July 1, 1907: What Was the Gas Mileage of the Horseless Carriage?

Posted on July 1, 2018 by lmharnisch



Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

July 1, 1907
Los Angeles

If you ever wondered if the Locomobile or Pope-Hartford got great gas mileage, the answer is no, as shown in the results of the 185-mile Lakeside Endurance Race. In cost and fuel efficiency, the 1907 automobiles were about the equivalent of a 2006 Ford Explorer (MSRP $31,650) or a Range Rover Sport (MSRP $56,085-$69,025).

The car with best gas mileage in the economy competition was the Pope-Hartford, 8½ gallons (21.76 mpg), in the class of touring cars costing $1,501-$3,000 ($30,805.88-$61,570.71 USD 2005).
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June 30, 1947: Albert Goldberg Becomes L.A. Times Music Critic

Posted on June 30, 2018 by lmharnisch

June 30, 1947, Albert Goldberg

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

Thus began a career that endured past his retirement in 1965—making way for Martin Bernheimer—until shortly before his death in 1990 at the age of 91. Goldberg was The Times’ first full-time classical music critic.

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Slander, My Sweet: Raymond Chandler, John Houseman and ‘The Blue Dahlia’

Posted on June 29, 2018 by lmharnisch

'The Blue Dahlia'
Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in “The Blue Dahlia.”

Slander, My Sweet

Here are the opening paragraphs of the piece I’ve been working on for the last few months as I waited for the clamor to die down about Piu Eatwell’s “Black Dahlia, Red Rose.” It’s a deep dive into the making of “The Blue Dahlia” and John Houseman’s tall tale about Raymond Chandler going on an eight-day drunk to finish the picture.

At this point, I’m not sure what I’ll do with the piece. It’s quite long and although I could post it on the blog, I’m casting around for a venue with more exposure.

Posted in 1945, 1946, Another Good Story Ruined, Books and Authors, Film, Hollywood | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

June 29, 1947: ‘Palestine Extremists Kill Two More Britons’

Posted on June 29, 2018 by lmharnisch

June 29, 1947, L.A. Times

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

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June 29, 1907: Horribly Beaten, Wife Begs Police Not to Charge Husband, Refuses to Testify

Posted on June 29, 2018 by lmharnisch


Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

June 29, 1907
Los Angeles

Through the jail cell’s bars, the officer asked, “Where did you get that blood on your shirt?”

E.H. Phelan, a barber at the Hotel Alexandria, said: “No, I did not beat my wife.” He whispered: “She was drunk and fell down.”

And the blood?

 

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Black L.A. 1947: Jury Selection Begins in San Diego Slavery Case

Posted on June 28, 2018 by lmharnisch

June 26, 1947, L.A. Sentinel
Above, Cab Calloway is at the Million Dollar Theater with “Ding Dong Williams.” 

June 26, 1947: Jury selection begins in San Diego in the case of Alfred and Elizabeth Ingalls, who are accused of holding Dora L. Jones as a slave.

The Sentinel runs a banner headline, an interview with Elizabeth Ingalls, a summary of the case, and interviews with people hoping to watch the trial.

 

June 26, 1947, L.A. Sentinel June 26, 1947, L.A. Sentinel

 

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June 28, 1947: College Makes Women Unfit for Marriage, L.A. ‘Expert’ Says

Posted on June 28, 2018 by lmharnisch

June 28, 1947, L.A. Times

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

Meet Paul Popenoe, who appears in hundreds of stories in The Times (including 11 in 1947), often as the elder statesman of family counseling in Los Angeles in later years. Among other things he said in 1947 was that childless couples were far more like to divorce than married couples and therefore recommended having children to preserve families, the more, the better. He also noted that people who were married by a justice of the peace were only half as likely to stay married as those married by a minister. At a presentation featuring Mills College President Lynn T. White Jr. on how “Colleges Can Help Reduce the Divorce Rate,” Popenoe said: “Too much feminine domination during a boy’s formative years leaves him unprepared and inadequate to face the man’s world, including marriage.”

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June 28, 1907: 62 Cars Enter Endurance Race From Los Angeles to Lakeside

Posted on June 28, 2018 by lmharnisch



Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

June 28, 1907
Los Angeles

Give cars to a bunch of wealthy Los Angeles residents and what do they do? Race them, of course. Not on a track this time, but in an endurance test from Los Angeles to Lakeside. And yes, it’s a bit warmish for an endurance race, especially once the drivers get further inland—100 degrees.

