Image: Help wanted, July 27, 1941. Credit: Los Angeles Times
Joe Light in the Wall Street Journal looks at job-hunting lessons from the Great Depression.
Interviews with historians and Depression-era job seekers suggest that the formula for finding work hasn’t changed much. Then, as now, those who relentlessly work at making personal connections have better luck landing jobs.
The L.A. Daily Mirror and L.A. Crime Beat made with soft Corinthian leather by the bots at paper.li.
Photo: 2003 Cadillac hearse for sale on EBay. Bidding starts at $10,000.
Queen of the Dead – dateline August 22, 2011
• The godfather of Mondo Cinema, Gualtiero Jacopetti, died at 92 on August 17. The director of the silly, can’t-look-away shockumentary Mondo Cane (1962), he influenced everything from John Waters to all those Faces of Death videos to cable’s “Shit Blows Up” shows to one of my own favorite films, The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield. Jacopetti’s own mondo was kind of scioccante, too: in 1961 he was in a car accident that killed his girlfriend, gorgeous British actress Belinda Lee; Italian papers say he will be buried next to her.
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What appears to be an original zoot suit, with reet pleat, drape shape and stuff cuff, has been listed on EBay. According to the vendor, this suit was in the wardrobe department of a movie studio. There is no label, unfortunately.
A perfect find for our continuing series. Bidding starts at $19.99.
“Zoot Suit” and History, Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Photo: The LAPD pistol team puts on a demonstration at the Auto Club headquarters in 1934. Credit: “Three Cars in Every Garage: A Motorist’s History of the Automobile and the Automobile Club of Southern California,” Page 164.
Did they really do this? Yes, they really did.
Photo: The Santa Barbara Junior League Cookbook, 1939. Credit: L.A. Daily Mirror archives.
The Culinary Historians of Southern California will hold its annual used cookbook sale on Aug. 21 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Hollywood Farmers Market, at Ivar and Selma avenues. Magazines, menus and other ephemera will also be for sale. The Daily Mirror test kitchen has been inactive for some time, but we do enjoy picking through old cookbooks when we find them and years ago we had a particular soft spot for family recipe boxes we sometimes found in thrift stores. One can discover quite a bit of history in a family’s recipes. See you there!
Photo: Edsel Ford III, left, and Edsel Ford II at the wheel of the Model 40. Credit: Edsel and Eleanor Ford House.
David Streitfeld of the New York Times reports on how authors, restaurants and hotels can buy a positive Web review for $5. I call it the cyberclaque and it’s been around for years. The claque, in case you don’t know, was people who were paid to applaud (or boo) at the Paris Opera. Hector Berlioz wrote about it in his wonderful book “Evenings With the Orchestra.”
A restored Model 40 Special Speedster owned by Edsel Ford makes its debut at the Lodge at Pebble Beach. The custom auto was built on a 1934 Ford roadster chassis and designed by E.T. Gregorie based on Edsel Ford’s concept of European sports cars. Jerry Garrett in the New York Times’ Wheels blog.
David J gives an interview about his composition inspired by the Black Dahlia case. Steve Fast on WJBC.
Japanese Americans interned at Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming hold a reunion for the opening of a museum. Esmeralda Bermudez in the Los Angeles Times.
Kevin Nance of the Washington Post visits the National Civil Rights Museum, located in the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We can’t be maudlin about this. I mean, yes, we are a dying breed. We are disappearing from the face of the earth and all of that. That being said, perhaps this is a moment for people to acknowledge the contribution that has been made by women religious throughout our history in the United States.”
–Sister Mary Jean, 73, who has retired as head of SSM Health Care, on the way nuns used to run Catholic hospitals. Kevin Sack in the New York Times.
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I don’t care much for lists because they’re usually nothing but “flame bait.”* The BBC is an abundant source of these dictums, such as “100 Smashing Top-Drawer Books That Everyone Who Aspires to Cultural Literacy Should Read,” which is second only to AFI’s lists of “100 Classic Films That Ignore Your Favorite Director/Writer/Actor/Script Girl” in polluting the Web.
Note: This is funniest EBay entry I have seen in years. Bidding starts at $666.
Cursed Land and/or House
Five pounds of land removed from the center of the basement of the cursed house. If the bid goes over 80k, I will throw in the deed to the place after I settle with the bloodsuckers at IRS and the loansharks, if you want it.
I have often said that the Daily Mirror is a labor of love for everyone who contributes their work. And it is. There are a few minor expenses of operating the website, books for the Daily Mirror HQ, etc. I had planned to try some Google advertising on the site, but WordPress doesn’t like javascript and keeps eating the coding. When I was making the transition to an independent blog, one devoted reader insisted on sending me a check, which was not necessary, but greatly appreciated. In that vein, donations are certainly not necessary or expected, but greatly appreciated. Click here to donate via Paypal.
