The Mirror, March 21, 1961

Posted on March 21, 2011 by lmharnisch

 

 
 

  March 21, 1961, Cover  

  March 21, 1961, Comics  

March 21, 1961: I’ve been on vacation, so I hurried down to the scanner in The Times’ library today and went through this week’s copies of the Mirror. Here’s the latest from Matt Weinstock, Paul Coates and Abby.

Notice that the Mirror's front page has been resdesigned — again. Our plucky little paper will be gone in January!

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Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, March 21, 1941

Posted on March 21, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 21, 1941, Germans Open Spring Offensive  

  March 21, 1941, Comics  

March 21, 1941: Tom Treanor says that the war has created a narcotics shortage in Los Angeles, so that many addicts are getting clean and sober or switching to liquor.  The evidence is mostly anecdotal, however, and doesn't inlude marijuana use.  Police report an increase in drug thefts from doctors and pharmacies, as well as rise in forged prescriptions.
 
Cuff Notes: Phone Headman Buddy De Sylva at Paramount and ask why, with all the testing, he doesn't look into this column's suggestion that Luise Rainer would be perfect for Maria in "For Whom the Bell Tolls," Jimmie Fidler says.

ALSO

Drug Fiends Make Crime Wave, 1919

Hallucinations of a Cocaine Fiend, 1889

Heroin on the Daily Mirror

Marijuana on the Daily Mirror

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Posted in 1889, 1919, 1941, art and artists, Columnists, Comics, Film, Hollywood, Lee Shippey, Tom Treanor | Comments Off on Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, March 21, 1941

Jim Murray, March 21, 1961

Posted on March 21, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 21, 1961, Day in Sports  

  March 21, 1961, Jim Murray  

March 21, 1961:  Every time I pull up another Jim Murray column, I am reminded once again of what a breath of fresh air he was for The Times. Today’s installment is a particularly good example. Murray writes about the harrowing 1959 incident in which the Lakers’ plane made an emergency landing in a cornfield. It is Murray at his best.

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Man Paralyzed in Shooting Over a Can of Beer, March 21, 1981

Posted on March 21, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 21, 1981, Comics  

  March 21, 1981, Nickel  

March 21, 1981: Times reporter Bill Farr (d. 1987) has the story of Josephus Jackson, who was partially paralyzed from being shot in the back by a liquor store clerk over a 55-cent can of beer.

Richard Craig Scott was sentenced to a year in jail after being charged with a misdemeanor because the district attorney’s office refused to file felony charges. Then-Dist. Atty. John K. Van de Kamp agreed with Judge David Horowitz that the case should have been handled as a felony but defended the decision not to file charges  as “a good faith error.”
 
Farr, who died of cancer at the age of 52, is probably best known for going to jail for refusing to reveal sources during the Manson family trial.

ALSO

The Manson family on the Daily Mirror

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Posted in #courts, 1981, art and artists, Comics, Crime and Courts | 1 Comment

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, March 20, 1941

Posted on March 20, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 20, 1941, Worst Raid of Year Rips London  

  March 20, 1941, Comics  

March 20, 1941: A girl who works in the Main Street Follies celebrated her day off by going to a high-priced Hollywood nightspot, but the show was so vulgar she couldn't stay through it, Lee Shippey says.
 
"Having spent a brief and astonishing period a year ago as society and women's page editor of The Times," Tom Treanor says, "if there is any phase of legal human activity which is more annoying, useless, exhausting, artificial and unavailing than Society with a capital S it escapes me for the moment."

Jimmie Fidler says: What a pity passe stars can't know when it's time to make a graceful exit … Imagine the amazement of that big star's creditors when they read (in a movie magazine) his sage advice on money matters!

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Jim Murray, March 20, 1961

Posted on March 20, 2011 by lmharnisch

  image  

  March 20, 1961, Jim Murray  

March 20, 1961: Jim Murray has a terrific profile of Albert "Albie" Pearson, the Angels right fielder, who is 5-5 and weighs 140 pounds. "I'm in a big man's game and I've got to be a big man," Pearson says. "To be a success you've got to have adversity. Mine was built in."

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Architectural Ramblings — The Sowden House

Posted on March 20, 2011 by lmharnisch

  Oct. 3, 1938, Sowden House  
  Drawing by Charles Owens/Los Angeles Times  

The Sowden House by architect Lloyd Wright at 5121 Franklin Ave. is on the market for $4.2 million.

