I hadn’t planned to get into the Chinese Massacre until I wrapped up the Zoot Suit Riots, but Google’s recent changes in its news archives pressed me to get the material online before the newspapers disappear.
For decades, the average reader has had no recourse but later accounts of the 1871 Chinese Massacre. Recent innovations in digitized newspapers, however, allow anyone with a computer — and lots of patience — to access the original stories. Continue reading
Oct. 23, 1957
The lady, an Ay–Ayer, is sober again, and philosophic.
Not long ago, she slipped, as A-Ayers sometimes do. Finding herself well-soused, with no money left for a cab and little sense of direction, she decided the clink was the place for her.
She hailed the first LAPD black and white free taxi she saw and the officers agreed she should not be loose on the streets.
The judge read the report stating she had voluntarily surrendered and said, “Well, this is a switch!”–and dismissed her. Continue reading
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project..
Robert and Joseph were close—even in death. They shared a home filled with antiques, bric-a-brac and paintings at 4329 Agnes Ave. in North Hollywood, as well as their bank accounts, and were the beneficiaries of each other’s wills.
But after they died within a few hours of one another, leaving a combined estate of $25,000 ($236,604.65 USD 2005), their families said they were too close. A lawsuit brought by Robert’s aunt and uncle charged that Joseph and Robert had “a strange attachment.”
Robert M. Kalloch, who died at the age of 50, was one of Hollywood’s leading dress designers in the 1930s and ’40s, beginning at Columbia, where he was the studio’s first major designer, working on such pictures as “It Happened One Night,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “His Girl Friday,” and then MGM. Born in New York, he attended the School of Fine and Applied Arts and spent several years in Europe designing for Lucille Ltd. before coming to Los Angeles. Continue reading
October 22, 1957
The men of the copy desk gloomily agreed the other day that another hallowed city room custom is just about gone–reporters and editors bellowing “Boy!” and getting an instant and spirited response.
Time was when this strident call created panic and havoc among the copy boys and they raced like genies to the point of origin, stood at attention and meekly awaited orders, no matter what.
Furthermore, it was the dream of these copy boys that some day they would reach the status of reporter or editor and yell “Boy!” at a succeeding generation of willing slaves. Continue reading
Clifford Rue was a man who was ahead of his time and behind on the payments to his bookie.
A former Marine who changed his name from Rubenstein for business purposes, Rue had been working at his father’s liquor store when he persuaded some friends to join him in an unusual venture.
Rue was one of those men who couldn’t get enough sports statistics. If he were alive today, he would probably be in a dozen fantasy leagues and spend all his time on a computer.
But in the 1950s, access to sports information was far more restricted. Rue badgered sportswriters and newspaper editors for updates until he wore out their patience. So in 1955 he persuaded some friends to come up with enough money to begin a free sports information service. Continue reading
October 22, 1957
A man once made the comment about Tijuana:
“Pleasures are cheap there, but pain is cheaper.”
And, for a long time, I felt the statement didn’t leave much to be disputed. Especially, as far as United States tourists were concerned.
In fact, 15 months ago, I checked quite thoroughly into some of the pain reported by visitors from the U.S.
Most of the reports were borne out with substantial evidence.
And nearly all centered around a discrepancy in the traffic accident laws of this country and Mexico. Plus, I should add, a common Latin American practice called the “mordida” system. Continue reading
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
October 22, 1907
Los Angeles
A trolley conductor at 4th Street and Hill complained to a patrolman that one of the passengers looked like a holdup man. The officer investigated and laughed when the man produced a deputy’s badge and claimed that he was Mayor Harper’s son, Oscar.
October 21, 1957
Last Friday, a Hollywood hillsider named George was unable to start his car–the battery was dead.
A neighbor obligingly drove him down the hill to a gas station, where George asked if he could get a rental battery for a couple of days.
“Rental battery?” echoed the attendant. “There’s no such thing any more.”
However, he said he would be glad to install a new one.
George declined. He explained he needed rental battery only for a couple of days to run some errands preparatory to leaving today for New York for a couple of months. He didn’t want to buy a new battery because it would go dead during his absence. Continue reading
October 21, 1957
When a funnyman tries to be serious, he doesn’t always come across.
In fact, sometimes his sincerity is rewarded with laughs that approach guffaws. And, much as he hates it, the guy is downright hilarious.
And maybe that was Sy Miller’s trouble.
