Boxie and I will be doing a live “Ask Me Anything” on the Black Dahlia case Tuesday, October 7, 2025, at 10 a.m. Pacific time, on YouTube. I won’t be doing more streaming videos on Instagram because I don’t have enough subscribers.
Reminder: Do not dress up like the Black Dahlia for Halloween. Don’t do it. There are all sorts of alternatives (Harley Quinn? Mad Moxxi? Loona? Shadowheart?) besides cosplaying the victim of a gruesome murder. Just don’t.
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
September 30, 1907
Los Angeles
Who says research can’t be any fun? I wonder what the WCTU would say about five dozen liquor jugs.
Dr. J.Z. Quack? Not a reassuring name, is it?
Bonus factoid: In French, it’s “Voyez le brick geant que j’examine pres du wharf.”
July 17, 1939: Los Angeles Times reporter Joe Seewerker and artist Charles Owens visit the Lasky Barn, being used as a gym on the Paramount lot.
One Hundred Twenty Four years ago, what is now the Hollywood Heritage Museum began life as a humble little barn in the farming town of Hollywood, California. Just twelve years later in 1913, it first served as a moving picture studio witnessing the evolution of the community from bucolic rural community into the world’s filmmaking capital.
The rich “frostless” belt and soil around Hollywood gave birth to a wide variety of crops. Everything from citrus to figs to melons to even pineapples grew around the community, from the canyons down to the flatlands. The area from around Prospect Avenue and Gower Street down to what is now Santa Monica Boulevard and Cahuenga Boulevard featured bountiful lemon orchards, rich in output and taste. Continue reading
September 29, 1959: Paul Coates on Dorothy Roseborough, a woman who liked to write…
Continue reading
September 29, 1919: A mob in Omaha sets fire to the courthouse after trying to lynch Mayor Mayor Ed P. Smith when he appealed for law and order. Rioters finally lynch William Brown, an African American accused of raping a white woman. Federal troops were sent to restore order. Continue reading
This week’s mystery movie was the 1937 MGM film Sinner Take All, with Bruce Cabot, Margaret Lindsay, Joseph Calleia, Stanley Ridges, Vivienne Osborne, Charley Grapewin, Edward Pawley, George Lynn, Theodore von Eltz, Eadie Adams, George Zucco, Dorothy Kilgallen, Raymond Hatton and Richard Terry. Continue reading
September 28, 1959: “They say I have nothing but yes men around me. I don’t operate that way. I know what I know, so I’m interested in what you know. If you don’t tell me what you think, if you yes me, the picture is hurt. If you tell me what you think, we’ll have no problems.” — Cecil B. DeMille
September 28, 1959: Paul Coates on the lingering effects of holding Japanese Americans during World War II.
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
“Now I can catch up with my reading!”
So does Miss Althea Warren—surrounded by 1,811,000 books—regard her retirement next Wednesday as city librarian of Los Angeles. She, as 13th librarian dating back in a series to 1872, will be replaced by Harold Louis Hamill, 39, of Kansas City.
Looking back over her 14 years as head of the Los Angeles system with its 40 branches, Miss Warren sketched the different trends in the public’s reading and chuckled over some of the traits of early librarians.
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
September 28, 1907
Los Angeles
Members of the Los Angeles Motorcycle Club have written to officials in support of a measure banning loud exhaust pipes on motorcycles.
“The motorcycle club says that it has been making a direct crusade against open mufflers and that all members of the club are forbidden to open their cycle mufflers within any city or town limits,” The Times said.
“We wish it generally understood that those riders of motorcycles making this ‘popgun’ noise, which causes so many complaints, are not members of the Los Angeles Motorcycle Club,” the group said.
September 27, 1963: I always thought blackmail was something that only occurred in old Perry Mason episodes, but here’s an actual case and it’s quite strange. It involves a married man blackmailing a single woman.
No really! Continue reading
September 27, 1957
I never thought the time would come when I would write an ode to a single-chamber incinerator but here I am, doing it. Well, not exactly an ode but maybe a panegyric or at least a paean.
