Sept. 20, 1947: Marie ‘The Body’ McDonald Marries Karl the Shoe Man

Sept. 20, 1947, L.A. Times

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

Marie (The Body) McDonald, 23-year-old film actress, last night was married to Harry Karl, 33, shoe merchant, in a quiet civil ceremony at the home of Karl’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Peter Karl, 829 N. Orlando St.

Superior Court Judge Edward R. Brand performed the ceremony, after which the wedding party attended a reception at the Mocambo restaurant on the Sunset Strip.

The couple will fly to New York for a three-week honeymoon, Karl said, and then return to live in Los Angeles.

Miss McDonald and Karl met at a Hollywood party 15 months ago. It was the second marriage for both. The actress divorced Vic Orsatti, theatrical agent, in Nevada five months ago. Karl was divorced from his first wife, Mrs. Ruth Karl, two years ago.

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Sept. 20, 1907: Suicide Note — ‘Everything Is Boiling’

Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

Sept. 20, 1907
Los Angeles

For weeks, Colorado mining investor John Geisel, 57, had confided in his diary as he felt his mind and his life coming unraveled “Good God,” he wrote, “for the first time today I began to fear that I could not control my thoughts.”

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Posted in 1883, 1907, 1950, Architecture, Downtown, Suicide | 2 Comments

Black L.A. 1947: Herb Jeffries Cast in All-Black Production of ‘Camille’

Sept. 18, 1947, T. Bone Walker

Sept. 18, 1947: The Sentinel reports the intriguing production of an all-black, musical version of “Camille,” produced by Thomas Hammond with a score by Serge Walter, lyrics by Rene Du Plessis, starring Herb Jeffries.  A previous commitment prevented Lena Horne from appearing in the show, the Sentinel said.

A brief in the Los Angeles Times (Sept. 9, 1947) adds that Marvin Mar was adapting the novel for the production. Daily Variety reported (Sept. 10, 1947) that the production was supposed to open in Los Angeles and move to New York.

The New York Times reported (July 21, 1947) that the scenery was being designed by Sydney Engelberg. The Times said (Nov. 20 1947), that the production was sponsored by Ben Marden. Hammond told The Times that the production depended on whether he could sign Margaret Webster as the director. Webster was on the West Coast helping her ailing mother, Dame May Whitty, and wasn’t expected to return to New York for several weeks, The Times said.

The Sentinel and The Times said that a movie adaptation was also being discussed, to be filmed in England or Canada.

And none of it ever happened.

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Sept. 19, 1947: L.A. OKs Right Turn on Red Light!


L.A. Times, Sept. 19, 1947
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.

Sept. 19, 1947, Right TurnsAdopted 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.

The state Legislature banned the right turn on red in 1945, but because cities were allowed to post exceptions, three survived: Mission Road at Macy Street and Sunset Boulevard at Castellar Street (now Hill Street), both downtown; and at Ventura and Lankershim Boulevards in the Valley.

Restored in 1947, the right turn on red remains the birthright of all L.A. motorists.

Bonus factoids: The city experimented with synchronized signals in 1922 to ease traffic. The length of a stop was cut from 45 seconds to 30.

“The traffic situation is Los Angeles’ single biggest problem,” The Times said — in 1924.

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Black Dahlia: Annual Halloween Reminder

Black Dahlia Halloween

Somewhere, somebody is already thinking about a Black Dahlia costume for Halloween, so here is my annual reminder: Dressing up like the victim of a grotesque murder is not the look you want. Please rethink your choices. Thanks.

Posted in 1947, Black Dahlia, LAPD | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Black L.A. 1947: The Week’s Juke Box Hits

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L.A. Sentinel, Sept. 18, 1947

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Sept. 18, 1947: Navajo Teenagers Arrive at Sherman Institute

L.A. Times, 1947


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

RIVERSIDE—A contingent of 369 Navajo Indian boys and girls from New Mexico and Arizona has arrived at Riverside’s famed Sherman Institute.

Many of the youngsters, who range in age from 10 to 18, will be introduced to formal schooling for the first time, but others are returning for the second year of the Navajo educational program.

Last year, emphasis was principally on trade schooling, but the younger Navajos, many of them unable to speak English, were brought here for basic schooling.