I stumbled into a trove of interesting interviews by Mike Wallace that are online at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Austin at Texas. Here’s Wallace’s Aug. 25, 1957, interview with the notorious Freddie Otash, the former LAPD officer who worked for Hollywood Research, which did the snooping for Confidential. Video | Transcript
Look! here’s Lili St. Cyr! Video | Transcript
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Photo: Crane bathroom fixtures. Credit: Life magazine, April 29, 1957.
We grew up in a sterile, cookie-cutter home, on a sterile, cookie-cutter street, in a sterile suburb of Chicago, where all the people were white and all the bathrooms were pink. The dads went to work, the moms stayed home and they all got drunk and slept with the neighbors.
So we are slightly puzzled as to why anyone would want to live in the Studebaker Lark of American architecture. Maybe it’s just hipster irony.
But for those who are searching for that perfect Persian red sink (above right) or retro “his and hers bathrooms” with “his and hers toilets” (top) there is retrorenovation.com. Steven Kurutz in the New York Times.
The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas is trying to preserve five costumes from “Gone With the Wind” for a 2014 exhibit marking the film’s 75th anniversary. The costumes, part of the David O. Selznick collection, are Vivien Leigh’s wedding dress, nightgown, ball gown, green velvet gown and her green curtain dress, according to the Associated Press.
The L.A. Daily Mirror and L.A. Crime Beat fashioned from Twitter feeds to the most exacting specifications by the bots at paper.li
“Santa Anita Racetrack,” by Marion Eisenmann
Marion Eisenmann, who shares her artwork with the Daily Mirror in Artist’s Notebook, will be giving monthly classes in plein air painting on Thursdays at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden in Arcadia. Sessions are scheduled for Sept. 8, Oct. 6 and Nov. 3, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with an hour for lunch. The fee is $120 per session for members and $150 for non-members. Further information and reservations are available at (626) 821-4623. Students may buy lunch at the Arboretum cafe or bring their own.
This Witzel photo has been posted on EBay. Judging by the stamp on the back, it’s some celebrity, but the woman isn’t identified. OK, brain trust, what do you think? Bidding starts at $24.99.
Photo: “Charge of the Light Brigade,” filmed at Lasky Mesa.
James Curtis’ interview with Dick Lane touched on a filming location known as Lasky Mesa. Films shot there include “Rose of the Rancho” 1914, “The Thundering Herd” (1925), “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1936), “Another Dawn” (1937), “Geronimo” (1939), “They Died With Their Boots on” (1941) and “Duel in the Sun” (1946).
The area was described in news stories as “70 miles north of Universal City” or “two miles north of Calabasas.” Moviesites.org describes it as northwest of Los Angeles on the west end of Victory Boulevard. Later known as Ahmanson Ranch, it is now the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve.
Photo: Mujeres listas para recivir a Rabago, 1911. Credit: Walter H. Horne/Getty Research Institute
“A Nation Emerges,” featuring images of the Mexican Revolution, will go on display at the Central Library from Sept. 8 to June 3. The exhibit, presented by the library and the Getty Research Institute, will include more than 130 photos, prints and maps from the Getty as well as posters from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.
Thieves seeking to capitalize on the purported medicinal powers of rhino horns broke into the Ipswich Museum in Essex, England, recently and stole the horn from a 100-year-old mounted specimen. David Jolly, New York Times’ Green blog.
The Museum of Broken Relationships, an exhibit at Tristan Bates Theatre in London, puts artifacts from insignificant others on display. Elizabeth Flock in the Washington Post.
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This Witzel photo of actress Dorothy Phillips has been listed on EBay. Bidding starts at $19.99. Phillips received a one-paragraph obituary in The Times on March 10, 1980.
Back in 2008, Scott of Tropico Station decided to revisit Glendale locations used in “Crime Wave.” Voila!
Photo 1: “Crime Wave.”
Photo 2: San Fernando road looking north. Credit: Tropico Station.
Photo: Dick Lane with Laurel and Hardy in “The Bullfighters.”
This is Part 5 of James Curtis’ 1975 interview with Dick Lane. In this segment, Lane discusses Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, making “Wonder Man” with Danny Kaye and George Balanchine, and genesis of pro wrestling on TV.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
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This hat from the Collegienne department of Bullock’s Wilshire has been listed on EBay. Bidding starts at $14.99.
Photo: Dick Lane in “Boom Town.”
Coming up tomorrow: Part 5 of James Curtis’ interview with Dick Lane, who discusses Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, making “Wonder Man” with Danny Kaye and televising pro wrestling.
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