Lou Costello’s Son Drowns in Swimming Pool

Posted on November 5, 2013 by lmharnisch

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Nov. 3, 1943, Lou Costell's Son Drowns

Nov. 5, 1943: Lou Costello Jr. drowns in the swimming pool of the family home at 4124 Longridge Ave., Van Nuys. Here’s a post I wrote about the tragedy in 2007.

Posted in 1943, Film, Hollywood, San Fernando Valley | Tagged , , , , | 16 Comments

Rediscovering Los Angeles — Pershing Square

Posted on November 5, 2013 by lmharnisch

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Dec. 23, 1935: For this installment of Rediscovering Los Angeles, Times artist Charles Owens and columnist Timothy Turner visit Pershing Square. Not the concrete moonscape we know today, designed to repel the homeless, but a lushly landscaped park with a fountain and greenery in downtown Los Angeles.

Unlike the later series, Nuestro Pueblo, done by Owens and Joseph Seewerker, Rediscovering Los Angeles was never published in book form. The Times encouraged readers to clip the entries and save them in a scrapbook.

Turner says:

Pershing Square in the modern life of the city represents two things, a beauty appreciated by few and human blab. It is the place for shooting off one’s mouth, and a hundred or so men and some women sit there if the weather is fine and talk and talk and talk.

The police have just given up trying to stop the groups that block the walks and from these huddles and from rows seated on the bench comes a continuous hum of dialogue or rather conflicting monologues. Many in Pershing Square are not of the class fortunate or happy in this vale of tears, but most of them are very wise.

The talk is almost always dogmatic, often angry. Searchers for knowledge can go to Pershing Square and always find a man, and sometimes a woman, who absolutely knows everything about everything.

Continue reading →

Posted in 1935, Art & Artists, Columnists, Downtown, Hill Street, Nuestro Pueblo, Olive, Parks | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + +)

Posted on November 4, 2013 by lmharnisch

Nov. 4, 2013, Mystery Photo
And for Monday, a mystery lad.

Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 58 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights — A. L. “Whitey” Schafer Simplifies Portraits

Posted on November 4, 2013 by lmharnisch

Whitey Schafer "Thou Shalt Not"
“Thou Shalt Not,” “Whitey” Schafer’s most famous image.

In the very early days of the motion picture industry, stills photographers meant nothing to the moving picture companies. They asked their feature cameramen to work double duty, shooting scene stills after completing filming that very same scene. These companies also hired local photographic studios to shoot portraits of their stars, or allowed the stars themselves to hire photographers to shoot images that could be employed in advertising.

When stars’ names and faces became important tools to sell product, stillsmen became integral in shaping a motion picture company’s or star’s brand that could be sold to consumers. Studios hired their own photographers to shoot scene, production, off-camera and reference stills that could be employed in advertising, while major stars Mary Pickford and William S. Hart signed their own personal cameramen like K. O. Rahmn and Junius Estep to capture their on- and off-camera pursuits. By the middle of the 1920s, each studio established stills departments to shoot, process and manufacture the thousands of stills required for product-hungry newspapers, magazines and consumer tie-ins.

Mary Mallory’s “Hollywoodland: Tales Lost and Found” is available for the Kindle.

Continue reading →

Posted in Books and Authors, Film, Found on EBay, Hollywood, Hollywood Heights, Mary Mallory, Photography | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Time to Turn the Clocks Back

Posted on November 2, 2013 by lmharnisch

Pier Angelia

On behalf of the L.A. Daily Mirror, Pier Angeli and friend remind you that Daylight Saving Time is o-ver. Or as William Safire used to say: “Fall is the time of year that conservatives like best because they get to turn the clock back.”

Posted in Film, Hollywood, Photography | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Roll On, Ugly River

Posted on November 2, 2013 by lmharnisch

Nov. 2, 1907, L.A. River Note: This is a post I originally wrote in 2006 for the 1907 project.

Nov. 2, 1907: As part of a new city beautification campaign, Boyle Heights residents have suggested turning the Los Angeles River into a garden spot.
The plan calls for “a long, winding strand of posies and greenery—a narrow, picturesque parking, which will be viewed by practically every passenger who arrives or leaves Los Angeles on any of the transcontinental railroads,” The Times said.

