Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, April 12, 1941

  April 12, 1941, Nazis Peril Allied War Front  

  April 12, 1941, Comics  

April 12, 1941: FOR THE INFORMATION of the ladies who have written and telephoned about getting jobs in the manufacturing end of the aircraft industry — Vultee is the company which opened a women's department a week ago and Lockheed is the company which is running tests to learn where women will best fit in.

Virtually all the other companies are also playing with the thought of employing women en masse, says Tom Treanor, who was killed covering World War II for The Times.

George M. Cohan won't OK any actor other than Jimmy Cagney for "Yankee Doodle Dandy," film based on his life, Jimmie Fidler says.

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Jim Murray, April 12, 1961

  April 12, 1961, Day in Sports  

  April 12, 1961, Jim Murray  

April 12, 1961: Like Caesar's Gaul, all golf for the moment is divided into three parts: Gary Player, Arnold Palmer and a bunch of guys playing for third money, Jim Murray says.

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Matt Weinstock, April 11, 1961

  April 11, 1961, Comics  

Men are from math class,  women are from Planet Prom, evidently.


April 11, 1961: What's with the high handlebars set? Well, an elderly gent in Bermuda shorts was reaching for the sky, as seems to be fashionable, while riding his bike on San Vicente Boulevard Sunday. Motorists were laughing madly, Matt Weinstock says.
 
DEAR ABBY: When a man and his wife are on a motor trip together, who should ask the man at the service station for the key to the ladies' room?

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Posted in 1961, art and artists, Columnists, Comics, Fashion, Matt Weinstock | 1 Comment

Paul Coates, April 11, 1961

  April 11, 1961, Mirror Cover  

  April 11, 1961, Yorty Sues Poulson  

April 11, 1961: Mayoral candidate Sam Yorty sues Mayor Norris Poulson for slander! Life is good (if you’re a newspaper)!
 
Al Capp interviews a stewardess for American Airlines – none of this flight attendant stuff in 1961, you know.

Paul Coates writes about a young lad who received a series of those painful shots – 14 of them – to prevent rabies after being bitten by a dog. Only they didn’t all that much, the boy says.

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Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, April 11, 1941

  April 11, 1941, Allied Line of Steel Awaits Nazis  

  April 11, 1941, Comics  

April 11, 1941: These soldier boys sneer a little when they read of strikes in war industries. My lad is on duty for a 12-hour shift, apparently. The first four months of his soldiering he got $21 a month, then got $30 and now, as a private first class with a rating, gets $36. The boys don't mind doing that — for Uncle Sam — but they can't figure out how a lot of fellows of their age and educational background, or less, feel they have a right to strike when they're getting $40 a week for an eight-hour day, with time and a half for overtime, Lee Shippey says.
 
CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNIQUE TO Martha Raye: So you're returning to pictures, and after all those nasty remarks you made about Hollywood, too. Some people would be embarrassed.

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‘Citizen Kane’ — April 10, 1941

  April 10, 1941, Citizen Kane  

April 10, 1941: "Citizen Kane" does occasionally sink to dullness because of its reiterations, notwithstanding it can be classified as, in a number of aspects, one of the most arresting pictures ever produced, Edwin Schallert says.

Posted in 1941, Film, Hollywood | 2 Comments

Movieland Mystery Photo [Updated]

  2011_0406_mystery_photo  
  Los Angeles Times file photo  

[Update: This is Dorothy Mackaill (d. 1990) in an undated photo! ]

We’re off to a late start on this week’s mystery photo. It turns out that our mystery guest was misidentified as Mabel Todd, but was recognized as XXXXXX by Mike Hawks and Mary Mallory. I found all these photos of her and it seems a shame not to post some of them. Please congratulate Eve Golden for also identifying her!
 
There’s a new photo on the jump!

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo, Photography | 25 Comments

Jim Murray, April 11, 1961

  April 11, 1961, Baskin Robins  

  April 11, 1961, Jim Murray  

April 11, 1961: The master-mind in the third base coaching box or the middle of the dugout, acting as though he had St. Vitus' dance or a swarm of bees on his nose, is the super spy, the male Mata Hari of baseball, Jim Murray says. 

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Liz Renay Sentenced to Prison

 

  April 11, 1961, Comics  

 

  April 11, 1961  

April 11, 1961: Liz Renay (d. 2007) is sentenced to prison for violating the terms of her probation for perjury in Mickey Cohen’s tax evasion case. She later said: "I have paid a dear price for the mistake I made, and I hope the public will be forgiving. I wanted to protect Mickey. I felt I owed him that. I couldn't deliberately hurt someone who had been nice to me."

Renay was charged with resorting, which was reduced to disturbing the peace. This quaint term refers to checking into any sort of business establishment, like a hotel, for prostitution. 

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Posted in #courts, 1961, Comics, Crime and Courts, Mickey Cohen | 2 Comments

From the Vaults — ‘Yiddle With His Fiddle’

  Yiddle With His Fiddle  

“Yiddle With His Fiddle,” a 1936 Yiddish-language production that was filmed in Poland and stars American actress Molly Picon, is — at face value — an  endearing movie with catchy tunes. But hovering over the gaiety is the specter of the Holocaust, and it is sobering to discover that there is no trace of many of the cast members, including one of the leads.

