Here’s another photo from the collection of Steven Bibb!
All three identified (plus the movie) by Don Danard, Dewey Webb, Mike Hawks and Eve Golden. Plus Mary Mallory.
2/3 right: (Mary Mallory), Jo Anne and Gregory Moore,
Mystery fellow on left identified by Gary Martin, Harried Costumer, Arye Michael Bender,
Sarah and Rick Scott.
This postcard of the soda fountain at Fosgate’s store, at 449 S. Broadway, has been listed on EBay. A May 14, 1904, story in The Times called it the largest soda fountain in the world. Bidding on the postcard starts at $6.
Photo: The Senate chambers in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” was redecorated as a palace for a Three Stooges film.
James writes: Here’s another of those interviews I did during a random burst of energy in 1975. This one took place a couple of weeks before my previously-posted talk with Dick Lane, and my memory is that this one is probably a bit better because of the range of topics it covers.
JAMES CURTIS:Would you find yourself using existing sets many times?
JULES WHITE: All the time. I say, “All the time.” I dare say ninety percent of the sets I used were other sets, butwe would alter them. The way sets were built, they were made in units. So where you had a door unit you’d exchange it with a window unit so it was a little different. And walls are walls. Your dressing would be different; the way you furnished them would change them.
JC:If there was a major picture shooting at Columbia, like say a Capra picture, could you use the sets after they were finished?
JW:Well, you hit it exactly on the head. “Lost Horizon” sets—I took some of those and had them re-finished as Spanish sets because they had stones and pillars and columns and what have you.
JC:I saw a Keaton one time called “Pest from the West”–
JW:Yeah…
JC: –which took place in a Spanish setting. He played a lover who lived on a boat.
James Curtis’ interview with Jules White, Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
James Curtis’ interview with Dick Lane Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7
Here’s another mystery photo from the collection of Steven Bibb!
Photo: A 1972 Cadillac hearse has been listed on EBay at Buy It Now for $4,200. (Note: it has a 472 engine in case you are in a hurry).
Queen of the Dead – dateline August 27, 2012
• Phyllis Diller (who died at 95 on August 20) and Phyllis Thaxter in one week—Phyllises Coates and Newman must be looking nervously over their shoulders. Gosh, I loved Phyllis Diller—she was not the first female comic (Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Belle Barth, Rusty Warren, Jean Carroll, Moms Mabley—even Gypsy Rose Lee, in her way, preceded her). But I adored her wonderful braying laugh (there are birds in Australia that sound just like her), her drag-queen persona, and her genuinely funny material (“I was in a beauty contest once. I not only came in last, I was hit in the mouth by Miss Congeniality.”) And I dare you to YouTube the intro to The Pruitts of Southampton. I have had that damn song stuck in my head since 1966. Watch it just once, and in 10,000 years when the archeologists dig up your remains, your skull will still be singing “How’dya do, how’dya do, how’dya do, my dear!”
Aug. 24, 1942: Sheriff’s deputies break up a planned fight between the Lincoln Heights Square John gang and the Huntington Park Levis gang at Central and Florence avenues, arresting 17 members of the Square John gang (no members of the Levis gang were seen). Officers also “blockaded” 18 corners and arrested 52 youths on suspicion of robbery, auto theft and violating the Selective Service Act.
More than 30 firefighters escape being trapped by a brushfire by driving their trucks through a “30-foot wall of flame” in a box canyon in Angeles National Forest. District Ranger Ray McCormick is credited with saving the men, who were battling a blaze that began at the mouth of Spade Springs Canyon near Mint Canyon Highway, The Times said.
“Orchestra Wives,” starring George Montgomery, Ann Rutherford and the Glenn Miller band, is opening at Grauman’s Chinese and Loew’s State.
The negative of a Witzel portrait of Tom Mix has been listed on EBay. He’s wearing a rather remarkable jacket and check out the newsboy cap! Bidding starts at $9.99.
This is the 85th anniversary of Rudolph Valentino’s memorial service. A program is planned at 12:10 p.m. Thursday at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Here’s a look at the various “Ladies in Black” that I did when the blog was at latimes.com.
Photo: The Three Stooges’ “Spooks,” produced and directed by Jules White.
James writes: Here’s another of those interviews I did during a random burst of energy in 1975. This one took place a couple of weeks before my previously-posted talk with Dick Lane, and my memory is that this one is probably a bit better because of the range of topics it covers.
JAMES CURTS:When you became the head of the short subjects department at Columbia, you began to assemble one of the finest directing staffs for two-reel comedies.
JULES WHITE:Yes.
JC:You had your brother, who operated under the pseudonym of Preston Black, James Horne, who did Laurel and Hardy comedies at Hal Roach, Del Lord, Clyde Bruckman, who had worked with Buster Keaton on some of his classic silent features, Harry Edwards. Where did you find these people?
JW: I knew them. Most of them had worked at Roach or Sennett. Del Lord had worked at Educational with us, and then he’d been at Mack Sennett’s for many years, and he went out of the business; he couldn’t get a job. He was selling used cars.
James Curtis’ interview with Jules White, Part 1 | Part 2
James Curtis’ interview with Dick Lane Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7
Here’s another photo from the collection of Steven Bibb!
This horse-drawn hearse has been listed on EBay at Buy It Now for $2,500 .
Queen of the Dead – dateline August 20, 2012
• Cosmo Girl Helen Gurley Brown—who died at 90 on August 13—was not a heroine of mine. She pretty much single-handedly turned women’s magazines into the “Sixty Sexy Ways to Sex Up Your Sexy Sex Life!” crap we see on newsstands today. Back in the ’80s and ’90s—before everyone with a blog thought she was Carrie Bradshaw—I was able to earn a living (not a good one, true) writing and editing for magazines. I was even copy chief for More, one of the few really smart women’s magazines. But gee whiz, some of the whipped cream I had to slog through at the others! I wrote an article for one of the major mags—which shall go unnamed here—and the final edit read like something from a sugared-up 12-year-old girl’s diary. I was just about to ask them to take my name off it when the editor burbled, “I’ll bet you’re so excited to have your byline in this magazine!” Mind you, no one loves hair and makeup tips more than I do, and fashion, and society gossip. But let’s look at the cover of the June Cosmo, lying around my office: “Wild Sex Stories!” “50 Ways to be Sexy This Summer!” “Where to Meet a Guy in June!” “Pink: How She Keeps Her Love So Hot!” And for that we have Helen Gurley Brown to thank.
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Here’s another installment of Eve Golden’s photos from a recent trip to a local cemetery. |
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Photo: Angelina. Credit: All photos by Eve Golden.
It will come as no surprise to you that I enjoy strolling through my local boneyard. I live near a lovely Italian Catholic cemetery in my East Coast town, and cut through on my way to and from the grocery store, to look at the tombstones, read the inscriptions (some going back to the mid-19th century, and the graveyard is still in use).
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About 10 percent of the graves have photos under thick glass—is this an Italian Catholic thing? I find these irresistible, and last weekend—a lovely sunny summer day—I strolled around with my new camera and (getting Looks from passersby) snapped some of the more interesting portraits. Some graves had holes where photos had been wrenched out—by family members, I hope? I mean, who would steal a photo from a grave—wouldn’t that creep you the hell out, in a Monkey’s Pawkind of way?
Larry thought you might like to meet some of the residents. I am particularly taken with the lovely Angelina, who died so young and looked like Ava Gardner as a Follies Girl. I can’t help wondering why particular photos were chosen—I am going to be cremated, but have already told friend which headshot to send to the newspapers!
I was in a video chat yesterday with Joseph Wambaugh and Times City Editor Shelby Grad to talk about the the Onion Field case and the recent death of Gregory Powell.
Here’s another mystery photo from the collection of Steven Bibb!
Aug. 15, 1942: The good news: The Times writes about African American troops. The bad news: The story is one stereotype after another.
Charlie Chaplin once said to me, “The only other man in this business that I fear, who I think is as funny as anyone I can conceive of or think of, is Lloyd Hamilton.” And he was. And I patterned Curly after Lloyd Hamilton. He wore the checkered cap and the little artist’s tie and the cutaway, and he had flat feet and walked with a little sort of a duck waddle like Curly had.
James writes: Here’s another of those interviews I did during a random burst of energy in 1975. This one took place a couple of weeks before my previously-posted talk with Dick Lane, and my memory is that this one is probably a bit better because of the range of topics it covers.
JAMES CURTS:Did you go to Educational comedies from this early experience?
JULES WHITE: Well, Educational comedies was formed by my brother, Jack White, and a man by the name of Earl Hammons, who had made travelogues primarily before this, and then there was another outfit by the name of the Christie Brothers, and this group became Educational Pictures. Now my brother and the Christies made the comedies, and when I got out of school I went to work with my brother.
James Curtis’ interview with Jules White, Part 1
James Curtis’ interview with Dick Lane Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7
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“The Man of Yesterday” by Mary Holland Kinkaid, has been listed on EBay. Kinkaid, who died in 1948, is forgotten today, but was city editor of the Herald and is probably the first woman city editor of a Los Angeles newspaper, before Aggie Underwood, city of the Herald-Express, who is usually given the honor.
In 1933, Times columnist Alma Whitaker said Kinkaid was “the arch pioneer newspaper woman. In those days, she had to hand her copy in through a window in the editorial room door — no woman could be allowed to sully the sacred precincts.”
Bidding on “The Man of Yesterday” is listed as Buy It Now for $19.95.
