Eve Golden: Queen of the Dead

Posted on July 30, 2012 by lmharnisch

funeral_home_card

A promotional card for Pennsylvania funeral home, listed on EBay at Buy It Now for $95. 

Queen of the Dead – dateline July 30, 2012

•   Two reliably talented British performers have died: Angharad Rees (on July 21, at 63) and Simon Ward (on July 20, at 70). Both had long stage careers and did movies, but were best-known for TV: Rees in Poldark, and Ward in All Creatures Great and Small and The Tudors—though he was also an hilariously handsome Young Winston, in 1972. Ward is the father of actress Sophie Ward, and Rees was married (from 1973-94) to adorable actor Christopher Cazenove. Seriously, there must be at least one untalented British actor or actress, somewhere, right? You can’t all be born with a RADA certificate and a BAFTA award clutched in your tiny paws? Where are your Keanu Reeveses, your Renée Zellwegers? Do you send them off to some Island of Misfit Toys and teach them American accents?

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Posted in Eve Golden, Film, Found on EBay, Hollywood, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Obituaries, Queen of the Dead, Television | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Remembering Elizabeth Short on Her Birthday

Posted on July 29, 2012 by lmharnisch

July 29 is the birthday of Elizabeth Short. She would have been 88. I prefer to honor this day rather than the date she was found, Jan. 15, 1947.

Posted in 1924, 1947, Black Dahlia, Cold Cases, LAPD | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Movieland Mystery Photo

Posted on July 28, 2012 by lmharnisch

July 28, 2012, Mystery Photo

Great picture, no? From the collection of Steven Bibb.

Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo, Photography | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Movieland Mystery Photo

Posted on July 26, 2012 by lmharnisch

July 26, 2012 Mystery Photo

Here’s another mystery photo from the collection of Steven Bibb!

Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo, Photography | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Mickey Cohen on the Record – Talking With Author Tere Tereba

Posted on July 26, 2012 by lmharnisch

image

Photo: Tere Tereba’s “Mickey Cohen: The Life and Crimes of L.A.’s Notorious Mobster.”

 

Note: I have been talking with author Tere Tereba about her book “Mickey Cohen: The Life and Crimes of L.A.’s Notorious Mobster.” Was he nothing more  than a hot-tempered, foul-mouthed little thug who threw around his money? Tereba found a more nuanced portrait. Here’s what she has to say. And we would especially like to salute Tereba’s patience in waiting for us to complete this piece. Between a full-time job and regular columns for The Times, we’re stretched very thin these days.

L.A.  Daily Mirror: Tell us a little bit about yourself:

Tere Tereba: I’ve had a long career as a fashion designer, I’ve been in an Andy Warhol movie, Bad. I’ve written journalistic pieces, and now I’ve written a book that tells for the first time  the complete story of the L.A. underworld from Prohibition to 1976, as seen from the POV of the city’s top  mobster, Mickey Cohen. I guess you can say I’ve had an upper-world version of  Mickey’s diverse career path: newsboy, pro boxer, thug, gangster, mob  boss, celebrity.

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Posted in Books and Authors, History, Hollywood, LAPD, Mickey Cohen | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments

One Woman’s Vision of Saving Black History

Posted on July 25, 2012 by lmharnisch

My latest column  is about the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum in Culver City. Cheers to Executive Director Larry Earl Jr., Archivist Cara Adams and volunteer Sandra Lindsey for their help.

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Eve Golden: Queen of the Dead

Posted on July 23, 2012 by lmharnisch

hearse_1973_oldsmobile

A customized 1973 Oldsmobile hearse, listed on EBay at Buy It Now for $13,500.

Queen of the Dead – dateline July 23, 2012

•   I adored Celeste Holm (who died on July 15, at 95) as an actress—she was warm and sharp and witty in All About Eve, Gentleman’s Agreement, High Society—often, she was the best part of her films, even in small supporting parts. But . . . when she died, I heard from several friends and acquaintances who had worked with her or knew her, and not a single one of them had a nice word to say about her. The same word cropped up a lot, but it was not “nice,” and “copper-bottom” was frequently attached to it. So I implore readers to post lovely stories about what a sweet, good-natured woman Celeste Holm was—let’s hear ’em!

 

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Posted in Books and Authors, Eve Golden, Hollywood, Queen of the Dead | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Movieland Mystery Photo [Updated]

Posted on July 19, 2012 by lmharnisch

July 19, 2012, Mystery Photo

Here’s another photo from the amazing collection of Steven Bibb!

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Posted in Film, Mystery Photo, Television | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Lana Turner Elopes!

Posted on July 18, 2012 by lmharnisch

July 18, 1942, Comics

July 18, 1942, Lana Turner

July 18, 1942: Lana Turner elopes to Las Vegas with Stephen Crane in a marriage performed by the same judge who did her marriage to Artie Shaw in 1940. Turner is 22 and Crane is 27. It is the second marriage for both of them.

The NAACP’s annual convention, meeting in Los Angeles, condemns the police beating of tenor Roland Hayes in Rome, Ga.

Hayes’ wife had taken their daughter to buy shoes and objected when the clerk asked them to sit in the back of the store. The clerk called police, The Times said.

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Movieland Mystery Photo [Updated]

Posted on July 16, 2012 by lmharnisch

July 16, 2012, Mystery Photo

March 7, 1937, Frank Vosper

Here’s today’s mystery photo, courtesy of Steven Bibb!

This is a still from “Power” showing Frank Vosper, who disappeared from an ocean liner in 1937.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo, Photography | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Eve Golden: Queen of the Dead

Posted on July 16, 2012 by lmharnisch

hearse_harold_maude

A model of the Jaguar XKE hearse from “Harold and Maude” has been listed on EBay with bids starting at 125 GBP.

Queen of the Dead – dateline July 16, 2012

•  I’m a real bear on architectural preservation, so I was interested in the obit of John Papa, who died at 87 on June 24 (and who was no relation to Papas John of Pizza or rock group fame). He was something of a hero in San Francisco, where the clothing-store and real-estate businessman bought up the six Selfridge houses, designed by the Reid brothers in 1894. He was also one of the great hosts of the town (what is male for “socialite, anyway?), throwing bashes for everyone from ballet stars to Olympic athletes to Tāufa’āhau Tupou IV, King of Tonga. “Abroad for six months each year,” notes his obit, “he spent many winters in Puerto Vallarta, and summers in Europe. He will be most fondly remembered for the many amusing postcards sent and anecdotes brought back.” Sounds like quite a fellow.

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Posted in Art & Artists, Comics, Eve Golden, Film, Found on EBay, Hollywood, Museums, Queen of the Dead | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Seeing L.A. Through the Lens of History – C.C. Pierce’s Photos

Posted on July 10, 2012 by lmharnisch

My latest column for The Times is on early L.A. photographer C.C. Pierce.

Posted in History, Photography | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Movieland Mystery Photo – Film Within a Film Edition [Updated ++]

Posted on July 9, 2012 by lmharnisch

Movieland Mystery Photo

And this would be?

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 16 Comments

Eve Golden: Queen of the Dead

Posted on July 9, 2012 by lmharnisch

hearse_1999_cadillac

Photo: A 1999 Cadillac hearse listed on EBay with bids starting at $1, or Buy It Now for $10,995. 

Queen of the Dead – dateline July 9, 2012

•   Andy Griffith (who died at 86, on July 3), I thought, was kind of sexy, in a carved-out-of-roast-beef way.  Mayberry scared the heck out of me, though: I know it was supposed to be all bucolic and heartwarming, but it had a Twilight Zone vibe to me: if my type of East Coast eccentric showed up, I would never be seen again, and “Aint Bee” would be serving meat pies to Andy and Opie for the next month. But I loved Andy in his earlier No Time for Sergeants and especially A Face in the Crowd mode—if you have never seen that last movie, rent it now.  He plays every kind of political populist glad-hander from Huey Long and Glen Beck on the right to Jon Stewart and Will Rogers on the left. One of those movies that never goes out of date. 

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Movieland Mystery Photo

Posted on July 7, 2012 by lmharnisch

July 7, 2012, Mystery Photo

Here’s another photo from the collection of Steven Bibb!

Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

‘Casablanca’ Cast Honors Michael Curtiz’s 15 Years in U.S.

Posted on July 7, 2012 by lmharnisch

Juyly 7, 1942, U.S. Forces Batter Rommel
July 7, 1942, Comics

July 7, 1942:Twin brothers Walter and Sol Brundo, jazz musicians, join a military band stationed at Camp Haan in Riverside County.   I can’t find any trace of Sol and Walter. I wonder what became of them.

“The Magnificent Ambersons”opens at the Pantages in Hollywood and the RKO Hillstreet, billed with “Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost” and the latest “March of Time.”

The cast of “Casablanca” gives a party for director Michael Curtiz marking his 15 years in the U.S. “Mike said he’d talked with many refugees on his set and worked their actual experiences, escaping from Nazi countries, into the picture, Hedda Hopper says.

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Posted in 1942, Art & Artists, Comics, Film, Hollywood, Music, World War II | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

On Assignment

Posted on July 3, 2012 by lmharnisch

I’m on assignment this week, so posting will be light.

Posted in History, Libraries | Comments Off on On Assignment

Eve Golden: Queen of the Dead

Posted on July 2, 2012 by lmharnisch

Hearse U-Haul

This gag postcard of a hearse has been listed on EBay. Bidding starts at  $19.95.

Queen of the Dead – dateline July 2, 2012

•  Don Grady, the hottest of My Three Sons, died on June 27; he was 68. Grady started on The Mickey Mouse Club in 1955, and racked up an impressive résumé before being cast as Robbie Douglas on My Three Sons (1960-71), on which he aged from kid to dad of his own triplets. But Grady’s big love was music: he was a drummer for a rock band, and after leaving acting he became a composer for movies and TV shows (The Phil Donahue Show, Switch, Good Neighbor, The Burning Sands). The Modern editor Ron Sklar calls him “a really, really good guy.” Grady told Sklar last year that My Three Sons “was a wonderful experience, in the sense that I learned that fame is not everything . . . I needed to do something that satisfied me and was fulfilling. And for me, that was music.”

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Posted in Eve Golden, Film, Hollywood, Queen of the Dead, Television | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Keaton Sons Change Names to Talmadge

Posted on June 30, 2012 by lmharnisch

image

July 2, 1942, Comics

July 2, 1942: Buster Keaton’s sons Robert, 18, and James, 20, legally change their last names to Talmadge after a petition to the court by Keaton’s ex-wife Natalie Talmadge.

Lee Gilcrease, 29, kills his wife, Ethel, and commits suicide in an orange grove near 14333 Van Nuys Blvd., leaving their children, ages 3 and 2 months, without parents. Gilcrease apparently suspected his wife of being unfaithful and said in a suicide note: “I am stopping it all.”

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Posted in 1942, Art & Artists, Comics, Crime and Courts, Film, Hollywood, San Fernando Valley, Suicide | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Keaton Sons Change Names to Talmadge

Man Held as ‘Orchid Bandit’

Posted on June 27, 2012 by lmharnisch

June 27, 1942, Ship Off West Coast Torpedoed
June 27, 1942, Comics

June 27, 1942: James D. Hannah liked orchids. He liked them so much that he usually gave several of them to his girlfriends to put in their hair, a habit that led to his arrest when robbery victim  Elva Sieburg identified him from a mug shot.

Sieburg told police that Hannah was the man who held up the Postal Telegraph office at Hollywood Boulevard and Wilcox Avenue. Unfortunately, The Times failed to follow up on the tale of the orchid bandit, although a photographer managed to take a very strange picture of him with several alleged victims.

Hedda Hopper has an amusing tale — possibly true– of Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland going bowling in Monterey, Calif., during a vacation in Carmel.

Jessie Beck, ex-commissary girl at Metro, wrote “Other People.” It’s a candid view of the screen great from a waitress’ angle, Hopper says.

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Posted in 1942, Art & Artists, Books and Authors, Columnists, Comics, Crime and Courts, Film, Hollywood | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Man Held as ‘Orchid Bandit’