You may recall that this was the purported murder HQ of Dr. George “Evil Genius” Hodel during his supposedly bloody rampage across the city, in which he killed with impunity (the Black Dahlia, Jeanne French and the Red Cars) after coercing authorities into silence by threatening to reveal which prominent Angelenos had (gasp!) VD. 

Yes, venereal disease is a far worse crime than murder, at least according to “Black Dahlia Avenger,” “Most Evil” and  whatever may be next (Jimmy Hoffa? Judge Crater?) in the “Evil Genius”  franchise.   

ALSO

 A virtual tour of the home.

The Nuestro Pueblo feature on the home.

Dr. George “Evil Genius” Hodel on the Daily Mirror

Posted in #courts, 1947, Architecture, art and artists, books, Crime and Courts, LAPD, Nuestro Pueblo, Real Estate | 1 Comment

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, March 19, 1941

Posted on March 19, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 19, 1941, Turks, Greeks, British Meet  

  March 19, 1941, Comics  

March 19, 1941: A couple of years ago Louis Bromfield told me he believed the country was waiting for a novel by someone who knew Hollywood and would play it straight. Authors who couldn't fit into Hollywood have gone away and written scorn and satire. Often it was clever but it never rang true. Now Rupert Hughes has written a Hollywood novel and has played it straight, Lee Shippey says. 

Note: Shippey is referring to Hughes’ “City of Angels.” There is one copy at the Los Angeles Public Library and it’s non-circulating, so I’ll have to add this to my Zombie Reading List, right after “Out of the Night.”   A one-sentence summary of The Times’ review: “This is not Rupert Hughes at his best but it is certainly Rupert Hughes at his most readable.”
 
Marsha Hunt is feuding with Lady Luck: 30 minutes after recovering her brand new coupe from car thieves it was demolished by a hit-and-run driver, Jimmie Fidler says.

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Jim Murray, March 19, 1961

Posted on March 19, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 19, 1960, Leo Durocher's Baseball School  

  March 19, 1961, Jim Murray  

March 19, 1961: Jim Murray talks to Edmund “Zeke” Bratkowski, the Chicago Bears quarterback who was traded to the Rams – after a month of shopping around — in exchange for Billy Wade.

Murray says: If any player was entitled to come into town with a chip on his shoulder it was Zeke Bratkowski. People have needed psychiatry for less symptoms of rejection. But Zeke wasn't mad at anybody. He had just been to Mass and telephoned his wife back home when I saw him. Did he think he would be the No. 1 quarterback on the Rams, I asked him.

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Movieland Mystery Photo [Updated]

Posted on March 19, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 14, 2011, Mystery Photo  
  Los Angeles Times file photo  

Dec. 12, 1941: Crowds in Pershing Square joined in singing "America" and other patriotic songs during the entire period of the blackout last night. The sirens sounded for the lights out signal just as actress Virginia Gilmore and Walter Brennan, three times Academy Award winner, stepped up on the platform at the Defense House in the square to present a program for the national defense savings campaign. They joined singer Frank Chester, who led the community singing, in the National Anthem, which took on new significance as it resounded throughout the downtown business section during Los Angeles' first blackout of the second World War.

[Update: Please congratulate Dewey Webb and Anne Papineau for identifying our mystery woman!]

You may remember this photo from the other day. Everybody recognized Walter Brennan but offered different guesses for the mystery lady. She’s going to be our mystery guest this week.
 
There’s another photo on the jump!

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo, Photography | 43 Comments

Voices: Warren Christopher, 1925 — 2011

Posted on March 19, 2011 by lmharnisch

  image  

Warren M. Christopher, who died Friday, was an occasional contributor to The Times. I’m posting two pieces from 1977, when he was deputy secretary of State. One essay, adapted from a commencement speech, deals with  the actions of a Foreign Service officer evacuating the U.S. diplomatic post in Ethiopia.

The other essay takes a look at the Carter administration’s campaign for human rights:

"When human beings are forcibly abducted from their homes, interrogated incessantly at the pleasure of their captors and prodded with electrodes or held under water to the point of drowning — when such things are happening around the world, as they are, all who truly value human rights must speak out."

