And here’s Thursday’s mystery chap!
Update: This is Ben Blue. Please congratulate Gary Martin (1), Don Danard (2), Mary Mallory (3), Bob Levinson (4), Mike Hawks (5), Greg Clancey (6), William (7), Jenny M (8), Dewey Webb (9), Gregory Moore (10), Herb Nichols (11), Rick Scott (12), Lorenzo (13) and Mike Rose (14) for identifying him.
June 21, 1942: Women are taking jobs formerly held by men, and they prefer them, especially the higher wages, The Times finds.
“How do they like exchanging summer frocks for overalls and aprons for masculine livery? The collective and undisputed answer may come as a shock to husbands and the boys overseas. They like it better than their old prewar routine!” The Times says.
Patricia Fairchild, for example, says driving a cab is better than washing dishes.
Former typist Mary Moore and Evelyn Newton, who once ran a dress shop, are now operating a gas station in Alhambra!
“They agree the new life gives them more freedom, better wages, healthful outdoor exercise,” The Times says.
June 20, 1942: Officials of San Diego’s streetcar system are dismayed that the 20 surplus cars obtained from New York are in worse shape than the ones San Diego scrapped two years earlier. San Diego acquired the cars in an expansion of its mass transit system to accommodate the influx of defense workers.
Church organist Courtney Fred Rogers, on trial in the killings of his parents, testifies of attending seances with his mother and grandmother. Rogers, who was apparently a quiet loner, also described an “unnatural” childhood of reading about “philosophy, Oriental, archaic and occult sciences.”
Walter Pidgeon, who was supposedly slipping off to trysts with Scotty Bowers after the war, is named “Father of the Year.”
Fact-Checking Scotty Bowers’ “Full Service”: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25
Photo: The LAPD Daily Police Bulletin for Jan. 16, 1947, the day after the Black Dahlia’s body was found. Notice that the Dahlia isn’t mentioned. Credit: Larry Harnisch/LADailyMirror
My latest column for The Times is about Joan Renner and her project to digitize the daily LAPD bulletins from 1907 to 1957.
Here’s another mystery photo from the collection of Steven Bibb!
This postcard of a Cuban hearse has been listed on EBay, listed as Buy It Now at $20.
Queen of the Dead – dateline June 18, 2012
• Production designer J. Michael Riva, 63, died on June 7. Modern filmgoers know him as the man behind the “look” of the Lethal Weapon, Spider-Man, Charlie’s Angels and Iron Man films (as well as The Color Purple, Dave, The Goonies, Ordinary People and others). But we die-hard fans also know him as one of three grandsons of the great Marlene Dietrich. His mother (“that howwible Mawia Wiva”) suffered from “I want to be my mother” syndrome and wrote a vicious memoir, which I recommend you read with one eyebrow raised cynically, and then go straight for Steven Bach’s excellent Dietrich bio (bypassing, of course, anything by Charlotte Chandler or David Bret). Michael Riva laughed about the glamour of production design to NPR in 2009: “Tony, in the Iron Man armor, pukes in a toilet. I design a toilet. My big job for the day. After that I can go home. My kids ask me, ‘What’d you do today, Dad?’ I designed a toilet!”
Easy, but a fun picture
June 16, 1942: Robert Lee Allen is sentenced to five years in federal prison for refusing to enlist in the Army. Judge Jeremiah Neter, 80, noted that Allen had not used the available provisions to file for conscientious objector status and noted “the right of battle taught all through the Bible.”
Simons Drive In at Washington and Grand, and Sunset and Highland is hiring cooks, waitresses and car hops.
Paul Whiteman will be performing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Shrine Auditorium in a program with Bing Crosby, Harry James, the Kings Men and Dinah Shore.
June 15, 1942: The Japanese who operated farms have been evacuated to internment camps, many farm workers have taken defense jobs and still more have been drafted.
So to get farm labor, California turns to … guess where: Mexico!
Times artist Charles Owens has a terrific war map of the Middle East.
And the Navy Relief Society makes a Father’s Day pitch for donations.
June 14, 1942: Police arrest Oscar Fierro, 18, an alleged member of the East First Street Gang, in the shooting of Frank Torres, a purported member of the Clanton Street Gang, who was wounded in the head while leaving the Coliseum with a girl after attending a track meet.
The shooting touched off a riot “among thousands of teenaged boys, who were subdued only by the efforts of 50 armed soldiers called out from a nearby encampment,” The Times said.
Rear Adm. Frederick C. Shermandescribes the loss of the aircraft carrier Lexington in the Battle of the Coral Sea, calling it “the first time in history there has been an air-sea battle between aircraft carriers.”
The ship, which was racked by fire and explosions, was sunk by a destroyer to keep from falling into enemy hands.
