November 20, 1941: California Prepares to Execute Juanita ‘The Duchess’ Spinelli

Posted on November 20, 2025 by lmharnisch

Nov. 20, 1941, Juanita Spinelli
November 20, 1941: California prepares to execute Juanita “The Duchess” Spinelli at San Quentin. Spinelli, her boyfriend Mike Simeone, Gordon Hawkins and Albert Ives were convicted of drugging and drowning Robert Sherrard to keep him from informing on them about another killing.

Spinelli was the first woman to be legally executed in California. She was followed by Louise Peete (1946), Barbara Graham (1955) and Elizabeth “Ma” Duncan (1962). A Mexican woman usually identified as Juanita was lynched in Downieville, Calif., in 1851 for killing a man named Jack Cannon, who is variously described as Scottish or Australian.

Jimmie Fidler says: Lucille Ball left by plane yesterday to join hubby Desi Arnaz in New York, then to Cuba for Christmas.

Also on the jump: The proper headwear for working on an old car – especially if your name is Goober.

Continue reading →

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November 20, 1907: Police Capture Streetcar Bandits

Posted on November 20, 2025 by lmharnisch


Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

November 20, 1907
Los Angeles

Police battling the current crime wave say they have arrested two men who staged daring holdups on the Ascot Park and Eastlake streetcars, robbing the motormen and conductors as the cars reached the ends of their routes. These holdups had so infuriated local officials that Chief Kern armed bicycle officers with shotguns and ordered mounted policemen to resume patrolling the city.

In each case, robbers waited at the end of a streetcar route, when the trolley was empty except for the motorman and conductor, overpowered the men and robbed them. The bandits only took money or guns. Continue reading →

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November 19, 1960: Gene Autry a Contender in American League Expansion Team

Posted on November 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 19, 1960: Sports cover

Nov. 19, 1960: Hank Greenberg, former baseball star who was part owner of the Chicago White Sox, was out as the potential bidder for the American League baseball team hoping to start play in Los Angeles in 1961. So who was in?

The Times reported that several people were talking about taking over, including Gene Autry, the former cowboy star described by the paper as a “television tycoon.”

Autry got into the ownership sweepstakes only after talking to Greenberg about carrying the new baseball team’s games on Autry’s radio station, KMPC. Dodger owner Walter O’Malley had moved his team’s games from KMPC to KFI. Now Autry was in the mix as a potential owner.

Continue reading →

Posted in Dodgers, Downtown, Sports | Comments Off on November 19, 1960: Gene Autry a Contender in American League Expansion Team

November 19, 1959: Matt Weinstock

Posted on November 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

Cross Your Fingers

Matt WeinstockWell, today’s the day.  If we get past it we’re in.  Of course, no one is sure for what or for how long.

Today, according to Kenneth D. Wilkins of Manhattan Beach, a momentous event in world history will occur.  He doesn’t know what.

Wilkins bases his theory on a careful study of the Great Pyramid in Egypt.  Pyramidologists, he told reporter James Hubbart, believe the mathematics of its construction are too profound and precise to be coincidence.

They contend that such things as the length of the solar year in days and weeks, the earth’s solar diameter and distance from the sun and the equinoxes are built into the famous stone monument in Giza.  They regard it as a “witness in stone” to man’s prophesied 6,000-year span on earth, ending, the way they figure it, Jan.28, 2001. Continue reading →

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November 19, 1959: Paul V. Coates – Confidential File

Posted on November 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 19, 1959: Mirror Cover

Saga of a Guy Who Flipped From Poky

Paul Coates, in coat and tie“I walk alone,” the voice on the phone told me, more as an apology than as a boast.  “With me, it’s habit.  I guess I never learned any other way.”

The voice was a man’s and a drawl.  It continued:  “Funny I should be calling somebody like you for help after all these years of going it alone.”

The time was about 3:45, yesterday afternoon.

“What do you need?” I asked.

“I need-” he started, and stopped.  “Is this phone tapped?”

