What is advertised as original still No. 25-17 of Theda Bara from the lost film “Salome” has been listed on EBay. I have seen enough of these photos to confirm that the production code begins with “25-XX.” The Witzel studios also took publicity shots of Bara in “Salome” and these, naturally, don’t have production code numbers. Bidding starts at $149.18.
[Update: This is Mona Barrie.]
Here’s another mystery lady from the collection of Steven Bibb.
There’s a new photo on the jump!
Dec. 4, 1941:Dr. Richard A. Carter, head of the Carter Neurological Clinic in Garden Grove, is accused of negligence in administering a fatal dose during insulin shock treatments for Virginia Lamb, 22, of Anaheim for dementia praecox. It’s unclear from The Times stories exactly what was wrong with Lamb, who left a husband and 2-year-old son, Edward. Carter told Lamb’s husband, Alvin, that she had a “mild form of insanity.” Unfortunately, I can’t find the outcome of the trial in the clips.
Jimmie Fidler says: Looks like another long idle spell for William Powell: the old illness.
The Daily Mirror HQ lost power for two days after the Santa Ana winds hit Southern California. It will be a while before I get caught up.
Dec. 3, 1941: Here’s how Los Angeles County once handled immigration. Officials paid families on welfare $100 ($1,464.25 USD 2010) over 10 months to go back to Mexico. Since 1930-31, more than 4,000 families had gone back to Mexico under the program, The Times said.
Tom Treanor, who was killed covering World War II for The Times, picks up a hitchhiker and learns about Army life.
The Marines wear loud uniforms and they’re loud guys and they walk around like they’re kings. I don’t go for that stuff. But they get into more fighting. I’d like to get in the middle of it. After you’ve been a soldier for a while, all you want to do is get into the fighting. That’s what these strikers don’t understand until they see us coming at them. If they order us to go get them, we’ll go get them. We do what we’re ordered.
Garbo skis in “Two-Faced Woman,” her first picture since “Ninotchka,” opening at Grauman’s Chinese and Loew’s State.
Jimmie Fidler says: I would be most unfair to the motion picture industry, including all its branches and people, if I failed to dwell on the fact that the movies contributed almost $975,000 to the U.S.O. It was the largest single contribution to this fund!
An interesting bit of Los Angeles Times memorabilia has turned up on EBay. This is a Sept. 4, 1911, letter from Harrison Gray Otis (notice that he didn’t use his military title) to Drayton Pitts, acknowledging the receipt of a poem titled “The Times Holocaust,” presumably commemorating the 1910 bombing. As Otis notes in his letter, the property at 1st Street and Broadway was cleared in preparation for a new Times Building that opened in 1912.
Although the paper never published a poem titled “The Times Holocaust,” it did publish a poem by Pitts titled “The Crime of the Century” on The Times Bombing on Oct. 1, 1912, and Dec. 31, 1915.
Dec. 1, 1941: With the attack on Pearl Harbor six days away, Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair says U.S. troops are ready to fight, but would suffer heavy losses with only six months of field training. “Properly trained units cannot be developed in one year,” he says.
Tonight on KFI: The Voice of Firestone!
Dorothy Darling, “a naughty personality in platinum,” is at the Follies!
Jimmie Fidler says: Pat O’Brien (Notre Dame fan-atic) is circulating a petition, urging the Fighting Irish to break no-postseason-games rule and seek a Rose Bowl bid.
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This rather remarkable pair of vintage shoes from the Collegienne department at Bullock’s Wilshire has been listed on EBay. Bidding starts at $9.99.
Here’s another mystery photo from the amazing collection of Steven Bibb!
[Update: This is Natalie Thompson, who appeared in “The Vanishing Virginian.” ]
Regular reader Marc Chevalier sends along his version of the proper way to wear a newsboy cap. He says it helps to have an authentic period cap: “The caps made in the ’20s and ’30s have a somewhat different shape from the ones made today. They’re more, well, sculptured.”
Nov. 30, 1941:President Roosevelt says the U.S. may be at war in a year – actually, it was a week later.
Bartender Eddie Watton was closing up at the Theatre Cafe, 324 S. Main St., and wanted the man at the end of the bar to leave. But Arthur McNamee refused to go until he finished his beer. McNamee became abusive, then walked around the end of the bar and put his hand in his hip pocket, Watton said.
“I hit him on the jaw with my right fist,” Watton said.
McNamee fell backward and his head his head. He was found in the street, dying of a skull fracture.
The Times never followed up on this story, so we don’t know whether Watton was prosecuted in the death. But in July 1942, the state suspended the liquor licenses of bars that the military had declared out of bounds, including the Theatre Cafe, “for the duration.”
Edward Everett Horton is appearing at the El Capitan in the play “Springtime for Henry.”
Jimmie Fidler says: “I’m unable to understand why Don Ameche hasn’t reached a higher run on the Hollywood ladder.
Photo: Jack Huston in “Boardwalk Empire.” Credit: Macall Polay HBO via the Los Angeles Times.
I was watching “Emperor of the North” and thought a post on newsboy caps might be a good follow-up on How to Wear a Hat – Noir Edition. Because you should never have to see something as unfortunate as the costume of Jack Huston in “Boardwalk Empire,” where the suit doesn’t match the shirt, doesn’t match the tie, doesn’t match the hat – oh that hat. Dressed from the Salvation Army.
Here’s a lesson on wearing a newsboy cap from Lee Marvin in the 1973 film “Emperor of the North,” set in 1933, with costume design by Ed Wynigear, who also worked on period films such as “Tora! Tora! Tora!” “1941,” “Under the Rainbow” and “The Sand Pebbles.”
Photo: Postcard for J.D. Naftzinger, funeral director and embalmer, listed on EBay, as Buy It Now for $150.
Queen of the Dead—dateline November 28, 2011
• I am going to get “More, More, More (How Do You Like It?),” stuck in your brain for the next week, I apologize in advance. Actress and singer/songwriter Andrea True, 68, died in Kingston, New York, on November 7. She is best remembered for her disco hits—in addition to the one above, “New York, You Got Me Dancing” and “What’s Your Name, What’s Your Number,” all of which reached the charts (and the dance floors) in the late 1970s. True also acted in numerous films throughout that decade, most of them soft-core porn (including such eyebrow-raising titles as The Russians Are Coming, Doctor’s Teenage Dilemma, The Wetter the Better, Once Over Nightly, and Little Orphan Sammy).
November 27, 1941: The Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railways ask the City Council to repeal a ban against buses operating in downtown Los Angeles. Pacific Electric officials said the ban prevented them from routing the line from Los Angeles to Alhambra, San Gabriel and Temple City out of Main Street. The repeal would also allow Pacific Electric to turn its station at 6th and Main Streets into a bus terminal, The Times said. (Are you surprised that the campaign to convert streetcar lines to buses started before World War II?)
Tom Treanor, who was killed covering World War II for The Times, tells the story of seven recruits about to take an oath to join the Marines.
Jackie Cooper and Susanna Foster star in “Glamour Boy,” with Skinnay Ennis and his orchestra live on stage at the Paramount!
Jimmie Fidler says: Wot a jaunt around the Caribbean bases that must have been for Oliver (oh-so-fat) Hardy. During one hop in a too-small plane he had to stand for seven hours because he didn’t fit in the seats and there was no room on the floor.
Photo: The 1200 block of Innes Avenue, home of the George F. Harrington/Kitty HQ, via Google Street View.
Nov. 26, 1941: Kitty may not be a typical name for a dog – but then George F. Harrington is an unusual fellow, for he claims that owning a dog is a constitutional right. Threatened with a 30-day jail sentence for not licensing Kitty, Harrington took his battle to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear his case. Harrington, of 1203 Innes Ave., decided to pay the $4 fee and take his fight to Sacramento.
Jean Renoir’s “Swamp Water,” with Walter Brennan, Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews and Walter Huston, is opening at Grauman’s Chinese and Lowe’s State.
Jimmie Fidler replies to a reader from South Bend, Ind., who says: “I think the Hays office is right in banning sweaters. You should hear the boys whoop and holler when one appears on the screen.” Well, boys will be boys and Hollywood prospers on whoops and hollers, Jimmie says.
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[Update: I thought it might be helpful if I enlarged the faces of our mystery gents. My hunch is that the fellow on the right is Laurence Olivier.
[I have also received three more photos and I now suspect that our friends in Photo 1 are also in Photo 4. One could infer that since Man 1 and Man 2 are dressed much the same in Photos 1 and 4, they were taken at the same time.
[Photo No. 6 obviously shows a young Pat Boone. The rest are unidentified.]
I received an email from congressional candidate Vincent Flaherty, seeking identities on these three photos. He says they show Ray Ryan, a member of the syndicate headed by Ralph E. Stolkin that bought Howard Hughes’ share of RKO in 1952. The stock was returned to Hughes in 1953 at a reported loss of more than $1 million.
Photo: James Richardson, city editor of the Los Angeles Examiner. Credit: Cover of “For the Life of Me.”
I incurred the wrath of Fibber some time ago with my post about James Richardson and “For the Life of Me.” Fibber reminded me – rather pointedly – that Richardson gave him his chance at reporting. And where would the Daily Mirror be without Fibber’s recollections?
Anyway, Richardson wrote another book in 1922 titled “Spring Street,” which was compiled from a series of short stories he wrote for the Evening Herald. As a book, “Spring Street” isn’t much – it’s a rather typical romance of the period. But Richardson has lots of wonderful descriptions of Los Angeles at the time.
The book is available for free at Archive.Org or you can pay $22.71 to someone who is peddling printed versions on EBay.
On the jump, Richardson’s description of a newspaper office….
Here’s a traditional roast turkey recipe from the “Every-Day Cook-Book and Family Compendium,” written about 1890 by Miss E. Neill. Be sure your fire is bright and clear and watch out for the gall-bag.
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Nov. 23, 1941: Dr. Herbert Shapiro of the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia has discovered that if you place a bag of ice cubs on the side of a rabbit for 90 minutes, the rabbit may become pregnant.
“The ice treatment, Dr. Shapiro said, has caused virgin conception in a number of rabbits. The seeming miracle is only occasional.”
The Times reports that Sunday circulation has reached a new high: 456,000.
Jimmie Fidler says: From where I stand, it looks like Abbott and Costello should be planning, not to rake in all the gold while the vein is hot, but to spread out their nugget-grabbing over a period of years.
ladailymirror.com 