For years Sy had been known around Hollywood as a solid comedy writer, a man who could knock out a funny script for television or a good act for nightclubs with equal ease.
Occasionally, with his wife, Jill, he’d punch out a song, too. Novelty numbers–the kind that have to hit the market at the right time with the right voice or they fall harder than a bad joke. Continue reading
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
Moviegoers Walter Saul of Cincinnati and his wife had just settled into their seats for a double feature with his friend Aloysius Bollin and son Joseph when he felt Bollin’s head on his shoulder.
Saul, a firefighter, thought Bollin had fallen asleep but after checking his pulse a few minutes later, realized that his friend was dead—and already getting cold. But rather than disturb the audience, Saul sat with Bollin’s head on his shoulder through both features, later explaining he “didn’t want to cause a disturbance that might have led to a panic.”
Note: This is an encore post from 2006. Evel (whom I mistakenly called “Evil”) in the last paragraph was the cat of Kim Cooper and Richard Schave.
October 21, 1907
Los Angeles
There’s no shortage of opinions on how to improve the quality of life in Los Angeles. Most people advocate better roads—paved roads that connect the city with Pasadena and the beach. Others suggest more schools, hospitals, better jail facilities, enforcement of blue laws and closing the saloons.
Memorable SpeechAlmost a week later, those who heard it are still tingling over H.C. (Chad) McClellan’s talk before the Rotary Club.
McClellan, 62, L.A. paint company executive and onetime NAM president, organized and managed the U.S. exhibit in Moscow, which 2,700,000 Russians visited in its six-week run last summer.
He represents capitalism, a hate word in Russia. Yet in his five months there he earned the respect of the Russians by his blunt sincerity. He spoke the same way to the Rotarians. Continue reading
A moment in history from the Los Angeles Examiner.
This week’s “unsuitable” mystery movie was the 1931 First National Pictures film The Ruling Voice, with Walter Huston, Loretta Young, Dudley Digges, David Manners, Doris Kenyon, John Halliday, Willard Robertson, Gilbert Emery and Douglas Scott. Continue reading
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
October 20, 1907
Los Angeles
Winsor McCay and his cartoons never completely go out of fashion and are periodically rediscovered—as in the current Taschen anthology. He was a fabulous artist and his Sunday panels remain a marvel of fantasy and rebellion against the tyranny of pigeonhole boxes. Living as we do in the era of legacy comics (Charles Schulz has been dead since 2000); bland, humorless writing; weak drawing; and panels shrunk to the size of postage stamps, it’s easy to think that comics aficionados 100 years ago were fortunate to get strips that ran a full page.
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Correction: This post (and the original version from 2006) misspelled the artist’s first name, Winsor, as Windsor. We were so worried about spelling his last name, McCay, properly that we overlooked his first name.
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October 19, 1957
Edwin Anthony Browne, playboy newspaperman of another day, is revisiting L.A. after 20 years and he is aghast.
Perhaps aghast is too strong a word. Let’s say amused or mildly interested.
Brownie, an innocent-looking cherub but a deadly man in his day in running down a story or a bottle, is not given to emotional expression. In fact, his indifference to what most people consider important is colossal. Continue reading
October 19, 1957
Most good writers are also good listeners.
And Hollywood scenarist Jack Wagner isn’t an exception to the rule.
In fact, Jack often goes it one better by listening in the right places at the right times.
Forty-seven years ago, Jack sat in the plaza of the north Mexico town of Gomez Palacio and listened.
He heard storekeepers grumble softly about the soldiers of Presidente Porfirio Diaz. The soldiers, they complained, had an ugly habit of
grabbing merchandise off the shelves and laughing:
“Charge it to Porfirio.” Continue reading
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
RIVERSIDE, Oct. 18.—Gov. Earl Warren was formally and officially called on here today by the executive committee of the California Republican State Central Committee to become a candidate for president of the United States.
Resolutions urging Warren to consent to the selection of the delegates pledged to place him in nomination at the GOP convention in Philadelphia June 20, 1948, were adopted without a dissenting vote.
Earlier in the day the candidates and fact-finding committee of the California Republican Assembly, meeting in Riverside’s Mission Inn coincidentally with the executive committee session, adopted a similar resolution…..
This appears to be just another photo of water spouting from a fire hydrant that was hit by a car. And indeed it is.
But wait! What’s that weird building in the background? Continue reading
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