“No.”
Continue reading →

Posted in #courts, 1959, Columnists, Front Pages, Paul Coates, Transportation | Comments Off on November 19, 1959: Paul V. Coates – Confidential File

November 19, 1941: Hollywood Model Dies of Botched Abortion

Posted on November 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

Nov. 19, 1941, Comics

This post has be edited. See note at bottom for explanation.

November 19, 1941: Angelka Rose Gogich was 18 when she died at Glendale Emergency Hospital after undergoing an abortion. She had be working as a model, hat check girl and dancer under the name Rose Ann Rae. Her boyfriend was Alfred Mathis, a 33-year-old sports promoter. The abortion was allegedly performed by a chiropractor named James F. Petrie, who fled to Mexico, claiming that his estranged wife was ill, The Times said.

On Oct. 24, 1941, Mathis brought Gogich to see Dr. Patrick S. O’Reilly of Glendale Emergency, with the story that her name was Mrs. Ann Gray and her husband was a soldier at Ft. Ord, The Times said. An examination revealed that she was pregnant and she remained at the hospital until Oct. 31, O’Reilly said. Gogich’s mother accused O’Reilly of referring the victim to Petrie, but O’Reilly denied the allegations, the Los Angeles Examiner reported.
Continue reading →

Posted in 1941, Abortion, Art & Artists, Black Dahlia, Columnists, Comics, Film, Hollywood, Homicide, LAPD, Medicine, Obituaries | Tagged | 1 Comment

November 19, 1907: Crime Wave Sweeps L.A.

Posted on November 19, 2025 by lmharnisch


Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

November 19, 1907
Los Angeles

An influx of crooks, petty hoodlums and vagrants drawn by good weather and horse racing at Santa Anita are blamed for a siege of crime throughout the city. The jail is so crowded—300 being held in a building designed for 125—that 95 men arrested for intoxication between Saturday night and Monday morning were released because there was no room for them. Drunks who posed no danger were merely put on a streetcar for a ride home, The Times says.

Carl Chrisensen [Christensen?], who had just served two months for vagrancy, was among 35 men sentenced to the chain gang for being homeless. Officers said Christensen begged at the back doors of homes and wore fraternal pins of the Masons and Eagles to gain housewives’ sympathy. When arrested, he was found to be carrying burglary tools, and he was sentenced to six months’ hard labor.

Continue reading →

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November 18, 1959: Matt Weinstock

Posted on November 18, 2025 by lmharnisch

It’s  Still ‘Professor’

Matt WeinstockEveryone remembers certain of his teachers, particularly the ones who inspired or stirred him, even if he has lost touch with them and never sees them now.

Julius Sumner Miller, physics instructor at El Camino College and KNXT commentator, is more fortunate.  His old math prof, the revered Robert Ernest Bruce, of Boston University, lives in retirement in Redlands.  Miller occasionally visits him.

They recall the great men of the Boston U. faculty and how they literally radiated knowledge and instilled in their students a respect for learning.

On a recent visit, during such a discussion, Bruce, now in his late 80s said, “Julius, I think you are now entitled to call me Robert.” Continue reading →

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November 18, 1959: Paul V. Coates – Confidential File

Posted on November 18, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 18, 1959: Mirror Cover: Marlon Brando Tells of Spanking Ex-Wife

As Senators Write to Indignant Taxpayers

Paul Coates, in coat and tieWhile we’re all gathered here together, in this smoke-filled room, I’d like to say a few words in behalf of politicians.

They are our friends.  Behind that stodgy facade that they put up, they’ve all got hearts as big as Daddy Warbucks’.

And what they do, they do in our best interests.

I am prepared, I might add, to give you an example.

You remember, a couple of months ago, when Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois drafted a resolution calling for a government expenditure of $200,000 to permit himself and his 99 colleagues to fly to Waikiki to welcome Hawaii into our union of states? Continue reading →

Posted in 1959, Columnists, Downtown, Film, Front Pages, Hollywood, Homicide, LAPD, Parks and Recreation, Paul Coates | Comments Off on November 18, 1959: Paul V. Coates – Confidential File

November 18, 1958: Mickey Cohen pal back from the dead

Posted on November 18, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 18, 1958: Mickey Cohen pal back from the deadNote: This is an encore post from 2008.

