Sunday closures are continuing, however. Saturday will be … Continue reading
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