“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
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
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.
Everyone 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
While 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
Note: 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
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
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.
Young 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
Jerry 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
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
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.
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.”
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
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.
After 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
Erle Stanley Gardner, you either like or dislike.
He’s easy to categorize.
If you don’t like him, he’s a troublemaker, a rebel who gets his kicks by destroying the public’s illusions concerning the integrity and intelligence of our district attorneys and police.
As author of more than 100 Perry Mason mystery novels, he’s continually belittling these public servants. His man Mason always shows them up.
As a private citizen, Gardner founded the now-famous Court of Last Resort, which, in freeing dozens of innocent men from prison, has proved in fact that our system of justice isn’t infallible. Continue reading
Above: Barbara Graham, one of four women to be executed in California, along with Juanita “the Duchess” Spinelli, Louise Peete and Elizabeth Duncan. |
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Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
November 16, 1907
Los Angeles
Mrs. Amanda Cook (she is also identified as Jennie and Mary) came to Los Angeles from Boston in 1906 with two of her children in search of her husband, Frederick, a union plasterer and bricklayer. She advertised in the newspapers without success and finally took a job as a cook at the Juvenile Detention Home.
Persuaded by her cousin to seek a divorce, she hired attorney George W. MacKnight, who sought out her errant husband and began divorce proceedings.
“Mrs. Graham didn’t bat an eye.”
“I just can’t believe that verdict is true.”
“Life is so short. Is mine to be shorter?”
“As long as they found me guilty of something I didn’t do, I’d rather take the gas chamber.”
“When you hear the pellets drop, count 10 and take a deep breath.”
“The newsmen and photogs around the office say she was ‘guilty as hell.’ “
ladailymirror.com 