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Sept. 17:1907: L.A. Celebrates Mexican Independence Day


Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

Sept. 17, 1907
Los Angeles

Mexican Independence Day was celebrated in a grand program sponsored by the Club Porfiro Diaz of Los Angeles at Turner Hall, 325 S. Main (demolished 1951), which was decorated with American and Mexican flags.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Sept. 22, 2018, Mystery Photo
This week’s mystery movie was the 1944 MGM picture “Barbary Coast Gent,” with Wallace Beery, Binnie Barnes, John Carradine, Bruce Kellogg, Frances Rafferty, Chill Wills, Noah Beery Sr., Henry O’Neill and Ray Collins.

It was produced by Orville O. Dull, screenplay by William R. Lipman, Grant Garrett and Harry Ruskin, from an original story by William R. Lipman and Grant Garrett. Photography by Charles Salerno Jr., musical score by David Snell, art direction by Cedric Gibbons and William Ferrari, set decoration by Edwin B. Willis and Glen Barner, costume supervision by Irene and Kay Dean, makeup by Jack Dawn, directed by Roy Del Ruth.

“Barbary Coast Gent” has never been commercially released on DVD or VHS, but can be found on the gray market.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 30 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights – Hamburger’s Department Store, Arrow Movie Theater

hamburgers_store
A postcard of Hamburger’s Department Store is listed on EBay as Buy It Now for $2.99.


Note: This is an encore post from 2013.

The classy, oversize May Co. Department Store located at 801 S. Broadway in downtown Los Angeles is up for sale. Today, the mostly empty Broadway Trade Center hosts makeshift swap meet stalls on the first floor in this once celebrated building, the largest department store west of the Mississippi River. Once known as Hamburger’s Department Store, the facility later operated as the May Co. Original owner Hamburger’s was a more elegant and upscale Wal-Mart, hosting every type of business under its roof, even a movie theater.

Hamburger’s Department Store ranked as one of Los Angeles’ premier shopping centers in the early 1900s. Asher Hamburger and his son David immigrated to Los Angeles from Sacramento in 1881, establishing the 20 x 100 foot People’s Store at Main Street and Requena. This department store featured mass but quality goods at fair prices, popular with penny-pinching consumers.

Also by Mary Mallory
Keye Luke
Auction of Souls
Busch Gardens and Hogan’s Aristocratic Dreams

Also on the Daily Mirror
On Location, the May Co.

Movieland Mystery Photo – Architecture Edition

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Posted in 1908, Architecture, Broadway, Downtown, Hollywood, Hollywood Heights, Mary Mallory, Theaters | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Sept. 16, 1907: Occidental Upperclassmen Enforce Fashion Law — No Cords for Freshmen!


Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

Sept. 16, 1907
Los Angeles

Occidental’s fall semester has gotten underway with a boisterous gathering in the Hall of Letters. The first order of business was to punish underclassmen who dared to wear corduroy trousers, a right restricted to the upper classes. “Offending students were unceremoniously shorn of the ‘extreme pegs,’ ” The Times said. “ In the roughhouse, Dean Ward was among those who went to the floor.”

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Sept. 16, 1947: Stanley Beltz, Colorful Lockheed Test Pilot

L.A. Times, 1947

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

Stanley BeltzLow flying charges have been filed by the Civil Aeronautics Administration against Stanley Beltz, Lockheed test pilot, who reportedly took a four-engined Constellation down to 200 feet or less over a Playa Del Rey residential district last Friday.

The complaint, turned over to the CAA, declares Beltz violated minimum altitudes (1,000 feet), endangering lives and property.

Beltz denied being as low as householders reported. He explained he descended toward the coast to test a radio altimeter offshore.

This little brief appears to be nothing more than yet another of the many Times stories about pilots buzzing Los Angeles after the war, which seems to have occurred nearly every day. But in fact it leads to heartache and death.

Stanley A. Beltz was a prominent test pilot and after joining Lockheed in 1943 flew almost every type of plane the company made, except the F-90 and F-104 Starfighter. He piloted the first test flight of the C-130 transport from Burbank to Edwards Air Force Base in 1954.

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Sept. 15, 1947: On Rosh Hashana, a Call to Mobilize for Peace


Sept. 7, 1896, New Temple
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.

Sept. 15, 1946, Rosh Hashana The ram’s horn, once a trumpet of war but now a symbol of faith, sounded at sundown yesterday in Los Angeles synagogues to mark the dawn of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana.

