Category Archives: Paul Coates

Paul V. Coates — Confidential File, Aug. 1, 1959

Posted on August 1, 2025 by lmharnisch

August 1, 1959: In Paul Coates’ weekly letters column, a writer complains about a pet shop that balked on selling her a bobcat. Continue reading →

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Paul V. Coates — Confidential File, July 31, 1959

Posted on July 31, 2025 by lmharnisch

July 31, 1959: Paul Coates has the story of 12-year-old Joe Oliveira and his coverage of the Laurel Canyon fire. Continue reading →

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Paul V. Coates — Confidential File, July 30, 1959

Posted on July 30, 2025 by lmharnisch

July 30, 1959: Paul Coates writes about a certain tangential figure in the Black Dahlia case whose phone number is confused with that of Edd “Kookie” Byrnes. Continue reading →

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Paul V. Coates — Confidential File, July 29, 1959

Posted on July 29, 2025 by lmharnisch

July 29, 1959: Paul Coates writes about a man who has a problem with a wildcat in a eucalyptus tree. Also: A man tells Dear Abby he can’t live without his ex-wife. Continue reading →

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Paul V. Coates — Confidential File, July 28, 1959

Posted on July 28, 2025 by lmharnisch

July 28, 1959: Columnist Paul Coates writes about hospitals turning away patients without treatment if they couldn’t pay and didn’t have proof of insurance. Also stripper Candy Barr on the Sunset Strip and Dear Abby on a woman’s parents who are fighting after 44 years of marriage. Continue reading →

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Paul V. Coates — Confidential File, July 25, 1959

Posted on July 25, 2025 by lmharnisch

July 25,1959: Paul Coates writes about a missionary who returned to the U.S. with leprosy. Continue reading →

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Paul V. Coates — Confidential File, July 24, 1959

Posted on July 24, 2025 by lmharnisch

Paul Coates, July 24, 1959: Tonight Show host Jack Paar says his wife is sexy ‘in a Republican sort of way.’ Continue reading →

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Paul V. Coates — Confidential File, July 23, 1959

Posted on July 23, 2025 by lmharnisch

July 23, 1959: Columnist Paul Coates on trying to interview Simon Rodia about the Watts Towers. Continue reading →

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Feb. 14, 1959: Paul Coates Gets Some Reader Feedback

Posted on February 14, 2019 by lmharnisch

Feb. 14, 1959: It’s Saturday in 1959, and Paul Coates ends the week with some letters, a typical ploy in the days when columnists published six times a week, a punishing schedule. And there is a Parkey Sharkey alert! Also … Continue reading →

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Feb. 13, 1959: Paul Coates — Behind Bars in a Mexican Jail

Posted on February 13, 2019 by lmharnisch

Feb. 13, 1959: Paul Coates takes another look at Americans held in jail in Tijuana. Those who were arrested in a raid on a Rosarito Beach casino were the elite. A man who was being held for running a red … Continue reading →

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Feb. 12, 1959: Paul Coates – When VD Was ‘Cured’

Posted on February 12, 2019 by lmharnisch

Feb. 12, 1959: After World War II, many Americans assumed that penicillin had eliminated venereal disease (STDs to you youngsters). And, no, it was still around. This column originally appeared in the L.A. Mirror in 1959 and was republished on … Continue reading →

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Feb. 6, 1959: Paul Coates — Butch Harris Joins Cub Scouts at Last

Posted on February 7, 2019 by lmharnisch

Feb. 6, 1959: Paul Coates writes a happy ending to the Lewis “Butch” Harris saga. This comes after the Sentinel reported a different outcome. Coates’ column originally appeared in the L.A. Mirror in 1959 and was republished on latimes.com in … Continue reading →

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Feb. 4, 1959: Paul Coates Visits Americans Jailed in Raid on Mexican Casino

Posted on February 5, 2019 by lmharnisch

Feb. 4, 1959: Paul Coates does more reporting on the case of Americans being held in Tijuana after a raid on a gambling casino in Rosarito Beach. The story originally appeared in the L.A. Mirror in 1959 and was republished … Continue reading →

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Feb. 3, 1959: Paul Coates on Americans Held in Raid on Mexican Casino

Posted on February 4, 2019 by lmharnisch

Feb. 3, 1959: Paul Coates could dig into real reporting and in this column he is looking at the case of 20 Americans seized in a raid on a casino and held in an unheated city jail in Tijuana  — … Continue reading →

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Jan. 24, 1959: Law Delays ‘Alfalfa’ Burial

Posted on January 24, 2019 by lmharnisch

Jan. 24, 1959: One of the best parts of doing the blog at latimes.com was having UCLA and Cal State Northridge interns who, among other tasks, transcribed the Paul Coates and Matt Weinstock columns. Sometimes I transcribed them myself (this … Continue reading →

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Jan. 23, 1959: Paul Coates — A Plethora of Ceremonial Plaques

Posted on January 23, 2019 by lmharnisch

Jan. 23, 1959: Paul Coates is all (or mostly) in favor of ceremonial honors. On the jump, Bobbie Long is found strangled with a nylon stocking a few feet off a dirt road that runs off Don Julian Road between … Continue reading →

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Jan. 22, 1959: Paul Coates on Another Claim to ‘The Brave One’

Posted on January 22, 2019 by lmharnisch

Jan. 22, 1959: Dalton Trumo (blacklisted and using the name Robert Rich) wrote the script for “The Brave One,” but there was a claim by the widow of Juan Duval. The previous entry is here. Coates’ column was published in … Continue reading →

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Jan. 21, 1959: Paul Coates on the Porn Trade of the 1950s

Posted on January 21, 2019 by lmharnisch

Jan. 21, 1959: Paul Coates takes a look at the way pornography (and pretty light stuff at that) was peddled in the 1950s, when it was illegal to send such things through the mail. Coates’ column was originally published in … Continue reading →

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Jan. 20,1959: Paul Coates and Fidel Castro

Posted on January 20, 2019 by lmharnisch

Fidel Castro, the bearded boy wonder of Cuba, has been sassing his kindly, benevolent, slightly wealthy Uncle Sam lately. Young Fidel has taken it as a personal insult that a few of our congressmen are suggesting tough measures to let … Continue reading →

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Jan. 19, 1959: Paul Coates Talks to ‘The Head of the Hair Dept.’ at Max Factor

Posted on January 19, 2019 by lmharnisch

Jan. 19, 1959: After Paul Coates column about the man who stole toupees – a new meaning for “hair loss,” he received a call from “the head of the hair department at Max Factor.” (Really).. The column originally in the … Continue reading →

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