A Witzel studio photo of what appears to be silent film actress Jackie Saunders has been listed on EBay. Witzel was one of the leading portrait studios in Los Angeles and took many publicity photos in the early days of movies. This photo is listed as Buy It Now for $99.95. According to imdb, Saunders worked in films from 1911 to 1925.
Dec. 2, 1935: In this installment of Rediscovering Los Angeles, Times artist Charles Owens and columnist Timothy Turner visit El Capricho de los Dorados, a tiny Mexican restaurant on Aliso “below Alameda Street.”
Turner says: “These little places are generally run by a family, a man and his wife with daughters serving the table. A widow with a lot of daughters can do very well (sometimes better, they say) than with a man around.”
He also mentions the restaurant in his book “Turn Off the Sunshine.”
I know, I know. I just did newsboy caps. But I couldn’t resist. Look: It’s an actual newsboy wearing a newsboy cap. I’ll bet you can guess the studio just from this crowd scene.
How to Wear a Hat — Newsboy Cap Edition
How to Wear a Hat — ‘Grapes of Wrath’ Edition
Movieland Mystery Photo — Newsboy Cap Edition I
Movieland Mystery Photo — Newsboy Cap Edition II
Movieland Mystery Photo — Newsboy Cap Edition III
Movieland Mystery Photo — Newsboy Cap Edition IV
Movieland Mystery Photo — Newsboy Cap Edition V
Movieland Mystery Photo — Newsboy Cap Edition VI
Movieland Mystery Photo — Newsboy Cap Edition VII
Movieland Mystery Photo — Newsboy Cap Edition VIII
Movieland Mystery Photo — Newsboy Cap Edition IX
Movieland Mystery Photo — Newsboy Cap Edition X
Movieland Mystery Photo — Newsboy Cap Edition XI
Movieland Mystery Photo — Newsboy Cap Edition XII
How to Wear a Newsboy Cap — Marc Chevalier Edition
Note: Due to a technical problem, this post was published without the final paragraphs. These have been added.
The movie-going public has always craved learning fascinating tidbits about their favorite movies and motion picture stars. Any fact, however obscure or perhaps slightly tawdry, attracts the interest of rabid fans. Studios happily churn plenty of hyperbolic prose promoting new film releases, rising stars, stars in need of a comeback, even film grosses, to boost movie attendance.
While the motion picture industry began disseminating trade publications around 1906 with Views and Film Index (later The Film Index), mass consumption fan magazines popped up in February 1911, when film pioneer J. Stuart Blackton introduced Motion Picture Studio Magazine, per Anthony Slide in his book, “Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine.” Others like Motion Picture Magazine, Motion Picture Classic and Photoplay, quickly followed. These early magazines eagerly documented the budding film industry and its growing legion of stars. Cheap and affordable, these slick sheets never let truth stand in the way of a good story.
Mary Mallory’s “Hollywoodland: Tales Lost and Found” is available at Amazon.
Read the November 1920 issue online via Archive.org.
A photograph showing the bombed-out ruins of the Los Angeles Times Building has been listed on EBay. Bidding starts at $5.
By the way, I am tardy in writing about Lew Irwin’s book on The Times bombing. Lew is a longtime newsman who was one of the few white reporters who paid any attention at all to what was going on in Los Angeles’ African American community in the 1950s. In “Deadly Times,” Lew has produced an extremely readable account of the incident and it’s well worth a look. I am way overdue on writing about it. So many stories, only one Larry Harnisch.
I wrote extensively about the bombing when the L.A. Daily Mirror was at latimes.com. You can find those entries here.
An EBay vendor has listed a program from the 1947 World Inventors Exposition. According to ads in The Times, this is where the Tucker automobile had its “premiere public showing.” Bidding on the program starts at $19.95.
I wrote a brief post about the expo for the 1947project in 2005 – here it is:
Note: Here’s a post I originally wrote for the 1947project back in 2005.
Pat and Gunner, 6-year-old Irish setters who were left a $30,000 estate by their late master, Carleton R. Bainbridge, retired attorney, yesterday were disinherited by a jury of eight men and four women.
Mary Mallory and Marc Wanamaker will be speaking at this event on Oct. 19 from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Studio City Library, 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City.
The annual Archives Bazaar snuck up on me this year. It’s tomorrow at USC!
The annual bazaar will be held at USC’s Doheny Memorial Library from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Featured sessions include the Archives Roadshow, from 10 a.m to 4 p.m., in which people can bring in historical materials to have them assessed.