After Monday, householders can no longer burn, not even on unsmoggy mornings or calm evenings.
By official edict, the backyard incinerator has become a villain, convicted of contributing to the delinquency of smog and sentenced to death.
I don’t know about other people but I shall miss carrying the kitchen wastebasket daily to the ugly but inoffensive furnace and putting a match to the contents. Continue reading
September 27, 1957
August 12, 1957–A 19-year-old youth was stabbed and seriously wounded last night as he fought to save an 11-year-old girl from criminal attack in Hollenbeck Park. The youth, Edward Gandara, and Jesus Rodriguez, 16, routed the molester, who escaped after driving a penknife into Gandara’s abdomen. The knife was removed at Lincoln heights Receiving Hospital.
Gandara told police: “He stuck me in the middle but I kept on fighting until he ran away.”
It was a few days ago. Eddie was just out of the hospital. He and some of the guys were sitting around and making talk. Continue reading
September 27, 1944: Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge, with Phil Harris filling in for Kyser. Courtesy of otronmp3.com.
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
September 27, 1907
Los Angeles
Ringling Bros. manager Charles Davis said farewell to Los Angeles, leaving $50 ($1,026.18 USD 2005) and some choice words for local authorities.
Child welfare officer Robert W. Reynolds spent several days attending the circus to ensure that there were no performances by underage children (The Times is a bit vague, saying younger than 16 in one story and younger than 12 in another).
September 26, 1959: Al Capone’s widow is preparing to sue over the film “Al Capone,” seeking a share of the profits, Matt Weinstock says.
Gene Tierney has been released from the Menninger Clinic, a news story says. Continue reading
September 26, 1947: You can buy a new Colt semiauto for $65 ($712.59 USD 2018) in .38 Super or .45, or a Smith and Wesson (presumably a Model 10) in .38 Special for $56.50 ($619.40) USD 2018. Continue reading
September 26, 1944
Walter Winchell says: Many of the staffers at Time-Life are said to be “tired of anonymity” and are taking sides… The big musical hit in town, “Song of Norway,” advertises Milton Lazarus as adapting the book … When it was readying on the coast, he had his name omitted from the ads! … A film producer will be charged with “swindling the government” out of almost a million dollars via tax loopholes.
Louella Parsons says: “Since You Went Away” is dragging them in at the box office in droves and there’s no doubt but the lineup of stars — Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Shirley Temple, Robert Walker, Joe Cotten — is big bait. Now David Selznick has a similar bee in his bonnet about casting “So Little Time,” the J.P. Marquand hit which gets rolling in December with Joseph Cotten as the hero, Jeffrey Wilson. The book has a half-dozen characters almost as important.
Danton Walker says: So great is Hollywood’s fear, now, of emphasizing the war angle of war pictures that not a single shot is fired in “Abroad With Two Yanks.” It is advertised as “strictly a comedy” … Hollywood hears that if the district attorney doesn’t get a conviction in the Dorsey-Hall case, he’s out, as it will be his third fizzle. The other two busts were the Errol Flynn and Chaplin fiascoes.
LIBRA: A real manifest of your fortitude will overcome day’s less friendly rays. Any soundly forceful effort will certainly repay in long run. Romance sponsored.
From the Philadelphia Inquirer via Fultonhistory.com
Continue reading
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
September 26, 1907
Long Beach
Marco Vessella, conductor of Long Beach’s Royal Italian Band, has had nothing but trouble with Special Officer W.D. Cason after firing him from his job as ticket taker.
On one September evening, Vessella and a young lady were waiting for a streetcar when Cason taunted him, calling him “spaghetti face” and “a longhaired dago.”
Vessella was an extremely popular and respected musician in Southern California. The Times said: “Vessella clings to no past traditions, is a follower of no particular school and is not an exclusive nationalist. He plays with equal facility representative compositions of French, German, Italian, English and the best American composers.
ladailymirror.com 