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The Funny Papers, 1931

Posted on March 19, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 19, 1931, Gasoline Alley  
  “Gasoline Alley” by Frank King  

March 19, 1931: After wandering through the comics pages of 1941, I thought it would be interesting to roll the clock back to 1931. There are a few familiar faces, like “Gasoline Alley,” above; as well as “Tarzan” by Rex Maxon; “Ella Cinders” by Bill Conselman Jr. and Charlie Plumb; and “Harold Teen” by Carl Ed.

You may also recognize a very early “Winnie Winkle,” a strip by Martin Branner that lasted for decades; and  “The Gumps” by Sidney Smith. “Mr. and Mrs.” was an unsigned strip done by other artists in the style of Clare Briggs, who died in 1930.
 
“Life of Riley,” a one-panel strip about dogs by D.T. Carlisle, was new to me, as was “Reg’lar Fellers,” by Gene Byrnes.

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Posted in 1931, art and artists, Comics | 1 Comment

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, March 18, 1941

Posted on March 18, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 18, 1941, U-Boat May Raid Off U.S.  

  March 18, 1941, Comics  

March 18, 1941: Lee Shippey has a letter from author Harlan Ware about attempts to deport Jan Valtin, who wrote “Out of the Night.”  This is the book that Tom Treanor mentioned recently. I never heard of this title before I ran across it in the old newspapers. I’ll have to add it to my Zombie Reading List.

Orson Welles arrives in town Saturday to remake seven scenes for "Citizen Kane," which will be released with those changes in May, Jimmie Fidler says.

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From the Vaults — ’13 Rue Madeleine’

Posted on March 18, 2011 by lmharnisch

  Jan. 23, 1947, 13 Rue Madeleine  

  13 Rue Madeleine  

Robert “Bob” Sharkey (James Cagney) and Charles Gibson (Walter Abel) discuss the incoming class of American secret agents in “13 Rue Madeleine.”  One of their students is a Nazi spy!

After a longwinded exposition, the 1947 film “13 Rue Madeleine” turns out to be a fast-moving suspense story of a double agent concealed among intelligence officers preparing for the invasion of Europe in World War II. Once the Nazi spy’s identity is revealed, the story unfolds rapidly and ends quickly, before anyone can have second thoughts about the resolution. It’s enjoyable as a lesser-known film of James Cagney, in which he is half  G-Man and half-crook on the side of good.  As he warns his class of agents, they should forget their American sense of good sportsmanship because the Axis doesn’t play by those rules!

Please notice: The ad says "Go ahead and tell the ending. It's too terrific to keep secret," which is your cue that spoilers are ahead, but I’ll keep them to a minimum.  

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Posted in 1947, Film, From the Vaults, Hollywood | 1 Comment

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, March 17, 1941

Posted on March 17, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 17, 1941, 45 Killed  

  March 17, 1941, Comics  

March 17, 1941: Turn back the Hollywood clock about two years to the time when an ex-vaudevillian was struggling for radio recognition. After two or three broadcasts he found himself on the proverbial horns of a dilemma; he couldn't do his best work without an audience, and none of the fans who streamed in and out of the station was intrigued enough to attend his show.

Then came a great idea! Our hero bribed the studio page boys to rope off the corridor so that fans leaving the very popular program immediately preceding his own were automatically diverted into the studio from which he broadcast. One there, they usually remained.

The schemer's name? Read on…

 

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Jim Murray, March 17, 1961

Posted on March 17, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 17, 1961, Lyle LeBere  
  March 17, 1961, Jim Murray  

March 17, 1961: There have been a great many heroes of Irish ancestry in the world of sport. But I suppose the one who always comes to mind first is John L. Sullivan. John L., pounding on the bar with his great fist and shouting "When John L. Sullivan drinks, everybody drinks” and "I can lick any man in the house" has become part of the legend of sport, Jim Murray says.
 
I can’t quite make out the artist’s name on today’s drawing. It seems to be Art Brewer or Art Brewyer. Either way, when is the last time you heard anyone talk about the Long Beach Paramounts?

