In the early 1920s, Hollywood was booming. The adolescent film business had blossomed from a small by-the-seat-of-the pants mom and pop operation into a major industry backed by Wall Street, which was turning the large companies into international conglomerates. At the same time, major stars saw their compensation explode, especially if they owned their own production companies and received profit participation. Superstars like Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin and executives like Joseph Schenck and Thomas Ince earned more in yearly salaries than important financial, professional, and business leaders.
To acknowledge their place in the Hollywood pantheon, many of the industry’s leaders constructed elaborate mansions and showplaces outshining even that of actual royalty. Pickford and Fairbanks reigned at Pickfair, Lloyd built the magnificent Greenacres, and Frances Marion and Fred Thomson established their Enchanted Hill. Producer Thomas Ince followed along, constructing his own impressive hacienda, one that hearkened back to the glorious early days of California called “Dias Dorados.”….
Mary Mallory’s “Living With Grace” is now on sale.
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and 
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Adopted across the country and lampooned by Woody Allen, Los Angeles’ right turn on a red light was born in obscurity. Although the city used traffic semaphores (mechanical devices with metal arms reading “STOP” and “GO” that swung out of the signal—just like in the old cartoons and the opening of “Double Indemnity”) instead of lights, the right turn on red was in effect as early as 1939, when the City Council sought to ban them.
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