October 21, 1957: Matt Weinstock

Posted on October 21, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 21, 1957

Matt WeinstockLast 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 →

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October 21, 1957: Paul V. Coates–Confidential File

Posted on October 21, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 21, 1957

Paul Coates, in coat and tieWhen 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 →

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October 21, 1947: Firefighter Sits Through Movie With Dead Friend to Avoid Audience Panic

Posted on October 21, 2025 by lmharnisch

Oct. 21, 1947, L.A. Times

L.A. Times, 1947

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.”

Continue reading →

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October 21, 1907: L.A. Doctor Wants to Exterminate Cats Over Their Diet of Diseased Rats

Posted on October 21, 2025 by lmharnisch


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.

Continue reading →

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October 20, 1959: Matt Weinstock

Posted on October 20, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 20, 1959: Ad for Ford cars.Memorable Speech

Matt WeinstockAlmost 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 →

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October 20, 1944: MACARTHUR IN PHILIPPINES

Posted on October 20, 2025 by lmharnisch

Oct. 20, 1944, MacArthur in Philippines

A moment in history from the Los Angeles Examiner.

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Movieland ‘Unsuitable’ Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on October 20, 2025 by lmharnisch

Main Title: Lettering.

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 →

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October 20, 1907: Winsor McCay, ‘Little Nemo’ and The Imp

Posted on October 20, 2025 by lmharnisch


1907_1020B

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.

———-
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.
———-

Continue reading →

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October 19, 1957: Matt Weinstock

Posted on October 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 19, 1957

Matt WeinstockEdwin 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 →

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October 19, 1957: Paul V. Coates–Confidential File

Posted on October 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 19, 1957

Paul Coates, in coat and tieMost 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 →

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October 19, 1947: Times Political Editor Kyle Palmer Waves the Banner for Earl Warren

Posted on October 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

L.A. Times, 1947
L.A. Times, 1947 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…..

Continue reading →

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October 19, 1938: Stolen statue — Nuestro Pueblo

Posted on October 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 19, 1938: Nuestro Pueblo, pencil drawing by Charles Owens of the statue of a miner

Continue reading →

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October 19, 1938: Mystic vision

Posted on October 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 19, 1938: Street GeyserThis 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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October 19, 1907: Toku, Abandoned by Man Who Claimed to Be Wealthy, Denied a Divorce

Posted on October 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

October 19, 1907
Los Angeles

On a visit to Japan, K. Tsuneda of California met an attractive young woman named Toku. Telling her family that he was a wealthy Stanford student, Tsuneda married Toku and they embarked for the United States so his new wife could get an American education.

Her education began the moment they arrived in San Francisco: Tsuneda revealed that he was neither wealthy, nor a Stanford student. In fact, they both had to go to work. They moved from Berkeley to Redlands, where they separated. After reuniting briefly in Los Angeles, Tsuneda vanished, Toku said in seeking a divorce.

Continue reading →

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October 18, 1957: Matt Weinstock

Posted on October 18, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 18, 1957

Matt WeinstockIf pressed, most persons who preside at information and complaint desks will admit there are times when they don’t think the human race is going to make it. Sanity and/or serenity, they mean.

Not long ago, a woman phoned the complaint desk at the City Health Department and said, “I want to report a health menace–my doorbell is out of order.”

Another non sequitur came from a lady who said she lived next door to a pet shop which sold horse meat. This she considered very unsanitary. “I’m expecting a baby,” she added, “and I think something should be done about it.” Continue reading →

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October 18, 1947: S.S. General Saw Mass Executions as ‘Necessary to Win War’

Posted on October 18, 2025 by lmharnisch

 L.A. Times, 1947

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

NEURNBERG, Oct. 17 (A.P.)—S.S. Gen. Erich Naumann, whose commandos killed thousands of Jewish men, women and children on the eastern front, told a war crimes court today he saw nothing wrong with that.

He was one of the leading defendants in the case against the Einsatz command groups which Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler formed to eradicate whole races.

Continue reading →

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October 18, 1943: Errol Flynn Named in Paternity Suit

Posted on October 18, 2025 by lmharnisch

Oct. 18, 1943, Comics

October 18, 1943: Los Angeles is in the middle of a paternity suit brought by Shirley Evans Hassau, 21, against Errol Flynn. Hassau charged that Flynn was the father of her daughter Marilyn, who was 3. Hassau was seeking $1,750 a month child support, $10,000 in attorneys fees,  $5,000 for hospital expenses and $2,000 in court costs.

An aunt, Florence Muller of San Francisco, had raised Marilyn since she was 5 weeks old and refused to let Hassau see her, The Times said.

Hassau’s suits against Flynn were dismissed in 1951. In 1940, two weeks after Marilyn was born, Flynn agreed to pay Hassau $2,000  although he denied being the father. The actor said he wanted to avoid a long court trial and adverse publicity.

Continue reading →

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October 18, 1907: Newspaper Cartoonist Ted Gale Makes His Point

Posted on October 18, 2025 by lmharnisch

image

Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

October 18, 1907
Los Angeles

For the last month, the pages of The Times have been peppered with pen-and-ink cartoons signed Gale—in fact some of them have already appeared in the blog, with Nathan’s post on Japanese hobos and mine on Marco Vessella. But that was only the beginning. By the end of the month, Gale’s cartoons have become a regular feature of The Times, usually paired with text by Harry Carr. Gale specializes in ethnic caricatures: Chinamen with long queues, bucktoothed Japanese, Mexicans with sombreros—and don’t even ask how he draws African Americans.

His name was Edmund Waller Gale, but he was known as Ted or “Cartoonist Gale” and he was an institution at The Times, drawing editorial cartoons for decades, on an irregular basis before they became a daily feature in 1922.

Continue reading →

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October 17, 1957: Matt Weinstock

Posted on October 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

Oct. 17, 1957

It was recently stated here that the origin of Murphy’s Law, a derisive bit of whimsy among airplane people, was unknown. The “law” states, “If an aircraft part can be installed incorrectly, someone will figure out how to do it.”

Now the man who formulated this precept of human fallibility, George B. Murphy of Venice, an aircraft factory inspector, has come forward to acknowledge responsibility. He has also recounted a recent experience bearing on the same subject.

A young machinist brought him a part to inspect and he found it was out of tolerance by .001 of an inch and rejected it.

The youth insisted it was in tolerance because he handled .005. Continue reading →

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October 17, 1957: Paul V. Coates–Confidential File

Posted on October 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

Oct. 17, 1957

Paul Coates, in coat and tieHe sat nervously in the chair opposite me. The staccato beat in his speech reflected his anxiety.

“Nothing would ever have happened to me,” he said, “except that on her dead body was found my name.

“I had a job and everything was nice. I was living in Jersey, in Newark.

“It was headline in all the papers–that she was murdered.

“She lived in Phoenixville, in Pennsylvania, but it wasn’t far from Newark. Sixty, 70 miles.”

“When?” I interrupted. “When was all this?”

The young man paused. “That was…let’s see–March of ’54.” Continue reading →

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