Sept. 25, 1907: The Melancholy Prizefighter

Posted on September 25, 2018 by lmharnisch

Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

Sept. 25, 1907
Los Angeles

Meet Joe Gans, a boxer whose name once echoed among fans of the ring now buried in the dusts of sporting history. Gans may well have been one of the finest fighters whoever lived—among sportswriters, he inspired long and lofty stories about his artistry in dispensing with an undistinguished opponent. But Gans puzzled the men who tried to capture him in words; not a braggart, nor a thug. He was thoughtful and at heart, mournful, they said.

Gans was training at Lucky Baldwin’s ranch in Arcadia for a match with Jimmy Burns at the Pavilion—20 rounds.

 

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Thomas Ince’s Dias Dorados Salutes California’s Past

Posted on September 24, 2018 by lmharnisch

 

ince House Photoplay 1923

Thomas Ince Portrait Ex. Herald 8-9-24 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.

 

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on September 24, 2018 by lmharnisch

Sept. 29, 2018, Mystery Photo
This week’s mystery movie has been the 1993 picture “The Joy Luck Club.”  This is much more recent than the usual mystery movie, but I decided to do it after reading an essay by Los Angeles Times movie critic Justin Chang on the film’s 25th anniversary.  I thought that the film was probably too recent and too well-known for a mystery movie but that the powerful images would make an unusual week. I probably won’t do this again, but I hope it was entertaining.

Note: This week coincided with a massive computer failure. The great majority of my data is backed up and safe. The main problem is getting my essential legacy software and hardware (a scanner that handles transparencies and negatives) to run, even though they were just fine on Windows 10 on the old computer. The dust is still settling, but so far the major loss is the legacy blogging software (by Microsoft, I might add) that I have used for years.  I think I have found an alternative, but there is a learning curve to it.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 39 Comments

Sept. 24, 1947: Young Men Say ‘I Love You’ With a Buick Hood Ornament

Posted on September 24, 2018 by lmharnisch

L.A Times, 1947

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

And how do the young men of Los Angeles indicate their interest in a young woman? Do they court her with roses or candy or mash notes? In fact, ardent suitors have found that there’s no better way to a woman’s heart than with the hood ornament from a 1946 or 1947 Buick.

It seems the chrome-plated circles make perfect bracelets and victimized Buick owners are writing furious letters to The Times.
“I casually began counting Buicks and noting how many did not have the rings in a two-mile drive along Beverly and down Fairfax and found that 13 out of 17 Buicks have lost their rings from the hood ornament,” wrote Bill Gilholm of Hermosa Beach. “Is it a gang doing this for profit or are they just kids trying to be funny?”

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Sept. 24, 1907: A Poem on the First Day in L.A.

Posted on September 24, 2018 by lmharnisch

Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

Sept. 24, 1907
Los Angeles

A First Day in Los Angeles

Roving, roving, ever restless, drifting
On from strand to strand.

Have I seen the years slip by me,
Seeking for the promised land.

From the palm trees of Jamaica and
The Golden Spanish main.

To the gray and sullen northland when
The snow was on the plain.

But today I cease from roaming and
My soul is well content—

For the gypsy came among you and
He pitches his world-worn tent.

But the old desire was silenced for he
Found his long-sought rest.

In the City of Angels, in the
Sunset of the West.

Walter Adolf Roberts

557 Crocker St., Los Angeles.

 

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Sept. 23, 1947: Janet Flanner, The New Yorker’s ‘Genet,’ Visits L.A .

Posted on September 23, 2018 by lmharnisch

L.A. Times, Sept. 23, 1947

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

Janet Flanner, during her many years in Paris as European correspondent for the New Yorker magazine, picked up the French love of epigrams. Genet, as she is known to the magazine readers, tried this out yesterday on a Town Hall audience at the Biltmore.

“The United States was the richest country in the world—that’s dandy. Now it is the only rich country in the world, which is terrible.”

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Sept. 23, 1907: Rev. J.L. Griffin Baptizes 5 in Echo Park Lake

Posted on September 23, 2018 by lmharnisch


Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

Sept. 23, 1907
Los Angeles

A crowd of 2,000—the faithful and the doubters—gathered at Echo Park Lake as black evangelist the Rev. J.L. Griffin prepared to baptize five believers in the cold water. Children climbed in the trees to get a better view, while other people watched from rowboats.

The rite was supposed to begin at 4 p.m., but several of the people were delayed and Griffin, who had been holding tent revival meetings in Los Angeles all summer, addressed the increasingly impatient throng.

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Sept. 22, 1947: Avak the Healer Comes to Los Angeles

Posted on September 22, 2018 by lmharnisch

image

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

And then he was gone as if he had never been here at all. The hundreds of people who threw themselves at his feet to kiss the hem of his robes or simply to occupy the chair where he had been sitting were nothing but a memory.

He was Avak Hagopian, a somber 20-year-old from Kharadag in Azerbaijan, and working in Tehran as a mechanic—or a goldsmith—the stories vary. He paused one day as he was about to bring down a mallet and was struck with a vision, a vision that returned twice more. With faith in God, he would cure the sick, the blind and the diseased. The young man with the dark, intense eyes grew a beard and let his hair flow to his shoulders. He became “Avak the Healer” or “Avak the Great,” performer of miracles.
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Sept. 22, 1907: No Divorce, Judge Says, You Knew He Was a Bellboy When You Married Him!

Posted on September 22, 2018 by lmharnisch

L.A. Times, 1907, No Divorce

Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

Sept. 22, 1907
Los Angeles

She was 34 and a successful businesswoman. He was a 19-year-old bellboy at the Hollenbeck Hotel.

Emma and George Lloyd were married and for a time were quite happy, with Emma running her milliner’s shop at 2132 Downey Ave., and George getting a job as a waiter in an Eastside restaurant.

 

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Sept. 21, 1947: Los Angeles Leads U.S. in Burglaries, Ranks 3rd in Killings After New York, Chicago

Posted on September 21, 2018 by lmharnisch

Sept. 21, 1947, Comics

Sept. 21, 1947, L.A. Crimes

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Sept. 21, 1907: 26 Men Deported to China

Posted on September 21, 2018 by lmharnisch


Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

Sept. 21, 1907
Los Angeles

It is one thing to know in the abstract about racial intolerance at the turn of the 20th century and quite another to have to read it in the daily paper. I will spare you the long quotes in pidgin Chinese dialect, but trust me, they make the Charlie Chan movies look like models of multiculturalism.

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

Posted on September 20, 2018 by lmharnisch

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’

Posted on September 20, 2018 by lmharnisch

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’

Posted on September 19, 2018 by lmharnisch

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!

Posted on September 19, 2018 by lmharnisch


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

Posted on September 18, 2018 by lmharnisch

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

Posted on September 18, 2018 by lmharnisch

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L.A. Sentinel, Sept. 18, 1947

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

Posted on September 18, 2018 by lmharnisch

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

Posted on September 18, 2018 by lmharnisch


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 + + + +)

Posted on September 17, 2018 by lmharnisch

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