The railroad tracks run next to river from Elysian Park to the southeastern section of the city, The Time says. Landscaping of “nasturtiums, morning glories and other hardy running and climbing vines along the riprapping of the banks, and the planting of such low-growing shrubs at the bases of these riprapped walls as would be of little interference with the rush of the waters” would create a first impression of Los Angeles that would be “the talk of people all over America.”

Posted in 1907, Parks | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

The ‘Decline’ of Wikipedia

Posted on November 1, 2013 by lmharnisch

No Wikipedia

A world without Wikipedia? Sounds good to me.

Tom Simonite in the MIT Technology Review looks at the “decline” of Wikipedia (that would, of course, assume that it was ever worth anything).

Yet Wikipedia and its stated ambition to “compile the sum of all human knowledge” are in trouble. The volunteer workforce that built the project’s flagship, the English-language Wikipedia—and must defend it against vandalism, hoaxes, and manipulation—has shrunk by more than a third since 2007 and is still shrinking.

Those participants left seem incapable of fixing the flaws that keep Wikipedia from becoming a high-quality encyclopedia by any standard, including the project’s own. Among the significant problems that aren’t getting resolved is the site’s skewed coverage: its entries on Pokemon and female porn stars are comprehensive, but its pages on female novelists or places in sub-Saharan Africa are sketchy. Authoritative entries remain elusive. Of the 1,000 articles that the project’s own volunteers have tagged as forming the core of a good encyclopedia, most don’t earn even Wikipedia’s own middle-­ranking quality scores.

The main source of those problems is not mysterious. The loose collective running the site today, estimated to be 90 percent male, operates a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere that deters newcomers who might increase participation in Wikipedia and broaden its coverage.

See “Me vs. Wikipedia.”

Posted in History, Wikipedia | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

The ‘Masked Marvel Murder’ — Part 10

Posted on November 1, 2013 by lmharnisch

David Bacon in the "Masked Marvel"

David Bacon, center, in a still from “The Masked Marvel,” photo courtesy of Steven Bibb.

Sept. 20, 1943, Bacon Killing In case you just tuned in, we are looking at the “Masked Marvel Murder” of actor David G.G. Bacon, who was stabbed to death Sept. 12, 1943. Bacon was apparently driving back to Los Angeles from Venice, crashed his car into a bean field on Washington Boulevard and collapsed, dying of a deep stab wound. His killing was never solved.

In previous posts, we have looked at his coded diary, his secret hideaway a mile from his home with singer Greta Keller, his arrest for contributing to the delinquency of a minor – a 15-year-old newsboy – and his participation in the Hasty Pudding productions at Harvard, in which he was apparently quite gifted at portraying women.

Now it’s time to look at the “sideshow.”

The “Masked Marvel Murder” Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

Continue reading →

Posted in 1943, Cold Cases, Crime and Courts, Film, Hollywood, Homicide, LAPD | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

The ‘Masked Marvel Murder’ – Part 9

Posted on October 31, 2013 by lmharnisch

David Bacon Case

Note: This post has been corrected. See details below.

In case you just tuned in, we have been going through the case of actor David G.G. Bacon, who was stabbed to death Sept. 12, 1943, in a case that remains unsolved. I hadn’t planned on such an extensive series of posts, but Steven Bibb has graciously shared some of his material and it’s quite interesting.

The “Masked Marvel Murder” Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

This is a photo of Lee Jones of the LAPD crime lab, holding what has been described as “the bathrobe” found in Bacon’s car after he jumped the curb on Washington Boulevard and staggered from the vehicle.

Continue reading →

Posted in 1943, Cold Cases, Fashion, Film, Hollywood, Homicide, LAPD | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

‘The Clansman’ Comes to Los Angeles – Part 2

Posted on October 30, 2013 by lmharnisch

1908, The Clansman
A photo from an ad for “The Clansman” in the Los Angeles Herald, 1908.

Several weeks ago, I stumbled across a program from the Mason Opera House, announcing the upcoming production of “The Clansman,” the play by Thomas Dixon Jr. based on his novels “The Leopard’s Spots” and “The Clansman,” which in turn was made into “The Birth of a Nation.”