Here’s an amusing little wrap-up of crime news: Mickey Cohen’s pal comes back from the dead and a minor actress figures in a major trial about drunk driving. It never ceases to amaze me how much publicity celebrities were willing to endure in the old days in an attempt (often futile) to fight a drunk driving charge. The incredibly colorful Gregg Sherwood Dodge lost this case and paid a $100 fine. With luck I’ll post more about her later.

Note: Since the fires began, the Daily Mirror HQ has been without dsl. I’m not in the fire zone, thankfully, but putting out the DM on an ancient laptop at Starbucks is less than ideal.

Mr. Tecra 8000 is so thrilled to have an Internet connection that he’s downloading a bazillion updates, slowing everything to a crawl. Until dsl is restored, posting at the DM is going to be sparse. Stay tuned. And keep the fire victims in your prayers.

Larry Harnisch

Posted in #courts, 1958, Film, Front Pages, Hollywood, Mickey Cohen | Comments Off on November 18, 1958: Mickey Cohen pal back from the dead

George Hodel: Ask Me Anything, November 2025

Posted on November 18, 2025 by lmharnisch

This is the Ask Me Anything on George Hodel and Steve Hodel for November 2025. In this session, I discussed Steve Hodel and the genesis of the first Black Dahlia Avenger book in 2003.

I also discussed: Continue reading →

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November 18, 1941: Private Detective Held in ‘Love’ Killing

Posted on November 18, 2025 by lmharnisch

Nov. 18, 1941 Comics

Nov. 18, 1941, Killing
November 18, 1941: Jimmie Fidler says that new Alan (Paramount white hope) Ladd and Sally Wadsworth romance won’t please his studio, which is readying a “wolf” buildup.

Continue reading →

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November 17, 1959: Matt Weinstock

Posted on November 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

Farming Lesson

Matt WeinstockYoung schoolchildren who are found after tests to be retarded are placed in a Point 1 group, as it is called, and given special tasks to perform.

A little boy in such a group in a suburban school was instructed as part of his therapy to plant radish seeds in the school garden.  Soon he harvested a large, healthy crop.  As he proudly took his radishes into class the teacher discreetly asked why he had planted them in a circle instead of rows.

“That’s the way you get them in the market,” the boy explained innocently.

A commercial vegetable grower heard of the incident and now grows his radishes in circles.  The idea, he realized immediately, is a boon to stoop labor required for the job. Continue reading →

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November 17, 1959: Paul V. Coates – Confidential File

Posted on November 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 17, 1959: Mirror Cover

Poet in the Poky Has Samson Sort of Woes

Paul Coates, in coat and tieJerry Baker, the promising young coffee-house poet, appeared in my office yesterday afternoon, shortly after being released from Lincoln Heights jail.

He sat down, gazed fondly at an open pack of cigarettes on my desk, and informed me, “You smoke my brand.”

I offered him one.  He took it, thanking me.

“I’m here,” he said, “because I’m told you’re a fair man.  You have  a good reputation.  You come very highly recommended.”

Borrowing a match, he lit his cigarette.

“In fact,” he continued, “not one, but two of my cellmates recommended you as the man to see.” Continue reading →

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November 17, 1968: The ‘Heidi Game’ remembered

Posted on November 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 24, 1968, the Heidi game

Big Scream TV

Today is the 30th Anniversary of ‘The Heidi Game’, a Landmark Moment in Television Sports History

Timeline

1:05: Jets take a 32-29 lead on a 26-yard field goal by Jim Turner. Raiders’ Charlie Smith returns kickoff to Raider 22-yard line.

:50: Raider quarterback Daryle Lamonica hits Charlie Smith on a 20-yard screen play. With a 15-yard facemask penalty tacked on, the ball moves to the Jet 43.

NBC Cuts Away to Heidi

:42: Lamonica to Smith on a 43- yard TD pass. Oakland leads, 36-32.
Continue reading →

Posted in 1968, Blues, broadcasting, Sports, Television | Comments Off on November 17, 1968: The ‘Heidi Game’ remembered

November 17, 1947: Miracle Red Toothpaste Tints Gums a Healthy Pink

Posted on November 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

L.A. Times, 1947

Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.