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Posted in 1936, Film, From the Vaults | 1 Comment

Matt Weinstock, April 10, 1961

  April 10, 1961, Comics  

April 10, 1961: Lawrence Clark Powell, head of UCLA’s library school, surveys students’ attitudes on reading and touches off an interesting exploration of their reading habits. Many say they don’t have time to read for pleasure or that they opt for magazine condensations or book reviews. Some say that J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” is “teenage stuff” and a passing fad – like existentialism.  Someone else says that college students are mostly buying paperbacks: "Kon-Tiki," "Caine Mutiny," "1984," "The Old Man and the Sea," "Anne Frank's Diary" "Giant," F. Scott Fitzgerald's books and James Hilton's "Lost Horizon." 

More on the upcoming Adolf Eichmann trial on the jump.
 
CONFIDENTIAL TO SALLY: A young lady should not accept gifts of intimate apparel from a young man. And the article you mention IS intimate.

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Paul Coates, April 10, 1961

 

  April 10, 1961, Mirror Cover  

April 10, 1961: Notice the Spade Cooley story. It vanished from later editions, and I couldn’t find the jump, just the Page 1 portion.

Paul Coates writes about two Beverly Hills police officers' problems with Police Chief Clinton Anderson. You might put Anderson’s “Beverly Hills Is My Beat” (1960) on your Zombie Reading List.  Anderson has chapters on the Johnny Stompanato and Bugsy Siegel cases.

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Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, April 10, 1941

 
 

  April 10, 1941, Trapped Greeks Battle Foes  

  April 10, 1941, Comics  

April 10, 1941: Lee Shippey writes about the wildflower fields of Kern County. “Now I have seen them and I know that until one has seen them one cannot comprehend what California's spring wildflower show is like,” he says, never tipping off the reader that he had been blind for years. He once said: "I never saw humanity clearly until I lost my sight."

Tom Treanor visits a factory that makes women’s shoes….

A consensus of cameramen listed Marlene Dietrich as the most easily photographed star, Norma Shearer as the most difficult, Jimmie Fidler says. 

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Jim Murray, April 10, 1961

 

  April 10, 1961, Day in Sports  

 

  April 10, 1961, Jim Murray  

April 10, 1961: Jim Murray takes his daughter Pam and his two sons to boxing at the Olympic.

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Israel Prepares for Eichmann Trial

 

 
 

  image  

April 10, 1961: Israel is preparing for the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the former Nazi Gestapo chief of Jewish affairs, who is accused of crimes against the Jewish people and crimes against humanity. Eichmann’s trial lasted for most of 1961, and he wasn’t executed until May 31, 1962, after exhausting his appeals.

I can’t post all of the hundreds of reports and analysis pieces on the Eichmann trial (so many stories, only one Larry Harnisch), so I’m asking Daily Mirror readers how much interest they have in seeing any of this material. My experience has been that extended posts about continuing news events (the 1960 Democratic and Republican conventions or the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy) are labor-intensive and don’t draw much readership. Now is your time to tell me what you would like.

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Posted in 1961, Crime and Courts | 1 Comment

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, April 9, 1941

 
 

  April 9, 1941, Hitler Army Perils Salonika  

  April 9, 1941, Comics  

April 9, 1941: Whom do you think of as the Lone Ranger? Clayton Moore? Brace Beemer? Meet Earl Graser, who played the Lone Ranger on the radio until he was killed in a car accident at the age of 32.

Lee Shippey has a letter about conditions in occupied France and Tom Treanor has a roundup of items.

Jimmie Fidler says: If ever I saw a new career launched in bad taste and with minimum good judgment, 19-year-old Marjorie Woodworth, Hal Roach "find," is getting such a sendoff. In Life magazine appears a photographic layout of the girl — a layout based on her resemblance to the late Jean Harlow.

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Posted in 1941, art and artists, Columnists, Comics, Film, Hollywood, Lee Shippey, Tom Treanor | 1 Comment

Jim Murray, April 9, 1961

 

  April 9, 1961, Sportsmen's show  

 

  April 9, 1961, Jim Murray  

April 9, 1961: Walt Alston is the first one in his family tree going back about to the time of the discovery of fire to escape being a farmer — a full-time farmer, that is. It sometimes seems to make him uneasy just frittering his life his life away managing a baseball team, Jim Murray says.  

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Buses Replace Red Cars to Long Beach, April 8, 1961

 

 
 

  April 8, 1961, Comics  

  image  

April 8. 1961: Red Cars are being replaced by buses on service between Los Angeles and Long Beach, San Pedro and Compton. Transportation conspiracy buffs please note: The Metropolitan Transit Authority is making the switch because Pacific Electric won’t grant a long-term lease on its tracks.

Most political observers were surprised at Sam Yorty's strength in Tuesday's election. They thought Mayor Poulson would be reelected easily in the primary, Matt Weinstock says.

DEAR ABBY: You will probably think I am a monster but I am a girl of 14 and I hate my parents. Especially my mother. She is so old-fashioned it's pitiful….

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Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, April 8, 1941

 
 

  April 8, 1941, Yugoslavs Take Italy Base  

  April 8, 1941, Comics  

April 8, 1941: Lee Shippey shares a letter from England and Tom Treanor has a roundup of items about the fighting in Europe.

Those "changes" in Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" dwindled to one minor alteration, otherwise the film goes out "as was," Jimmie Fidler says.

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Matt Weinstock, April 7, 1961

 
 

  April 7, 1961, Comics  

April 7, 1961:  A bail bondsman takes a lesson from “The Untouchables” and finds his missing client in a barber chair, Matt Weinstock says.

CONFIDENTIAL TO "HAVING OUR TROUBLES": A very wise woman once told me that she owed her 35 years of happy marriage to the three or four things she left unsaid every day.

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