In Temple Emanuel, Beverly Hills, Rabbi Ernest Trattner told the congregation that “New beginnings come, not in new seasons, but in new attitudes. Solutions of life’s problems come, not in the passing of time, but in self-discipline and self-dedication. Let us start the year with God and keep step with Him all the year and peace and power and gladness shall be ours.”

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Brian De Palma’s ‘The Black Dahlia’


Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Further note: Rotten Tomatoes, gives this film 32% on the Tomatometer.

The Black Dahlia,” directed by Brian De Palma, screenplay by Josh Friedman based on the novel by James Ellroy. Starring Josh Hartnett (Dwight “Bucky” Bleichert), Aaron Eckhart (Leeland “Lee” Blanchard), Scarlett Johansson (Kay Lake), Hillary Swank (Madeleine Linscott) and Mia Kirshner (Elizabeth Short). Universal Pictures.

(Contains spoilers. You have been warned)

 

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Posted in 1947, Black Dahlia, Books and Authors, Cold Cases, Crime and Courts, Film, Hollywood, Homicide, LAPD, Zoot Suit | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Sept. 14, 1947: How Many HR Violations Can You Spot in One Ad?

L.A. Times, 1947, comics
Sept. 14, 1947: Let’s see. White couples or single women wanted. Age limit 55 years.

No, we don’t do this anymore.

Sept. 14, 1947, White Couples Wanted

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Sept. 13, 1947: The Light Rail That Failed — Transit Plan Calls for Trains on Freeway Medians

Sept. 13, 1947, comics, L.A. Times

L.A. Times, 194

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

Sept. 13, 1947, Light Rail Someday an inquisitive person studying the history of transportation and urban planning will tell the world exactly what became of Los Angeles’ 1947 blueprint for dealing with transit problems. In the meantime, we’ll have to settle for the knowledge that at least they made a valiant effort. They certainly knew what was coming—without much argument, you could call them futurists.

A committee sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce spent 19 months studying transportation issues and warned that someday Los Angeles would have a population of 5 million (the 2000 population of Los Angeles County was 9,519,338, with 3,694,820 for the city of L.A.).

“High-speed rail transit arteries plus a system of downtown subways alone can save Los Angeles from disintegration into a hodge-podge of unconnected municipalities,” The Times said in quoting the project’s advocates.

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Posted in 1947, Freeways, Streetcars, Transportation | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Sept. 13, 1907: Girl’s Foot Amputated After Being Crushed by Streetcar


Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

Sept. 13, 1907
Los Angeles

The family was too poor to take a streetcar, so Concepcion Parra, 60, and her sister Mrs. J.L. Ghiotto began walking the 12 miles to El Monte with Parra’s 5-year-old granddaughter, Delphina Verde, to see the girl’s mother. To save time, they took a shortcut along the streetcar tracks.

Around State Street, they jumped back to avoid a southbound car from Pasadena and were hit by a northbound car. Parra (or Parras) and Ghiotto were thrown clear by the collision, but Delphina was crushed under the wheels.

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Sept. 12, 1947: L.A. Times Columnist Lee Shippey

image

Sept. 12, 1947, L.A. Times, Lee Shippey

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

Henry R. Wagner of San Marino will be 85 years old Sept. 27 but the Zamorano Club couldn’t wait that long. In order to surprise Dr. Wagner, it celebrated his birthday at its monthly dinner Wednesday night—and the members got a surprise, too.

Never before had a woman been introduced to the club, but at that dinner Mrs. Wagner, Dorothy Huggings of San Francisco and Ruth Frye Axe, Dr. Wagner’s present secretary, were honor guests.

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On Location in Los Angeles: ‘The Unfaithful’ (1947)

Sept. 11, 2018, Angels Flight

Here’s the sequence of shots in “The Unfaithful” showing Angels Flight, photographed by Ernest Haller, edited by Alan Crosland Jr.

In image No. 1, we have a news vendor and the upper entrance to the funicular.

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Posted in 1947, Architecture, Downtown, Film, Hollywood | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Sept. 11, 1947: Al Jarvis Replies to L.A. Sentinel’s Charges of Racism

“Boogie-Woogie Blue Plate” is No. 2on this week’s juke box hits.

Sept. 11, 1947, L.A. Sentinel, Al Jarvis
Sept. 11, 1947: KLAC disc jockey Al Jarvis replies to Earl Griffin’s criticisms in last week’s Sentinel. “To knowingly plug a sponsor who discriminates against the Negro race is contrary to every belief I have ever had or ever will have.”

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