California Politics: Democratic Candidate for Governor Seeks to Bar Blacks

Aug. 1, 1863, Los Angeles Star

The entire Aug. 1, 1863, issue of the Los Angeles Star is available online via the California Digital Newspaper Collection.


 

Aug. 1, 1863, Killing
Buckley shoots Francisco Cruz.


Aug. 1, 1863: The Star publishes the campaign speech of former Gov. John G. Downey (1860-62), the Democratic nominee for governor, calling it “the most important document which has ever emanated from any public man in the state.”

Downey advocates “the welfare of California — the perpetuity of the Federal Union and the preservation of the Constitution with all its guarantees of liberty.”

This is a long campaign speech and I will leave it to Daily Mirror readers whether they care to read the entire address. Here are some nuggets:

“We denounce and unqualifiedly condemn the Emancipation Proclamation of the President of the United States as tending to protract indefinitely civil war, incite servile insurrection and inevitably close the door forever to a restoration of the union of these States.

Aug. 1, 1863, Tomlinson & Co.

“We disapprove of all congressional laws tending to substitute a paper currency in California in place of our own metallic circulating medium.

In other words: “The Constitution as it is and the Union as it was.”

Oh yes. “While duty enjoins us to act with kindness toward those of African descent who are already within our borders, sound judgment teaches that it is impolitic to permit the immigration into our state of a race which must ever remain a separate and inferior caste.”

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated +++)

Aug. 5, 2013, Mystery Photo
And for Monday, two mystery guests.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 51 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights — The First Motion Picture Electrical Parade

Motion Picture Electrical Parade

Harold Lloyd’s float in the electrical parade, courtesy of Mary Mallory.


Long before the Walt Disney Co. began presenting an electrical parade at its parks, Los Angeles offered electrical parades as part of the city’s grand La Fiesta de las Flores celebrations. In 1931, the motion picture industry presented its own lavish spectacular, a glorious, over-the-top affair that only 1930s Hollywood could produce, called Motion Picture Night and the Parade of Jewels.

Los Angeles began celebrating La Fiesta de Las Flores in the 1890s as a way to boost civic pride and awareness as well as lure tourist dollars. Floats, bands and equestrian groups decorated with flowers took part in the event. An evening electrical parade highlighted each fiesta, lending a magical aura to festivities.

ALSO BY MARY MALLORY
Keye Luke
Auction of Souls
Busch Gardens and Hogan’s Aristocratic Dreams

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Posted in 1931, Film, Hollywood, Hollywood Heights, Mary Mallory | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Millennial Moment: Prison Escapee Slaughters Family

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Aug. 2, 1983: Terry Atkinson reviews the L.A. debut of the Eurythmics at the Palace, saying: “Move over, Chrissie Hynde and Martha Davis, and make room for Annie Lennox.”


Kevin Cooper is arraigned in an attack that killed four people and left an 8-year-old boy badly injured while he was a fugitive from the California Institution for Men in Chino.

Cooper was charged with killing F. Douglas and Peg Ryen, their daughter Jessica and a neighbor, Christopher Hughes. The Ryen’s 8-year-old son sustained a slashed throat, but survived, The Times said.

After killings, Cooper — calling himself Angel Jackson — encountered former Marine Owen Handy, his wife, Angelica, and daughter as they were repairing their 32-foot sailboat in a dry dock in Ensenada and volunteered to work for food and a berth on the ship.

The group sailed up the coast, but while the ship was anchored off Santa Cruz Island, Cooper was invited to a nearby ship for a fish fry and was arrested after raping a woman on the boat, The Times said.

Cooper was sentenced to death, but hours before his scheduled execution, he won a new hearing on claims of “evidence tampering and prosecutorial misconduct,” The Times said in 2009 in reporting that the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review his conviction.

Meanwhile Alan Dershowitz and David B. Rivkin Jr. say that Cooper “is no angel” but that the case was flawed.

Rams linebacker Mike Reilly gets permission from the Orange County probation department to travel for road games, but NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle won’t let him play. Reilly was serving a year in a work-furlough program at the Theo Lacy minimum custody facility for vehicular manslaughter.

Rozelle said: “participation in NFL games while serving a jail sentence is, in my judgment, inconsistent with public confidence and respect for the game of professional football.”

Richard Hoffer of The Times did a follow-up story in 1988.

Warren Robert Bozzo is sentenced in San Diego County Superior Court to 44 years to life in prison for going to the Mira Mesa home of Mark Campanale to buy cocaine and killing Campanale, his mother, Delores, and a neighbor, Helen Parks, who was visiting at the time.

Judge Kenneth Johns says he received letters from Bozzo’s friends saying that his mind had been destroyed by drugs. “This drug is anything but a social drug,” Johns says. “It kills brain cells … like a bullet.”

In 2010, Bozzo was denied parole. His next parole hearing will be in 2025, the San Diego Union-Tribune said.

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In the theaters: “Zelig,” “Mr. Mom,” “Return of the Jedi” and “Koyaanisqatsi.”

Posted in 1983, Comics, Crime and Courts, Millennial Moments, Music, Sports | 1 Comment

‘Mysterious Objects’ in Skies Over L.A.

Aug. 1, 1953, Comics
Comics characters of the 1950s got to drive MGs!


Edward Irving Foote was born June 29, 1861, in Michigan. Someone by that name attended the University of Michigan at Lansing, class of 1877-78, and was described as a “farmer, miner, surveyor, carpenter,” living in Grass Valley, Calif.

Much of his history is unknown, but by 1953, at the age of 92, Foote was living at a gritty hotel at 423 E. 7th St., an address where half a dozen suicides and killings had occurred.  Foote, who apparently had bad vision, used a red and white cane and carried a “long-barreled .38” on his hip,” The Times said.

For some reason, Foote decided that he had been robbed by the hotel clerk, Frank Mitchell, who was also a resident.

On July 31, 1953, Foote wrote a note stating:

“Room robbers and murderers, three clerks and houseman. My purse was stolen last night, Friday. All my money was in my purse. I owe Catherine Leach $500. I promised her $1 for aid rendered. Could not pay. Purse gone. Some cash in bank until a damned thief gets it.”

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Posted in 1953, Art & Artists, Comics, Downtown, Homicide, LAPD, Obituaries, Suicide | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on ‘Mysterious Objects’ in Skies Over L.A.

Tomahawk Murder: ‘It Must Have Been the Heat’

July 31, 1943, Comics

July 31, 1943: Los Angeles — and that is Los Angeles before air conditioning — bakes in a heat wave, temperatures so hot that it’s the reason for murder.

“I had a sudden impulse; it must have been the heat,” according to Edna McCabe, who was sitting at breakfast with her aunt  Rovena when she grabbed the head of a tomahawk and struck her aunt on the skull. According to the original investigators, Rovena collapsed on the floor of their apartment at 1328 S. Bronson Ave. and bled to death.

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Posted in 1943, Art & Artists, Comics, Crime and Courts, Film, Hollywood, LAPD, San Fernando Valley, Suicide, Theaters | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Preaching at the Court House

July 25, 1863, Los Angeles Star
USC has taken its collection of the Los Angeles Star offline for indexing. Here’s a backup copy from the California Digital Newspaper Collection.


July 25, 1863: A staunchly anti-Republican paper, the Star endorses the Democratic ticket, including John G. Downey as governor.

At the time California governors served two-year terms and Downey had been governor from 1860 to 1862, assuming the office as lieutenant governor when Gov. Milton Latham resigned to replace U.S. Sen. David C. Broderick. Broderick had been fatally wounded in a duel with California Chief Justice David Terry.

Mrs. Gertrude Hoyt died July 22.

Preaching at the Court House by the Rev. J.C. Stewart. And not a word about separation of church and state.

Humor from the 1860s:   Why is a cruel man like a peach? Because he has a heart of stone.

July 25, 1863, Political Endorsements

July 25, 1863, Gertrude Hoyt dies

July 25, 1863, Preaching at the Courthouse

July 25, 1863, Humor

Posted in 1863, Crime and Courts, Obituaries, Politics, Religion | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

An Anniversary for Musso & Frank

Oct. 11, 1919, Frank's Cafe

Oct. 11, 1919: Frank’s Cafe at 6669 Hollywood Blvd. is meeting with fine success, from Holly Leaves.

Musso & Frank, July 27, 1923

July 28, 1923: The opening of Musso & Frank Grill, in Holly Leaves, courtesy of Mary Mallory.

Mary Mallory notes that Musso & Frank is celebrating the 90th anniversary of its opening as a grill after its debut as  Frank’s Cafe in 1919.

Posted in 1919, 1923, Food and Drink, Hollywood, Mary Mallory | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated +++)

July 29, 2013, Mystery Photo

And for Monday, a mystery vehicle.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , , | 31 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Hats Off to Black-Foxe Military Institute

Oct. 24, 1950, DiMaggio at Black-Foxe

Long before there were Tiger Moms, many parents stressed discipline and hard work to their school-age children. Boys were often enrolled in military prep schools to learn discipline, rigor and fortitude through both schoolroom work and athletic pursuits.

Several Los Angeles military academies existed in the 1920s, and chief among them was Black-Foxe Military Institute.

Founded in 1929 by Hollywood real estate tycoon C. E. Toberman and headed by former actor Earle Foxe as president and Harry Black as commandant, the school educated day pupils and boarding students at the former Urban Military Academy, established in 1902. Many celebrity children either attended and/or graduated from the institute. The institution itself appeared in a few films.

ALSO BY MARY MALLORY

Franklin Pangborn
Erich von Stroheim’s ‘Paprika’
Einar Petersen, Forgotten Artist

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Posted in 1929, Education, Film, Hollywood, Hollywood Heights, Mary Mallory | Tagged , , , , , | 18 Comments

Black Dahlia: About Your ‘New’ Theory on the Killer

Really, it doesn't make any sense.

Every so often, I get emails or phone calls from people who want to share their Black Dahlia theories with me.

I am a patient man. I always listen to what they say and I always read their emails. EVEN WHEN THEY ARE WRITTEN ENTIRELY IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

But without exception, these folks have their heads crammed full of nonsense from the terrible books that have been written about the case, the sensational TV shows or some of the rubbish that is online.

A few of the people who contact me are troubled individuals, but most are well-meaning and genuinely assume that they have an angle that nobody has ever considered. Their “new” theory is almost always something that has been breezing around the Internet for years in one form or another and fuses the Black Dahlia case with another old, usually unsolved, killing.

Let me say once again — and I cannot emphasize this enough — except for the envelope that contained some of Elizabeth Short’s belongings, all the other letters and postcards sent to the police and the newspapers were from crackpots, cranks, pranksters  and a few well-meaning individuals. The vast majority of the mail — and that includes everything from whoever signed himself as the “Black Dahlia Avenger” — is junk.

Posted in 1947, Black Dahlia, Cold Cases, LAPD | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Action by FDR Averts Streetcar Strike!

July 25, 1943, Streetcar Strike Averted
July 25, 1943, Comics

July 25, 1943: President Roosevelt intervenes in the planned Pacific Electric Railway strike, saying that he did not want to use Army trucks to transport war supplies.

The strike centered on a raise of 13 cents an hour, which has been approved by the company, but the government’s board to stabilize wages and prices had only permitted an increase of 3 cents an hour, The Times said.

Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton are presenting the Mercury Wonder Show, an evening of magic tricks, as a benefit for the  Assistance League.

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Posted in 1943, Columnists, Labor, Streetcars, Tom Treanor, Transportation, World War II | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Streetcar Strike Could Paralyze Los Angeles!

July 24, 1943, Comics
July 24, 1943, Streetcar Strike
July 24, 1943: Labor problems threaten to paralyze mass transportation in Los Angeles. The Times says that 3,000 Los Angeles Railway workers have ended a 24-hour walkout while 2,500 Pacific Electric workers are scheduled to strike.

Marion “More Curves Than the Burma Road” Morgan and Billy Reed are at the Follies, 337 S. Main St.

P-38 pilots Maj. John W. Mitchell and Capt. Thomas G. Lanphier Jr. discuss sinking a Japanese destroyer — even though they weren’t carrying bombs. “The Navy never could figure out how our slugs sank her, but they did,” Lanphier said.

The pilots also said they set fire to a Japanese freighter by dropping  their belly tanks on the ship and circling back to set the gas on fire with incendiary bullets.

And no, neither of them considers himself a hero, The Times says.

If those names sound familiar, perhaps it’s because Mitchell and Lanphier were on the April 1943 mission that shot down Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack.

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Posted in 1943, Art & Artists, Aviation, Comics, Labor, Main Street, Streetcars, Transportation, World War II | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Streetcar Strike Could Paralyze Los Angeles!

Black Doctor in Divorce Case Says Wife Tried to ‘Masquerade’ as White

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July 23, 1923, Monroe Half Dollars
July 23, 1923: The centennial of the Monroe Doctrine is celebrated at Exposition Park in the American Historical Revue and Motion Picture Exposition.. The U.S. Mint in San Francisco issued commemorative half dollars for the occasion.

The Times says: “One of the most interesting programs yet staged at the exposition will be given today and tonight when police and firemen day will be observed. Fifty Los Angeles firefighters will reenact thrilling rescues at famous fires in the history of Los Angeles.”

In the Theaters: “The Purple Highway” and “The Lover and the Apache” at Grauman’s Metropolitan, 6th and Hill, later the Paramount, which was eventually demolished.

“Human Wreckage” at Grauman’s Rialto, Broadway near 8th.

“East Side – West Side” at Grauman’s Million Dollar Theatre.

“The Covered Wagon” at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre.

Dr. John S. Outlaw, an African American  physician, files a cross-complaint against his wife’s suit for divorce, alleging that she had an “obsession to masquerade as a member of the white race,” The Times says.

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Posted in 1823, 1923, African Americans, Art & Artists, Broadway, Comics, Crime and Courts, Downtown, Fires, Hill Street, Hollywood, Theaters | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated ++++)

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And for Monday……

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , , | 28 Comments

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Virgil Apger, MGM’S Classic Portrait Photographer

 

Virgil Apger

Virgil Apger, photo courtesy of Mary Mallory


Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios excelled in most areas of film production, including that of still portrait photography. Several of its head portrait photographers, like Ruth Harriet Louise, George Hurrell and Clarence Sinclair Bull, are recognized for their unique style and artistry in creating some of the most iconic portrait photographs in Hollywood history. While not as flashy or dramatic as these lensers, Virgil Apger, MGM’s leading gallery photographer for over 20 years, created classy, understated head shots of leading stars that made them more accessible to the movie-going public.

Born in Grantland, Ind., June 25, 1903, to the local sheriff, Virgil Apger was drawn to motion pictures as a young man, working as an usher and assistant to a projectionist in a local movie theater, per John Kobal’s “The Art of the Great Hollywood Portrait Photographers.” Apger and his family moved to Los Angeles in 1916, where he worked for six months in an iron foundry business before joining the Marines. During his two-year term, Apger was stationed in Hawaii, Philippines and the Orient.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Hollywood Heights, Mary Mallory, Photography | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Man Shoots Companion in Search for Prowler

 
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Nancy and Sluggo in all their vintage glory.


July 19, 1943, Casualties July 19, 1943, Casualties

July 19, 1943: The Times publishes a list of casualties from the Army and Navy. Francis Joseph Montclair was a motor machinist second class and is buried in Honolulu. Lt. Cmdr. Bruce Avery Van Voorhis was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Tom Treanor, who was killed covering the liberation of France, catches up with former Dist. Atty. Buron Fitts in North Africa. 

John E. Pearce, 7311 1/2 Holmes Ave.,  is hospitalized after being mistakenly shot by his son-in-law while they were searching for a prowler.

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Posted in 1943, Columnists, Comics, Tom Treanor, World War II | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Arabella Huntington Marries Nephew in Paris

July 13, 1913, Editorial Cartoon, Los Angeles Times, ladailymirror.com
The Times takes a dim view of Mexican revolutionaries.

 


July 17, 1913, Huntington Marriage

July 17, 1913: Arabella D. Huntington, widow of the late Collis P. Huntington, marries his nephew, Henry E. Huntington, in Paris at the American Church in the Rue de Berri.  Their friends express surprise. The Times says:

“The possibilities of H.E. Huntington’s marriage to the widow of the famous Collis P. Huntington has for years formed a topic for discussion in the numerous clubs of which the railroad magnate is a member. In the past few years it has become more or less a joke of intimate friends to charge him with serious intentions in this direction. Huntington many times denied that there was any foundation to the rumor and even on his visit home last winter declared that there was nothing at all to this affair of the heart.

The new Los Angeles Investment Building at Broadway and 8th is billed as “the most palatial office building in the city.”

John George Boyle and his wife — who is never identified by name — came to Redondo Beach from San Francisco with a plan of killing themselves. She waded into the surf and drowned. He changed his mind, he told Patrolman Flanders.

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Battle of Gettysburg — Exaggeration and Falsehood!

July 11, 1863, Los Angeles Star
The entire July 11, 1863, issue of the Los Angeles Star is available from USC, scanned as jpgs from a copy at the Huntington.

It is also available in pdf form at the California Digital Library. The link to the entire collection is here. I find that the jpg scans are easier to read, but the interface is slow and primitive.  The pdfs are murky but easier to use. Either one beats microfilm.


July 11, 1863: The Star was a staunch supporter of the Confederacy and was stunned with the early reports from Gettysburg:

“The last week has been full of sensation rumors — for we cannot give credence to one half of what we have been told. The wires must literally have groaned under the burden of exaggeration and falsehood they were made to carry. If what had been reported be true, the armies of the Union have achieved more glory in one day than the aggregated achievements of all the armies under all the generals, from Scott to “fighting Joe” can reckon upon during the whole war.

The Hebrew Benevolent Society elects its officers for the year.

Messrs. Trudel & Lazards  open a new store — A la Ville de Paris — in the Temple block.

And there is a harrowing story of a traveling animal circus in which the proprietor, named Faimaili or Faimili, had a dangerous encounter with a tiger.

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Posted in 1863, Animals, Civil War | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

A Night at the Florentine Gardens, 1943

florentine_gardens_1943_0314_ebay_crop
Here’s another item from the Florentine Gardens: A 1943 photo of people that has been listed on EBay for 99 cents.

Posted in 1943, Found on EBay, Hollywood, Nightclubs, Photography, World War II | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on A Night at the Florentine Gardens, 1943