In response to questions about that post, I thought it would be worthwhile to examine the 1908 stage production of “The Clansman” in more depth, and I must say I’m glad I did. After years of looking through old newspapers, I like to think I’m pretty hardened to most of the attitudes expressed in print. But even so, the Los Angeles Herald’s review of “The Clansman”  is shocking. (In essence — please note that this is a paraphrase — the unidentified critic says: “We Northerners hate blacks as much as you Southerners, so why are you giving us Yankees such a bad time?”)

The Los Angeles Herald clips on “The Clansman,” are online and not behind a paywall.

Continue reading →

Posted in 1908, African Americans, Animals, Broadway, Downtown, Film, History, Hollywood, Los Angeles Star, Stage | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

A Letter From John Steinbeck

Posted on October 29, 2013 by lmharnisch

Zamorano Club, Letter From John Steinbeck

I’m always intrigued by the Zamorano Club’s publications. The Zamorano Club was established in 1928 by Los Angeles bibliophiles, named for Augustin Zamorano, California’s first printer, and treated its members to small press runs (often from the Ward Ritchie Press) of curious or remarkable items. This small item, by the Grace Hoper Press, is a reprint of a lighthearted, one-page letter written c. 1922 by John Steinbeck about his lack of poetic works and was addressed to William Carruth (d. 1924), professor of comparative literature at Stanford.

What’s remarkable about this particular item is the price: 270 pounds, about $435. The vendor has thoughtfully included a scan of the letter so that bidders can decide whether the pamphlet is worth the price. As with anything on EBay, an item and vendor should be evaluated thoroughly before submitting a bid.

Posted in 1964, Books and Authors, Found on EBay | Tagged , , | Comments Off on A Letter From John Steinbeck

Rediscovering Los Angeles – the St. Angelo

Posted on October 29, 2013 by lmharnisch

Dec. 16, 1935, Rediscovering Los Angeles

Grand and Temple via Google Street View

Grand and Temple via Google Street View.

In the Dec. 16, 1935, installment of Rediscovering Los Angeles, Times artist Charles Owens and columnist Timothy Turner visit the St. Angelo, on “Grand Avenue just off Temple Street on the northern slope of that unappreciated group of hills which form the nucleus of Los Angeles.”

Once a fancy hotel where James Whitcomb Riley stayed for several months, by the 1930s, the St. Angelo was a hotel for working men, Turner writes.

Unlike Nuestro Pueblo, Owens’ later work with Joe Seewerker, Rediscovering Los Angeles was never published in book form. The Times encouraged readers to clip the entries and save them in a scrapbook.

Continue reading →

Posted in 1935, Architecture, Art & Artists, Downtown, Nuestro Pueblo | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on October 28, 2013 by lmharnisch

Oct. 28, 2013, Mystery Photo

And we start the week with a couple of mystery folks.

Personal Property

You’ll have to admit, it would have been much easier to identify “Personal Property” if I had used some of these shots.

Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 43 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights — Spooky, Ooky Witch’s House Haunts Beverly Hills

Posted on October 28, 2013 by lmharnisch

Willat-Lescalle House

A sketch of the “The Witch’s House” by Charles Owens from “Nuestro Pueblo,” courtesy of Mary Mallory

 

Once upon a time, home design and architecture saluted fantasy and make-believe, and not just in fiction. Bilbo Baggins and lucky leprechauns resided in twee little bungalows, short, off-kilter, hutch-like, but so did imaginative and childlike Los Angeles residents of the 1920s. Storybook architecture, dreamed up and promoted by film industry veterans, flourished near movie studios, magical little Brigadoon-like structures.

A strong proponent of storybook design was Hollywood art director Harry Oliver. Noted for his work as art director on films “7th Heaven” (1927) and “Street Angel” (1928). Oliver merrily dreamed up colorful structures on the side, like the famous Van de Kamp’s windmills and Los Feliz’s Tam-o-Shanter restaurant. Another whimsical structure, however, remains his most famous design, the Witch’s House in Beverly Hills.

Mary Mallory’s “Hollywoodland:Tales Lost and Found” is available as an ebook.