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Posted in #Jim Murray, 1961, art and artists, Columnists, Comics, Sports | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Pages of History — ‘The Truth About Los Angeles’

Posted on March 17, 2011 by lmharnisch

  Louis Adamic The Truth About Los Angeles  

Thanks to the Huntington Library, I was able to obtain a photocopy of Louis Adamic’s “The Truth About Los Angeles,” one of hundreds of little pamphlets published by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. I was vaguely aware of these pamphlets but it wasn’t until Christopher Hawthorne began his “Reading L.A.” series that I learned Adamic had been a contributor.

There is (of course) a website devoted to Haldeman-Julius’ publications with a searchable database of  nearly 2,000 items.

According to the database, Adamic wrote:

Yugoslav Proverbs (380)

The Truth About Los Angeles (647)

Facts You Should Know About California (752)

The Word of Satan in the Bible (1307)

Hollywood From the Inside (1401)

One of the more tantalizing items is the pamphlet “The Personal Element in Business” (1296) with essays by three major writers on Los Angeles: Adamic, who wrote “Dynamite”; Morrow Mayo, the author of “Los Angeles”:  and Carey McWilliams, author of “Southern California: An Island on the Land.”  Why they were writing about “The Personal Element in Business” is truly a mystery.

Mayo also contributed an essay to “The Bigotry Trust in the U.S.A.” (1314)

 

Other Haldeman-Julius titles with a Los Angeles or California connection are:

"Anti-Evolution Strikes California" in "Is Death Inevitable?" by Maynard Shipley (271)

"Address at the Grave of Luther Burbank" (724)

Edgcumb Pinchon's "Life Among Hollywood's 'Extra' Girls" (755)

"How 'Wicked' Is Hollywood?" (1591);  which includes "How 'Wicked' is Hollywood?" by H. A. Woodmansee; "Los Angeles — The Heaven of Bunk-Shooters" by Farnsworth Crowder; "How Aimee Semple McPherson Gets the Kale" by Eric Wolfe; and "Pasadena — A Charming City, But" by A. C. Senske.

A bit of online research shows that the Oviatt Library Special Collections at Cal State Northridge has a nearly complete collection of the Haldeman-Julius publications, although it is apparently missing “The Truth About Los Angeles.”

 

Posted in books, Pages of History | Comments Off on Pages of History — ‘The Truth About Los Angeles’

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, March 16, 1941

Posted on March 16, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 16, 1941, Drowning  
  March 16, 1941, Drowning  

March 16, 1941: In one of the famous tragedies of Hollywood lore, Christopher Quinn, the son of Anthony and Katherine De Mille Quinn, drowns in a fish pond on the estate of W.C. Fields, 2015 De Mille Drive.  
 
Lee Shippey writes about philosophies in parenting – using Deanna Durbin as a point of departure.

Tom Treanor visits an orange grove in Covina where half the laborers are from Arkansas and others are from the Dust Bowl. They call the trees “bushes” and they don’t pick oranges, they “pluck” them, Treanor says.

How quickly Paul Muni faded from the box office inner circle, Jimmie Fidler says.

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Jim Murray, March 16, 1961

Posted on March 16, 2011 by lmharnisch

  March 16, 1961, This Day in Sports  

  March 16, 1961, Jim Murray  

March 16, 1961: Around the league, Elgin [Baylor] is known as "The Big Hurt." He's a four Band-Aid player. The man assigned to cover him usually stocks up with liniment and aspirin and approaches his task with all the zest of a man asked to defuse a live bomb with a hairpin. At 6 feet, 5 inches, 225 pounds, Baylor is such a powerful, punishing player that his teammates, to a man, are positive he could win the heavyweight championship of the world if he wanted to train for it, Jim Murray says. 

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Austrians Plan Worldwide War Against Judaism, March 16, 1921

Posted on March 16, 2011 by lmharnisch

 

  March 16, 1921, Wrench  

  March 16, 1921  

March 16, 1921: Edna Wallace Hopper, who about two wives ago was the wife of De Wolf Hopper, is in the city. She is reported as forming her own picture company and said yesterday that she will shortly have some plans to announce in that regard, Grace Kingsley says.

I haven’t done much in the 1920s recently and thought I’d pay a visit. I had forgotten about the comics of Clare Briggs, and there’s one on the jump.

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Posted in 1921, art and artists, Comics, Crime and Courts, Film, Hollywood, Religion | Comments Off on Austrians Plan Worldwide War Against Judaism, March 16, 1921