Mary Mallory, who writes Hollywood Heights for the L.A. Daily Mirror, will be signing copies of her book “Hollywoodland” on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Costco at 1051 Burbank Blvd. in Burbank. All profits from the sales go to Hollywood Heritage.
What happened to our mystery guest?
Update: This is O.J. Simpson and Melissa Michaelsen in “Goldie and the Boxer.” I’m especially impressed that so many readers recalled this opus: Gary Alexander (1), Michael Ryerson (2), Periwinkle (3), Barbara Klein (4), Dewey Webb (5), L.C. (6), Herb Nichols (7), Cold in Phoenix (8), Pamela Porter, (9), Ed (10), Roget-L.A. (11) and Jenny M. (12). ]
June 13, 1942:Westlake Park is being renamed as part of the city’s observances to honor Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commemorating the day he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Marines at Camp Elliott are shocked to see women … driving … jeeps … and … trucks!
The California Taxpayers’ Assn. is demanding that $1.5 million be cut from the Los Angeles County budget to avoid a tax increase. The City Council’s Finance Committee is also recommending cuts in staff and salaries to slash Mayor Bowron’s budget.
Live at the Orpheum: The Andrews Sisters!
June 12, 1942: The Douglas plant in Santa Monica is hiring men – and women!
Betty Rowland, the Ball of Fire, is at the Follies Theatre.
Lionel Atwill refuses to testify before the Los Angeles County Grand Jury about charges made in 1941 that a 16-year-old girl was “mistreated” (one of those code words newspapers used when they were squeamish about the details) during a “wild party” (more code words). Atwill claimed that the charges were a shakedown, and the previous grand jury had closed the case after finding a “lack of competent testimony.”
Truck driver Sam Shapiro, 32, is being tried on charges of walking up to Irving Stone, 38, in a pool hall at 2455 Brooklyn Ave., and slitting his throat with a butcher knife borrowed from a nearby restaurant.
Shapiro said he killed Stone because the married man had been involved with his sister, then jilted her, “suggesting that she operate a house of ill-repute,” The Times said in a masterpiece of laundering language for the daily paper.
Coming attractions: Tomorrow at the 4Star — “Suicide Squadron” and the “Warsaw Concerto!”
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| Two hats from Oviatt’s have been listed on EBay by the same vendor. Bidding on each hat starts at $175. As with anything on EBay, an item and seller should be evaluated thoroughly before submitting a bid. |
Photo: A 1938 Packard hearse has been listed on EBay at $40,000.
Queen of the Dead – dateline June 11, 2012
• It’s an oddity of these YouTube days that you can become famous (or re-famous) not only for an old clip of yourself, but for parodies of it. Which leads us to the demise (at age 77, on June 4) of Russian crooner Eduard Khil, better known as “The Trololo Guy.” A pop star in the 1960s and ’70s, he was rediscovered in 2010 when his bizarre, camp, and totally endearing rendition of “I Am Glad, ’Cause I’m Finally Returning Back Home” (with its Soviet-censored lyrics “Trololololololololololo”) gained both genuine and ironic fans worldwide. Parodies sprung up, the best of which (YouTube them!) being “Trololo Cat” and Christoph Waltz’s version. Khil, bless his little cotton socks, had a sense of humor about it, and loved Waltz’s bawdy version: “It’s great,” he said. “Now I want to perform not under the name of Eduard Khil, but under the pseudonym ‘Trololoman.’” I must add how impressed I am that the same day Khil died, someone created a “Hitler Finds Out the Trololo Guy Died” video. That is being on top of your memes.
June 7, 1942: The Navy declares 32 bars and taverns off limits in Los Angeles. Most of them are on Main Street and East 5th with a few in Hollywood. The posts on the Zoot Suit Riots have more information on places that were declared off-limits.
Adeline Gray makes what is described as the first live test of a parachute made of nylon rather than silk. Gray, 24, had made 33 jumps for the Pioneer Parachute Co. of Manchester, Conn., The Times says.
Here’s another photo from the collection of Steven Bibb!
Update: This is Ian Hunter with Deborah Kerr in “Edward, My Son.”
June 27, 1947: Young Ray Bradbury publishes a book of short stories titled “Dark Carnival.” Notice that he used to sell newspapers at Norton Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. Yes, that’s the same Norton Avenue where the Black Dahlia was found, about three miles away.
Bradbury is rightfully remembered for many things, but we at the Daily Mirror think of him as a friend of libraries, particularly the Los Angeles Public Library.
June 5, 1942: Dr. Hans Helmut Gros is convicted of being a Nazi spy. And radio stations along the Pacific Coast went off the air at 9 p.m. so their signals couldn’t be used as beacons in case of a Japanese attack.
Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett are going to New York to observe salesmen for their next picture, titled “Men’s Wear.” It was later titled “Bill of Goods.”
ladailymirror.com 