Los Angeles Public Library map librarian Glen Creason will speak in the 10 a.m. session on Public Collections, Private Obsessions, along with Joseph Hawkins of the ONE Archives and Wally Shidler, a collector of transportation history.
Pecha Kucha will give five-minute presentations on Los Angeles archives from 11 a.m. to noon
Beyond the Archives Bazaar will be held from 1 to 1:50 pm.; Craft Brewing in L.A. from 2 to 2:50 p.m. and the documentary “The Good Giants” will be screened from 3 to 5 p.m.
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A 1908 program from the Mason Opera House has been listed on EBay with an ad for an upcoming production of “The Clansman,” a play adapted from Thomas Dixon’s novels “The Leopard’s Spots” and “The Clansman” and turned into D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation.” The program is listed as Buy It Now for $17.95.
The play was controversial – resulting in a stabbing in a fight between two African Americans – but Times columnist Harry Carr dismissed the play and the books, saying that rather than inciting race hatred “The Clansman” was more likely to produce a case of indigestion.
Oct. 11, 1983: Patt Morrison has the story of Ginny Foat, the former head of the state chapter of the National Organization for Women, who was charged with helping her ex-husband beat a man to death with a tire iron.
According to Morrison’s story, Foat (then Virginia Galluzzo) was married to John J. Sidote who at the time of the allegations was serving a sentence in Nevada for voluntary manslaughter and robbery.
In case you just tuned in, we are looking at the unsolved September 1943 killing of actor David G.G. Bacon, who appeared in Republic’s “Masked Marvel” serial.
In Part 1, witnesses described Bacon driving erratically on Washington Boulevard, then crashing into a bean field, where he died of a deep stab wound.
In Part 2, we found that Bacon went to Venice by himself, leaving his pregnant wife, singer Greta Keller, at home. He also didn’t take his three dogs, as was his custom when he went swimming. Police said that robbery probably wasn’t the motive, because he had $13 in his wallet and was wearing two valuable rings. They also noted that he habitually picked up hitchhikers.
In Part 3, we looked at his personal life and his marriage to singer Greta Keller, who was 11 years his senior and apparently more established in her career. Of particular interest was his arrest for contributing to the delinquency of a 15-year-old newsboy – which was reported in a United Press story.
Today we will turn his mysterious diary, which he kept in code.
“Vaudeville,” by Caroline Caffin and Marius De Zayas has been listed on EBay. My knowledge of vaudeville is quite slim and for all I know this may be a standard work on the subject, although I have never encountered it before.
What intrigues me is the caricatures throughout the book. There is Bert Williams, above…
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And here’s Harry Houdini and Al Jolson.
The copy on EBay is a bit battered and the price is high, with bids starting at $297.95.
Or you can read Google’s scan of the book online for free.
In case you just tuned in, we’re looking at the unsolved September 1943 killing of movie actor David G.G. Bacon, who appeared in the Republic serial “The Masked Marvel.”
In Part 1, witnesses described Bacon driving erratically on Washington Boulevard, then crashing into a bean field, where he died of a deep stab wound.
In Part 2, we found that Bacon went to Venice by himself, leaving his pregnant wife, singer Greta Keller, at home. He also didn’t take his three dogs, as was his custom when he went swimming. Police said that robbery probably wasn’t the motive, because he had $13 in his wallet and was wearing two valuable rings. They also noted that he habitually picked up hitchhikers.
Today we’ll look at Bacon’s life.
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A couple of Witzel photos have turned up on EBay. As you may recall from Mary Mallory’s recent post, Witzel was one of the leading portrait studios in early 20th century Los Angeles and took many movie publicity photos.
At the top is a Witzel portrait of Bebe Daniels that was apparently inscribed by her. On the lower left, we have an unidentified woman in a fetching leopard-skin outfit and on the lower right we have actress Seena Owen.
The photos of Daniels and Owen are offered by the same vendor, while the leopard woman is offered by another seller. The Daniels photo is priced at Buy It Now for $320; the leopard-skin lady is Buy It Now for $19.95; and the Seena Owen photo is Buy It Now for $275.
As with anything on EBay, an item and vendor should be evaluated thoroughly before submitting a bid, especially when any serious money is involved.
This is the fourth in the Rediscovering Los Angeles series, from Nov. 25, 1935, by Times artist Charles Owens and columnist Timothy Turner.
Horses did not disappear from the streets of Los Angeles for quite a while after the introduction of the automobile, and even in 1935, when this livery stable was to be razed for construction of Union Station, it was still operating, but rented out rigs to junk men who collected scrap metal, paper and old clothes. Turner wrote: “Look in vain, you will, for anything, the least thing in the world, to denote that we are living any later than 1895.”
Unfortunately, Rediscovering Los Angeles was never published in book form, unlike the later Nuestro Pueblo, by Owens and Joe Seewerker.
Flooding in North Hollywood, courtesy of Mary Mallory.
Seventy-five years ago, a deluge of rain hit Los Angeles and the surrounding area, leading to massive floods and causing millions of dollars in damage and a devastating loss of life. Many factors led to this destruction: too much rain, inadequate construction of bridges and roads, and homes and businesses located in flood-prone areas. One of the unfortunate consequences of the floods was the eventual concreting of the Los Angeles River, ruining its beauty.
Although other areas of the country suffered through droughts and dust storms in the 1930s, Los Angeles and Southern California endured large amounts of rainfall. Most years saw higher than normal annual rain levels. 1937 saw 17.85 inches fall by March 1, while 1934 saw the largest amount of rain since the 1860s.
1938 started out with heavy rains, growing worse through February. Small patches of flooding caused concerns throughout the city. On Feb. 28, a severe storm hit the area, leading to five days of disaster.
The March 1, 1938, Los Angeles Times noted that gale winds hit the coast, and more than 2.5 inches of rain fell on Feb. 28. Seasonal rain totals reached 14.43 inches, more than 4 inches above average.
Mary Mallory’s “Hollywoodland” is now available as an ebook.
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These quite unusual Batchelder tiles have been listed on EBay. In the years I’ve been watching for Batchelder tiles, I can’t say I have ever seen anything like these.
Bidding on the upper tile, featuring a man apparently playing the cymbals, starts at $300. The two angels, which are in separate lot from the same vendor, start at $250. As with anything on EBay, an item and vendor should be evaluated thoroughly before submitting a bid.
Note: Here’s an entry I wrote in 2006 for the 1947project. I thought newer readers might enjoy it.
Oct. 5, 1907
Los Angeles
Hilliard Stricklin is a man with an urgent desire to do something for his fellow African Americans. He says that he came to Los Angeles from Chattanooga, Tenn., about 1895 with a few dollars in his pocket, worked hard and saved his money until he opened a grocery store at 2053 Santa Fe Ave.
What he wants most is to build a facility for the elderly and for orphaned children, naming it the Stricklin Memorial Home for the Aged in honor of his mother.
Two years earlier, Stricklin bought the old Pertinico Winery on Vermont Avenue just south of Pico, paying about $10,000 ($205,235.70 USD 2005). The white neighbors in Pico Heights assumed Stricklin was bluffing with his talk about helping the elderly until the day piles of lumber and a crowd of workmen appeared on the site.
And then they were furious at the idea. Neighbors accused Stricklin of extorting an extravagant price for the property under the threat of bringing blacks into the area.
[Warning: Dialect ahead]
“Followed numerous interviews with Stricklin,” The Times said. “Citizens expressed themselves vigorously. Stricklin sorry that they didn’t like his plans; but somehow the site just seemed to suit him and he kind o’ thought the ol’ folks could be real comfo’ble out there. Reckoned he’d just go ’long with the work.
“Citizens stormed; but Stricklin calmly squinted at the frame of the structure and dropped remarks about the great need of charity and the good he hoped the memorial home would do his brethren and sisters.
“Finally, a great light seemed to dawn. Hilliard Stricklin conceived the idea—remarkable feat—that perhaps the white people of the neighborhood would like to buy him out!”
In fact, according to Mayor Harper, Stricklin made a modest profit on the property, selling it for $13,000. His plan was to duplicate the Vermont Avenue building “in a quarter where it appropriately belongs,” according to The Times.
The location, however, is vague. Some stories say it was at Alamo and Santa Fe, while another lists Alma and St. Elmo, just off Santa Fe, but unfortunately I can’t locate either of them on any of my old maps, which only go back to the 1930s.
Stricklin took out ads for his second project and raised money, but nothing ever came of it except for a lawsuit by the guardian of one of his donors accusing Stricklin of fraud.
“The founder appears to be in hard luck,” The Times said. “His little grocery store at No. 2053 Santa Fe Ave. is tied up under an attachment. He is very discouraged over the collapse of his pet scheme. He lays the blame on poor solicitors but admits his lack of business judgment.”
“If a home for colored people is ever established,” The Time said, “it is believed it will be necessary to purchase ground outside the city limits. To establish such an institution in any residential part of the city would meet with strong opposition from property owners.”
Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
ladailymirror.com 