Continue reading →

Posted in 1921, Architecture, Film, Hollywood, Hollywood Heights, Mary Mallory, Nuestro Pueblo | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

State Normal School at Los Angeles

Posted on October 26, 2013 by lmharnisch

State Normal School, 1911

What grandma used to call a “penny postal” showing the State Normal School in Los Angeles has been listed on EBay. And who would like to tell us what’s there now? This postcard is listed as Buy It Now for $2.99.

Posted in 1911, Architecture, Downtown, Found on EBay | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

The Deadly Inferno

Posted on October 26, 2013 by lmharnisch

Oct. 26, 1907Note: I’m reposting an item for newer readers that I originally wrote in 2006 for the 1947project.

Oct. 26, 1907: Two women in the West Adams District were badly burned and expected to die after a bowl of gasoline they were using to clean a soiled dress exploded, engulfing their apartment at 42 St. James Park in flames.

Mrs. James P. Burns (identified helpfully by The Times as the wife of James P. Burns) and maid Catherine Blake had spread a dress across a table and wrapped their hands with rags soaked in gasoline to clean it. Because the electric lights weren’t bright enough, Burns told Blake to light several candles. The candles ignited the bowl of gas, which in turn set off a nearby tank of gasoline.

With her clothes on fire, Blake ran to the rear porch of the second-story apartment and jumped to the ground while Burns fled to a hallway. The building manager ran to the second floor upon hearing the explosion and wrapped Burns in a rug to extinguish the flames.

Continue reading →

Posted in 1907, Fires | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Restaurant Manager Turns Tables on Robbers

Posted on October 25, 2013 by lmharnisch

Oct. 25, 2943, Comics
Oct. 25, 1943: Three bandits who hit a handful of businesses met their match at a cafe at 1306 S. Main St. when they tried to hold up assistant manager Joe D. Poindexter.

Two of them came into the cafe and ordered tomato juice. When Poindexter opened the cash register to ring up the sale, they drew guns.

Continue reading →

Posted in 1943, Comics, Downtown, Film, Hollywood, LAPD, Main Street, World War II | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

‘Turn Off the Sunshine’ by Timothy Turner

Posted on October 24, 2013 by lmharnisch

turn_off_the_sunshine

A copy of Timothy G. Turner’s “Turn Off the Sunshine” has been listed on EBay. Turner, you may recall, was the Times columnist who worked with artist Charles Owens on Rediscovering Los Angeles. Bidding on this copy of the book – which has a broken spine – is (get ready) $950. No, I’m not kidding. With no dust jacket and a broken spine.

But don’t despair. You can find it at Archive.org – free.

Posted in 1942, Books and Authors, Broadway, Downtown, Hollywood | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The ‘Masked Marvel Murder’ — Part 8

Posted on October 24, 2013 by lmharnisch

David Bacon, Harvard Hasty Pudding

David Bacon, seven years before he was killed, in a publicity photo for the Hasty Pudding show at Harvard.

In case you just tuned in, we are looking at the unsolved Sept. 12, 1943, killing of actor David G.G. Bacon.

And here he is, before he went to Hollywood, then known as Gaspar G. Bacon, left, with John Roosevelt and Wallace Beery in an undated photo of a Hasty Pudding show at Harvard.

Again, thanks to regular L.A. Daily Mirror reader Steven Bibb for this photo, which appeared in an unidentified newspaper with a feature story by Peter Levins. Levins wrote a series of stories in the late 1940s titled “Album of Famous Mysteries.” Among other places, Levins’ stories appeared in the American Weekly, distributed with the Chicago Sunday Herald-American. Here’s a sample from 1947.

The “Masked Marvel Murder” Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Continue reading →

Posted in 1943, Cold Cases, Film, Hollywood, LAPD | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Through Witzel’s Lens: Edward Everett Horton

Posted on October 23, 2013 by lmharnisch

Edward Everett Horton by Witzel

A portrait of Edward Everett Horton by the Witzel studio has been listed on EBay. Witzel was one of the leading portrait studios in Los Angeles in the early part of the 20th century and took many publicity photos for film and stage actors. Bidding on the photo of Mr. Horton starts at $39.95. Notice that someone cropped it down to a mug shot and the crop lines are, alas, intact.

Posted in Film, Hollywood, Photography, Witzel | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments