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.
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.
Oct. 11, 1919: Frank’s Cafe at 6669 Hollywood Blvd. is meeting with fine success, from Holly Leaves.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nancy and Sluggo in all their vintage glory.
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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.
The Times takes a dim view of Mexican revolutionaries.
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.
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.
Here’s another item from the Florentine Gardens: A 1943 photo of people that has been listed on EBay for 99 cents.
A magic lantern slide for the Gloria Swanson film “Her Gilded Cage” (1922), listed on EBay with bids starting at $89.
Before movie studios employed trailers to raise audiences’ awareness and interest in attending films, they used lantern glass slides to pitch coming attractions. These slides could promote movies, stars, products and even local businesses.
Primitive cinema in the early 1900s mainly advertised moving pictures through lithographic posters, employing strong graphic images to capture the public’s attention. Companies sprang up to mass produce these posters, but small town theaters often handmade their own creations instead of purchasing professionally produced items in order to save money.
As film studios became more organized in their own form of mass production, they also became more professional in the use of advertising and publicity to sell their product. The use of glass slides and lobby cards employing poster key art as marketing materials became firmly established in 1913.
ALSO BY MARY MALLORY
Franklin Pangborn
Erich von Stroheim’s ‘Paprika’
Einar Petersen, Forgotten Artist
Benito Mendivil Jr., 19, 10606 El Dorado Ave., had left his Pacoima gang for a rival one in San Fernando.
On the night of Sunday, July 14, 1963, he had just driven away from his home in a car carrying his aunt and girlfriend when a car full of youths from his former gang pulled in front of him and forced him to stop, The Times said.
A copy of Nils T. Granlund’s “autobiography,” written with Sid Feder and Ralph Hancock, has been listed on EBay. What makes this copy somewhat unusual is that it was apparently owned by Cecil B. De Mille.
Granlund was impresario at the Florentine Gardens and although much of the book is set in New York, a portion of it deals with his time in Hollywood.
The cover has some tears and staining, but the vendor says it is signed by De Mille. (Note the bookplate). The book is listed as Buy It Now for $175. As with anything on EBay, an item and vendor should be evaluated thoroughly before submitting a bid.
Jan. 6, 1924: The Times publishes a photo of an Oakland car that was driven up to the Hollywood sign.
Parade magazine claimed in its July 7, 2013, issue that the completed Hollywoodland sign premiered July 13, 1923, but provided no documentation. After investigating the question this week, I believe I have solved when the sign was actually completed, late November 1923.
No newspapers or books from the period contain stories or photos of the Hollywoodland sign from the year 1923, save the Los Angeles Times, which contained a Dec. 30, 1923, story recounting how an Oakland motor car ascended to the Hollywoodland electric sign, and displayed a photo of the car below the sign on Jan. 6, 1924.
Newsreel outtakes do show construction of the Hollywoodland sign, as men and tractors drag material up the hill, and workers wave from the letter H. I consulted Greg Wilsbacher, director of the Fox Movietone Newsreel Collection at the University of South Carolina, to see what the records pertaining to this footage say about when it was shot or delivered to Fox.
Also by Mary Mallory
Keye Luke
Auction of Souls
Busch Gardens and Hogan’s Aristocratic Dreams
ladailymirror.com 