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June 27, 1947: Ray the Newspaper Boy Publishes First Book, ‘Dark Carnival’

Posted on June 27, 2018 by lmharnisch

June 27, 1947, L.A. Times

L.A. Times, 1947, Ray Bradbury

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

I’ll be putting that little landmark on my tour of the Black Dahlia crime scene, which is about three miles away. Bradbury’s first book got a press run of about 3,000 copies and sells for $1,000 to $4,000 and up.

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June 27, 1907: New to America, Wife Mistakes Gasoline for Coffee in Making Husband’s Breakfast

Posted on June 27, 2018 by lmharnisch

Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

June 27, 1907
Los Angeles

Louise arrived in Los Angeles three months ago from Norway with her four young children. She met a man who worked in San Pedro (we only know his initials, F.G.) and before long, they were married and living in his small home at 825 Tennessee St.

One morning, she got up to make coffee, turned on the stove, took a glass of dark liquid from a shelf and poured it into the coffee pot.

April 23, 1907, Marriage notice
Above, the marriage of Fred G. Rohn and Louise Johnson, in the Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1907.

Update June 27, 2018: The Times story is incorrect in a few ways. (The Herald added its own error in identifying the family as Rohan.)

The family was actually named Rohn. The husband was Fred G. Rohn. He and Louise married April 22 1907. According to their marriage license, he was born in Germany about 1876. She was the former Louise Johnson, born in Norway about 1873.

 

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Posted in 1907, A Kinder, Simpler Time, Fires, LAPD, Streetcars | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

June 26, 1947: ‘White’ or ‘Negro?’ LAPD Holds Sentinel Columnist for Having Two Driver’s Licenses

Posted on June 26, 2018 by lmharnisch

June 26, 1947, L.A. Sentinel
June 26, 1947: Los Angeles Sentinel columnist Edward Robinson takes a trip to the University Station after LAPD officers discover that he is carrying two driver’s licenses. One identifies him as “white” and the other identifies him as “Negro.”

With all the digging I have done in old Los Angeles newspapers, I have never come across anything like this.

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Posted in 1947, African Americans, Columnists | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

June 26, 1947: Helicopter Hovers Over Clipper Ship

Posted on June 26, 2018 by lmharnisch

June 26, 1947, Copter, Clipper


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

An unknown press photographer in Long Beach captured them in a small fraction of a second, the old three-masted square-rigger and the brand-new helicopter: old and new, past and future.

Helicopters were exotic aircraft in 1947 and newspapers coined names like “the Flying Eggbeater” and “the Whirlybird” for them. Their strengths were quickly recognized, however, and in 1947 Los Angeles became the first U.S. city to use them for mail and express service. (Apparently the mail pilots had a habit of hovering over sunbathers, prompting a lawsuit by women members of the Santa Monica Ambassador Club). The DWP also began using copters to check power lines and they proved themselves in fighting a 3,600-acre wildfire in Big Tujunga Canyon, which killed two men and injured at least 75 more.

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June 26, 1907: A Case of Elder Abuse?

Posted on June 26, 2018 by lmharnisch


Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

June 26, 1907
Los Angeles

Fred D. Samuels is a monster and nothing less, according to his aunt, Sister Kostka, assistant mother superior of the Ursuline Convent in Frontenac, Wis. As her mother, Maria S. Bowman, lay dying at her home, 1266 E. Adams, Samuels refused to let Sister Kostka (nee Minnie Bowman) see her.

In fact, Kostka charged, Samuels refused to let a Catholic priest visit Mrs. Bowman and refused to grant her a Catholic funeral. Instead, Bowman received two services, one at St. Patrick’s on Central Avenue and another at the Lutheran church on East 46th St.

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on June 25, 2018 by lmharnisch

Hallelujah, June 30, 2018, mystery movie
This week’s mystery movie has been the 1929 MGM picture “Hallelujah,” with Daniel L. Haynes, Nina Mae McKinney, William Fountaine, Harry Gray, Fanny Belle DeKnight, Everett McGarrity, Victoria Spivey, Milton Dickerson, Robert Couch, Walter Tait and the Dixie Jubilee Singers. Scenario by Wanda Tuchock, treatment by Richard Schayer, dialogue by Ransom Rideout, art direction by Cedric Gibbons, wardrobe by Henrietta Frazer, photography by Gordon Avil, story and direction by King Vidor.

“Hallelujah” is available on DVD from Warner Archive.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 48 Comments

June 25, 1947: L.A. Times Praises Gangland Slaying of Bugsy Siegel

Posted on June 25, 2018 by lmharnisch

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

Gov. Warren is justified in his concern over the growth of gangsterism in California, dramatized by the effective and efficient taking-off of the charming but unlamented Bugsie Siegel.

The governor notes that the arrival in a community of one criminal is a relatively small matter. Likewise, the assassination of a crook is of no particular importance to a community, and grief at his passing is restricted to a minor and unselect circle. Gang wars have a way of settling themselves, and if the murderer of Siegel is caught, law enforcement officers are apt to express, in a mild manner, their gratitude.

 

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Posted in 1947, Crime and Courts, Homicide | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Virgil Apger, MGM’S Classic Portrait Photographer

Posted on June 25, 2018 by lmharnisch

 

Virgil Apger.

Virgil Apger, photo courtesy of Mary Mallory

Note: This is an encore post from 2013.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios excelled in most areas of film production, including that of still portrait photography. Several of its head portrait photographers, like Ruth Harriet Louise, George Hurrell and Clarence Sinclair Bull, are recognized for their unique style and artistry in creating some of the most iconic portrait photographs in Hollywood history. While not as flashy or dramatic as these lensers, Virgil Apger, MGM’s leading gallery photographer for over 20 years, created classy, understated head shots of leading stars that made them more accessible to the movie-going public.

Born in Grantland, Ind., June 25, 1903, to the local sheriff, Virgil Apger was drawn to motion pictures as a young man, working as an usher and assistant to a projectionist in a local movie theater, per John Kobal’s “The Art of the Great Hollywood Portrait Photographers.” Apger and his family moved to Los Angeles in 1916, where he worked for six months in an iron foundry business before joining the Marines. During his two-year term, Apger was stationed in Hawaii, Philippines and the Orient.

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June 24, 1947: Death in the Ring — Sugar Ray Robinson and Jimmy Doyle

Posted on June 24, 2018 by lmharnisch

June 25, 1947, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jimmy Doyle
June 25, 1947, Doyle Condition Critical

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

For the rest of his life, Sugar Ray Robinson was haunted by that eighth round in Cleveland. Haunted by the hard left to the jaw of Jimmy Doyle, who until the moment his head hit the canvas with a sickening thud was riding a string of victories to a chance at the title of welterweight champion.

Doyle, born Jimmy Delaney, was a classy fighter who made his professional debut June 6, 1941, at the Olympic. “Jimmy first attracted our attention by his old-fashioned standup stance,” Times sports columnist Al Wolf wrote. “He looked like a throwback to the days of John L. and Gentleman Jim as he stood there stiff-backed and stiff-necked, feet firmly planted, left arm extended in an upward arc. It could have been a picture from the Police Gazette of yesteryear.”

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June 23, 1947: Jim Tully, Hobo Novelist and Prizefighter, Dies at 56

Posted on June 23, 2018 by lmharnisch

L.A. Times, 1947

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

For me, stumbling across Jim Tully is one of those wonderful accidental discoveries that are a byproduct of research. He’s as obscure and forgotten today as he was famous in the 1920s. (His name has appeared exactly once in The Times in the last 20 years).

An Irishman with a natural gift for storytelling, Tully was almost entirely self-taught, which gave him a spare, unpretentious style that translates well to modern times, unlike the stale, artificial constructions of his more literary contemporaries.

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Posted in 1947, Books and Authors, Film, Hollywood | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

June 23, 1907: Auto Club Begins Posting Road Signs Along Future Route 66

Posted on June 23, 2018 by lmharnisch


Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

June 23, 1907
Los Angeles

The Auto Club of Southern California has begun posting white enamel signs with blue lettering along Foothill Boulevard between Los Angeles and Riverside.

Spending about half a day, auto club President George Allen Hancock and Charles Fuller Gates, who is in charge of the county’s signage, staked the route through Highland Park, South Pasadena and Pasadena, Lamanda Park, Baldwin’s ranch, Monrovia, Azusa, Glendora, Claremont, Uplands, Cucamonga, Etiwanda, Stalder (34.0119/117.3125 to folks with GPS) to West Riverside.
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Posted in 1907, Pasadena, Transportation | 1 Comment

June 22, 1947: 21,000 Sign Petition for Federal Anti-Lynching Law

Posted on June 22, 2018 by lmharnisch

June 23, 1947, Anti-Lynching

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

The son of slaves and a World War I veteran, Edgar G. Brown was a frequent visitor to Los Angeles gathering support for various issues, such as the anti-lynching law. He urged blacks to increase productivity rather than protests during the Korean War, but also called on President Eisenhower to appoint a black Cabinet member.

Brown visited Los Angeles in 1950 to gather signatures on petitions seeking to prevent the execution of Army Lt. Leon A. Gilbert of the 24th Infantry Regiment.

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Posted in 1947, African Americans, Crime and Courts | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment