This early Selig-Polyscope 35-millimeter movie projector has been listed on EBay. Imagine cranking an early – flammable nitrate – film through this apparatus. It’s no wonder that early projection booths were encased in steel in the event of a fire. Bidding on this projector starts at $5,000. As with anything on EBay, an item and vendor should be evaluated thoroughly before submitting a bid.
[Update: This is Martha Sleeper (d. 1983)]
Here’s another mystery photo, courtesy of Steven Bibb!
Nate Schweber of the New York Times writes about a reunion of people who lived in a New York neighborhood that was obliterated during urban renewal. The demolition of the neighborhood is also the subject of a documentary, “The Tragedy of Urban Renewal,” by Jim Epstein. Many years ago, I was involved in a similar, extremely gratifying project in Tucson that celebrated a historic, mostly Latino neighborhood that was wiped out to make way for the Tucson Community Center.
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Photo: Rolls-Royce hearse at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Credit: Larry Harnisch/LADailyMirror.com
Queen of the Dead—dateline October 10, 2011
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans were saddened to learn this week of the death on May 25 of musical-comedy starlet Betty Luster, 89, better known as the perky elf Mr. B Natural in the 1956 short subject of that title. Luster also appeared on Broadway (Louisiana Purchase, The Wayward Saint) and TV (Songs for Sale, Seven at Eleven), but real cult fame came in 1993, when MST3K hilariously skewered Mr. B Natural, which featured Luster as a Peter Pan-like sprite who terrifyingly haunts a nerdy high-school kid into joining the school band. The real Betty Luster had long since retired happily to Florida with her husband, where she was recalled as a “world class croquet player.”
On Monday, Eve Golden has a roundup of unusual obituaries in Queen of the Dead, and in Hollywood Heights, Mary Mallory takes a look at the Clover Club, a 1930s casino on Sunset Boulevard.
On Tuesday, there’s another installment of “Zoot Suit” and History. This week, we will examine Navy reports from 1942 on bars, restaurants and anywhere else in Southern California where sailors could get in trouble.
This truly impressive Batchelder tile, 12 inches square, has been listed on EBay. This is not a pattern that I recall seeing before. Bidding starts at $1,600. As with anything on EBay, an item and vendor should be evaluated thoroughly before submitting a bid.
Photo: The 2010 Archives Bazaar at Doheny Memorial Library. Credit: Larry Harnisch/LADailyMirror.com
[Update: This is today! Mary Mallory says she’ll be at the Hollywood Heritage table from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., so if you’re there be sure to say hello!]
The sixth annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar is coming up Oct. 22 at USC’s Doheny Memorial Library. The bazaar is one of the best ways to discover the array of libraries and archives in Southern California, where researchers need all the help they can get because things are not where you might think. (Example: The early history of USC’s Medical School is at UCLA. Why? That’s a long story.)
[Update: This is Karin Booth (d. 2003)]
Here’s our mystery gal, courtesy of Steven Bibb!
The National Air and Space Museum in Washington is closed after antiwar demonstrators try to enter to protest an exhibit on drones. The crowd dispersed after being pepper-sprayed by a security guard coming to the rescue of another guard. Washington Post | AP via Wall Street Journal.
Sarah Schweitzer of the Boston Globe writes that Boston is honoring Patrolman Andrew Cuneo, the Boston Police Department’s first Italian-born officer, who was killed Aug. 13, 1921, in a shootout with a former officer. He was also the department’s first Italian-born officer killed in the line of duty. The Saskatoon Phoenix, Aug. 16, 1921.
L.A. Daily Mirror and L.A. Crime Beat curated by the bots at paper.li, who are over their Tupac sex tape thing. Finally.
Photo: Wilshire Boulevard Temple, interior. Credit: Jim Winstead
On the 140th anniversary of the Chicago fire, it’s a time to celebrate the city’s libraries. Rick Kogan explains in the Tribune’s Sidewalks blog.
Jay Jones, writing for the Los Angeles Times, recalls the Peshtigo, Wis., fire, the same night as the Chicago fire, which killed 1,200 people.
Mary Mallory notes that restoration of the Hugo Ballin murals is part of the work being done during renovations of the sanctuary at Wilshire Boulevard Temple. Times colleague Martha Groves has the story.
Wilshire Boulevard Temple, by the way, began as Congregation B’nai B’rith on Broadway between 2nd and 3rd streets and is marked by a plaque in the sidewalk. Portions of it were discovered during excavation for The Times parking structure. (The temple’s website says incorrectly that Congregation B’nai B’rith used to be at Temple and Broadway).
Will the footnote be killed by electronic books, which often convert them to nearly invisible end notes? Alexandra Horowitz shares her thoughts with the New York Times.
The footnotes are among the first things I look at when I pull a book from a store shelf. My editor gamely tolerated my inclusion of many in my own book (though we removed more than we left in). I would be proud to be a footnote in someone else’s work.
… But I champion another species of footnote: the wandering footnote. These digressive notes, seeing a sentence that some might consider complete, determine to hijack it with a new set of ever more tangential facts. In the wayward note, the bumps and curves of the author’s mind seem to be laid plain on the paper. I came of intellectual age hearing the author’s sotto voce asides in the philosophy essays I loved. I still recall footnotes that begin, enticingly, “Imagine that . . . ”; “Consider . . . ”; or even, in one of J. L. Austin’s famous thought experiments, “You have a donkey. . . . ” I had the feeling of being taken into confidence by a wise fellow during an erudite lecture, and being told something even more clever and lucid.
The L.A. Daily Mirror and L.A. Crime Beat curated from only the finest Twitter feeds by the tireless bots at paper.li. I wish the bots would get over their thing for the Tupac sex tape.
This rather bedraggled postcard of Julian Eltinge in “The Fascinating Widow” has been listed on EBay. Hm. Eltinge Cold Cream is a new one on me.
Eltinge was one of the most famous female impersonators of his day and built a large house at 2328 Baxter St. in Silver Lake. Bidding starts at $7.99.
[Update: This is Dorothy Jordan (d. 1988). Please congratulate Mike Hawks, Mary Mallory, Bob Hansen and Don Danard for identifying her! ]
Here’s today’s mystery photo – courtesy of Steven Bibb!
Dec. 27, 1978: Four more bodies are found under the home of John Wayne Gacy.
Adam Nagourney of the New York Times reports on the slow process of bringing a 21-foot granite boulder to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for Michael Heizer’s “Levitated Mass.”
“A million permits,” says director Michael Govan. “And the State of California is always reviewing the state of its bridges and roads. So a route plan that would have worked a couple of days ago doesn’t work today.” He compared the project to erecting the great pyramids of Egypt. “The Egyptians didn’t have rubber tires or diesel engines,” he said. “But they also didn’t have weak streets.”
Gregory Powell, convicted in the 1963 “Onion Field” killing of LAPD Officer Ian Campbell, is up for parole as a “compassionate release.” Powell, 77, has said he has terminal prostate cancer. His hearing is Oct. 18. AP via San Jose Mercury News. Powell’s release is opposed by the Los Angeles Police Protective League and by Campbell’s daughter Valerie.
The kidnapping of Campbell and his partner Karl Hettinger is told in Joseph Wambaugh’s “The Onion Field,” which was made into a film starring John Savage, James Woods, Franklyn Seales and Ted Danson.
Erika Slife of the Chicago Tribune reports that a judge has approved exhumation of a body for DNA testing to determine whether it is Michael Marino, believed to be one of the victims of John Wayne Gacy.
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Oct. 7, 1941: You’re probably wondering how fast Blanche Roberts was driving. The story doesn’t say anything more specific than “an exceedingly low rate of speed” on the Calabasas Grade. Apparently no one thought to query the reporter — the “women drivers” gag was good enough.
Tom Treanor says a radio announcer jinxed Dodgers pitcher Hugh Casey in the third game of the World Series, which the Yankees won, 2-1. Casey took over as reliever after Fred Fitzsimmons was struck in the knee by a line drive from Yankee pitcher Marius Russo.
Warner Bros. “The Maltese Falcon” (Humphrey Bogart – Mary Astor) — A “whodunit” chiller that will make theater cooling systems unnecessary, Jimmie Fidler says.
March 28, 1964: New Yorkers shrugged as Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was killed.
Winston Moseley, convicted in the infamous 1964 killing of Catherine “Kitty” Genovese, is up for parole and Sam Favate takes a look in the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog.
Barbara Brotman of the Trib talks to the women who helped bring Judy Chicago’s “The Dinner Party”to Chicago in 1981.
The Detroit News reports that a police dive team has recovered a 1,200-pound cannon that was lost in the Detroit River while being ferried to a British ship in 1796. Officials say that the cannon may go on display at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum after its condition is stabilized.
Still no word on what became of the Pershing Square cannon nicknamed “The Last Argument of Kings” that was moved to Travel Town and eventually vanished.
The L.A. Daily Mirror and L.A. Crime Beat curated with tireless precision by the bots at paper.li. The bots have finally decided the death of Steve Jobs is more important than the Tupac sex tape.
Photo: “Los Angeles,” by Morrow Mayo. Credit: Larry Harnisch/LADailyMirror.com
Earlier this year, I queried readers about the best books on Los Angeles. It was interesting to see how many people suggested novels – by Raymond Chandler and John Fante – which is appropriate, I suppose, considering our largely fictionalized history. I would argue strongly that Chandler paints a better picture of Los Angeles than most historians, not necessarily because of his brilliance but because historians who write about Los Angeles tend to be dreadful researchers who can’t even poach from earlier writers without mangling the facts. Consider the lesson of Gen. Otis’ Armored Car.
My Times colleague Christopher Reynolds has compiled fiction and nonfiction lists of the best books on L.A., an exercise that can be fun but is ultimately subjective. Most of his selections are fairly recent. Other than “Ramona” (1884), his earliest fiction work is “Oil!” (1927) and the earliest nonfiction book is a reprint of the WPA guide to Los Angeles (1941/2011). And no, Morrow Mayo’s book (above) isn’t included.
Note: The Daily Mirror HQ recently acquired another issue of Haldeman-Julius Monthly with another piece by Louis Adamic, author of “Cecil B. DeMille: Movie Evangelist.” Here it is, courtesy of the OCR software of the HQ’s scanner.
THE Reverend “Sister” Aimee Semple McPherson’s factory of moron faith, the be-oo-ti-fool Angelus Temple, situated on the shore of Lake Echo, beneath the benign sky that daily spreads like an azure canopy over the city of Los Angeles, is these days in a lamentable plight. Its predicament is, in a general way, analogous to that of a backhouse in a Nova Scotia storm. Not that its walls of concrete and steel have begun to crumble-I hasten to allay your alarm.
This image of a wishing well on Broadway in Chinatown built by professor Henry K. Liu has been listed on EBay. If you have looked at Charles Owens and Joe Seewerker’s “Nuestro Pueblo,” (which you really should) you might recall it.
Bidding starts at 90 cents, or Buy It Now for $4.99.
You might also consider tracking down a copy of “Nuestro Pueblo,” which includes terrific artwork by The Times’ Charles Owens.
Ken Burns’ series on Prohibition has brought a reexamination of the era. John McCormick of the Chicago Tribune looks at the tawdry end of the Trib’s Alfred “Jake” Lingle, who was shot to death in 1930, revealing a secret life.
A 1919 letter by Adolf Hitler outlining his plan removing Jews is going on display at the Museum of Tolerance. The text (in German) is here.
Here are three words I never thought I would see together: “Wayne Newton Museum.” Never mind the theater, zoo and exhibits of celebrity tchotchkes. It’s going to have a theme carwash that is being expanded to accommodate tour buses. AP via Washington Post.
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Photo: Kisses on the tomb of Valentino. Credit: Larry Harnisch/LADailyMirror.com
The Daily Mirror lunch at Astro Burger and tour of Hollywood Forever Cemetery was a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Our distinguished guide, Karie Bible, showed us around and after 2 1/2 hours there were plenty of folks left for another excursion. Karie gave us a thumbnail sketch of the cemetery’s revival and showed us the graves of the famous, infamous and forgotten.
ladailymirror.com 