This dental accessory, imported from England, surfaced in Los Angeles in November 1947 and by January 1948 had altered its slogan slightly to “Wine-Colored Toothpaste,” in ads featuring “local model Betty Reid” and offices at 8572 Hollywood Blvd. It apparently vanished from Los Angeles drugstores in 1954, but continued to be sold in the United Kingdom with offices based at 225 Bath Road, Slough SL1 4AU. A Google search reveals that it remains elusive but in demand in 2005. A user writes “the effect is not at all Dracula-like.”

 

Quote of the day: “A child born now can expect to live to be 100 if he’s given proper care in infancy and youth, and if he avails himself of present medical knowledge through his adult years.”

Dr. Edward L. Bortz, president of the American Medical Association.

Posted in 1947, Frightening Food From the 1940s | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

November 17, 1941: Women Reporters

Posted on November 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

Nov. 17, 1941, Comics
Nov. 17, 1941, Dates for Defense

November 17, 1941: Reporter Mary Shaw Leader is honored posthumously for her work in covering Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Leader, a reporter for the Hanover Spectator, walked 15 miles to Gettysburg, Pa., to cover the Lincoln’s talk.

“She carried his full three-minute text in the weekly Hanover newspaper while most journalists gave their space to principal speaker Edward Everett’s flowery oration of nearly two hours or merely announced that Lincoln also spoke.”

Times reporter Cecile Hallingby writes a first-person account of a weekend at Camp San Luis Obispo as one of 80 “U.S.O. Dates for Defense.”

“The big dance at the camp Saturday night, at which the ratio of solders to girls was about 10 to 1, was definitely voted the outstanding event of the weekend.”

Jimmie Fidler says: RKO’s “Mexican Spitfire at Sea” at a glance — Marion Martin: “This is my third ‘comeback.’ I’ve gone up and down in this business so often I’m developing a bounce.”

Continue reading →

Posted in 1863, 1941, Art & Artists, Columnists, Comics, Film, Hollywood, Immigration, Obituaries, World War II | Tagged , | Comments Off on November 17, 1941: Women Reporters

Movieland Unsuitable Foreign Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on November 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

Main title: Lettering over photo of record player.

This week’s unsuitable mystery movie was the 1963 British film The World Ten Times Over (released in the U.S. in 1966 as Pussycat Alley), with Sylvia Syms, Edward Judd, June Ritchie,  William Hartnell, Sarah Lawson, Francis De Wolfe and Davy Kaye. Continue reading →

Posted in 1963, 1966, Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , , , , , | 26 Comments

November 17, 1907: A #MeToo Moment in the Monkey House; Opera Tenors in Trouble

Posted on November 17, 2025 by lmharnisch


Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

November 17, 1907
New York by direct wire to The Times

Something curious seems to be going on with opera tenors in the monkey house at New York’s Central Park; perhaps there’s an atmosphere that lends itself to “annoying” people, for the problem of mashers at the monkey house has even inspired a 1907 movie by Biograph.

Luckily, Detective J.J. Cain is on the lookout for malefactors who make lewd advances, having arrested Enrico Caruso the year before.

Continue reading →

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November 16, 1959: Matt Weinstock

Posted on November 16, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 16, 1959: Comic panel: A man is being beaten up while a guard says "I think I'll read the funnies."

Conditioned Reflexes

Matt WeinstockAfter a business failure several years ago a young man decided to pursue the career he’d always wanted — teaching.  He was aware that it meant a drastic change and involved great sacrifice but he and his wife decided it was worth it.

He went back to school, and, meanwhile, got a part-time job.  His wife also worked.  To keep the house running smoothly, the three young children were assigned regular duties and responsibilities.  After dinner, for instance, they quietly took their own dishes into the kitchen to be washed.

Recently after a long, hard struggle the husband got his credential and his teaching assignment and he and his wife decided to celebrate by dining in a good restaurant, something they’d denied themselves for several years. Continue reading →

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