Hollywood Boulevard came into existence in 1910, when Prospect Avenue saw its name changed to Hollywood Boulevard. This was Hollywood’s main street, full of stores, churches and theaters. As the town grew, and especially when movie studios moved to the area, the street boomed, with ever larger businesses and hotels taking the place of mom-and-pop stores. Elegant, stylish boutiques soon lined the streets.
Oct. 19, 1942: Members of the Van Nuys “Chain Gang” are blamed for a riot that broke out at a carnival in Glendale, leaving one man near death from stab wounds and five others injured.
About 30 members of the gang attacked carnival workers with bicycle chains, knives and pieces of pipe, The Times said. Police arrested 13 people on charges including assault with a deadly weapon, carrying a concealed weapon, refusing to disperse and disturbing the peace.
Father Raphael Collard, in a homily delivered in French during a special service at Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, calls for the defense of French Jews from Nazi persecution.
“In defending the Jews we are actually protecting the idealism of Christians,” Collard said.
“In a pastoral letter read in all churches, Catholics of France were ordered to conceal Jews at any cost to save them from the tortures of the conquering hordes. Priests refusing to surrender Jews to the Nazis were placed under arrest and many imprisoned. The glory of their courage will not be forgotten,” Collard said.
Oct. 18, 1980: In one of the more unusual revelations in testimony by admitted hit man Jimmy “the Weasel” Fratianno, El Monte Toyota dealer Dominic Longo (d. 1985) is described as a Mafia member.
Appearing at the trial of five alleged members of the Mafia, Fratianno said a meeting about killing Frank “the Bomp” Bompensiero was held “at Dominic Longo’s or at the Toyota place,” according to a Times story.
According to a 1992 story by “Gangster Squad” author Paul Lieberman, LAPD detectives once visited Longo to get his side of the story about a purported Mafia connection. The car dealer said he “grew up with some of these guys. I give them jobs, but they’re nothing jobs.”
Ronald Reagan agrees to debate President Jimmy Carter. Reagan had previously insisted that independent candidate John Anderson be included in any presidential debate.
The annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar will be held Oct. 27 at USC’s Doheny Memorial Library.
The bazaar is an excellent way to become acquainted with the astounding number of libraries and historical societies across the city and their amazingly diverse collections. As any experienced researcher will tell you, historical material on Los Angeles is not always in a logical place, and tracking it down is often a treasure hunt — to cite my favorite examples, the records on the early history of USC’s medical school are at UCLA; most of the Herald Examiner photos on the Black Dahlia case are not at the Los Angeles Public Library with the rest of the Her-Ex photos, but in the John Gilmore material at UCLA.
This year’s bazaar includes several interesting panel discussions:
–Start Your Engines: How L.A. Became the Center of Car Culture.
–CSI Los Angeles: Archival Case Study investigation, which sounds especially interesting.
–Wish You were Here: Los Angeles in Postcards.
–Southern California Ranchos and Homesteads.
There will also be a presentation by Natalie M. Fousekis, head of Cal State Fullerton’s Center for Oral and Public History, on getting started with oral history.
And a documentary by Lev Anderson and Chris Metzler on the 1980s band Fishbone.
Ada Jones
You youngsters can have your Ladies Gaga and Pinks and Katy Perrys. Give me the great Ada Jones. Ada was the first—and for ten years, the only—female superstar of the early record industry.
Here’s today’s mystery photo! Who is the mystery woman and what is the mystery film?
Photo: Republic Studios President Herbert Yates marries Vera Hruba Ralston in 1952. Courtesy of Mary Mallory.
Originally ranch land that helped support the city of Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley sometimes seemed slower and a tad more old fashioned than the big city that soon subsumed it. Life revolved around work, family, and the church. With the construction of the Mack Sennett Studios in North Hollywood in 1927, First National Studios in Burbank in 1926, and finally Walt Disney Studios in Burbank in 1938, population exploded. Many churches were built to keep up with growing congregations, but with many plants establishing work shifts around the clock, those needing spiritual sustenance at odd hours seemed left out.
A copy of the 1959 reprint of the 1880 “History of Los Angeles County” has been listed on EBay.
The book was compiled over five months from newspapers, books, magazines public records and interviews, producing “three large grain sacks” filled “with penciled slips of brown paper” then written over 3 1/2 months. Historian W.W. Robinson noted in his introduction to the `1959 preface “this haphazard, hell-for-leather method … is not the way to produce a well-balanced history. The result … is a compendium of local historical material to be used gratefully but with discretion.”
The book also includes illustrations that have been frequently reproduced and will be instantly familiar to readers.
This book is listed as Buy It Now for $59.99 (or make offer).
This postcard of the 1910 Aviation Meet – showing a photograph by C.C. Pierce — has been listed on EBay. Bidding starts at $19.99. Notice that even though airplanes received most of the attention, gas balloons also took part in the meet.
Here’s another photo from the amazing collection of Steven Bibb! Love those glasses!
Oct. 12, 1942: Walter Miller, a 31-year-old lumberyard foreman, and his friend Eddie “Red” Phillips, a 32-year-old mechanic, were shooting dice in the living room of Phillips’ home, 1442 E. 59th St., when they began arguing. Miller was stabbed during the argument and died at Maywood Hospital.
Police said Miller hit Phillips on the chin, yelled “Drop that!” and collapsed.
Oct. 11, 1984: Astronaut Kathryn Sullivan, aboard the shuttle Challenger, becomes the first American woman to take a space walk. Sullivan was involved in an experiment to show that it was possible to refuel satellites in space, even if the satellites weren’t intended for in-flight refueling.
Investigators using search dogs go through the burned-out remains of the Ole’s home improvement store in South Pasadena looking for victims of what was eventually determined to be arson. Glendale Fire Capt. John Leonard Orr was convicted in the fatal fire and was sentenced to life in prison. The store was rebuilt and is now an OSH.
Buster Keaton seemed to have it all in the mid-1920s. His career was riding high, as the public loved his film comedies, making him one of America’s top film personalities. He had a beautiful wife, Natalie Talmadge, and two lovely boys, though the public didn’t know that behind the scenes, the marriage was shaky. All he needed was a grand house to complete the image of the successful gentleman.
The Keatons first built a nice though average size home that Natalie considered too small for the family and staff once completed. After selling it off, Buster began planning an elaborate estate for his wife, one to rival that of her more successful sisters Norma and Constance, as well as top stars Harold Lloyd and Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford.
Jack Buchanan
1891 – 1956
Jack Buchanan was Fred Astaire before Fred Astaire was Fred Astaire. Jack was tall, handsome, a great “make it look easy” song and dance man, and, as his friend and frequent costar Bea Lillie noted, no one wore white tie and tails like Jack. Today, he’s mainly remembered as the hammy, aging costar of Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon (and a damn good performance, too). But looking at the 62-year-old hoofing “I Guess I’ll Have to Change My Plan” doesn’t really show you the gorgeous matinee idol of the 1910s and ’20s.
Here’s another photo from the amazing collection of Steven Bibb!
A copy of Erich von Stroheim’s “Paprika” inscribed to Hugo Ballin has been listed on EBay as Buy It Now for $1,250.
Famed director/actor Erich von Stroheim faced financial disaster in the mid-1930s. After directing such visual powerhouses as “Foolish Wives,” “Greed,” “The Merry Widow,” “The Wedding March,” and “Queen Kelly” in the 1920s, as well as others, and sometimes stealing films in which he co-starred, the Austrian auteur couldn’t land a job. Fox had savagely re-cut and remade his 1932 film “Walking Down Broadway” and changed the title to “Hello, Sister!” Directing opportunities vanished. Von Stroheim found acting roles in low-budget/poverty row films, but found himself frozen out of big budget studio films.
Here’s another mystery fellow – with a bow tie! Courtesy of Steven Bibb
Here’s a salute to one of my favorite childhood TV shows. Remember: “Leave your blood at the blood bank, not on the road. For ‘Highway Patrol,’ this is Broderick Crawford.”
I thought it would be fun to have a little change of pace from Steve’s collection. Enjoy!
ladailymirror.com 