Feb. 5, 1941: Tom Treanor, who was killed covering World War II for The Times, has a first-rate piece on the mood of Europe. Rather than “tragic” or “terrified, he calls it “anxious” and describes the many ways in which anxiety is wearing people down.
With New York stage offers deluging Orson Welles, looks like he needn't worry about his rather shaky Hollywood status, Jimmie Fidler says.
[Update: This is filming “Jaws: The Revenge” on Martha’s Vineyard in a photo published Feb. 8, 1987. Please congratulate Herb Nichols for identifying it! Donna Rosenthal’s story is on the jump.]
Feb. 4, 1961: ANYONE WHO keeps up with his reading or listening knows we've gone into the four-year Civil War centennial. Unfortunately, some aspects of the commemoration make it appear the war was a rather pleasant interlude, full of noble heroes.
Of this notion, historian Bruce Catton states, "We will make a terrible mistake if we let ourselves feel that this was a bloodless sort of war in which young men in picturesque uniforms died painlessly in picturesque attitudes. They died and they didn't like to die any more than we would like to die today. They were not enacting a pageant for us. The commemoration ceremonies ought to be rather quiet, rather reverent. We're not talking about a college football game."
CONFIDENTIAL TO "DESPERATE AND UNDER AGE": Send me your name and address at once and I will send you the name and address of a free Home for Unwed Mothers immediately. This will be strictly between us.
Feb. 4, 1941: Reporter Tom Treanor, who was killed covering World War II for The Times, writes a story in dialect… but I understand his point.
Recommended: Universal's "Buck Privates," first entry in the studio race to cash in on the draft. Abbott and Costello look like screen winners, Jimmie Fidler says.
[Note: Here's a repost of an item from two years ago… lrh]
Ritchie Valens' Roots
Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1987
Los Angeles Times file photo
Ritchie Valens, 1941 – 1959
By GREGG BARRIOS
WATSONVILLE, Calif. — "I still remember the first time we heard Ritchie sing on the radio," the mother of the late Latino rock 'n' roller Ritchie Valens recalled about that distant day, almost 30 years ago.
"I told his brother Bob, come on, let's go to Saugus. I had some business there. I had a 1950 Olds then. The body wasn't too good, but I paid $50 for each tire and I bought five. I pulled over to the side of the road when 'Come On, Let's Go' came on the radio. We just sat there looking at each other amazed."
In those days, before son Ritchie became a star, the family lived in the San Fernando Valley. Mrs. Consuelo (Connie) Valenzuela would often take her kids to the Spanish-language movies, especially to the Million Dollar Theater in downtown Los Angeles where they would see master comic Cantinflas and Mexican charro/singer Tito Guizar. "I always thought you had really arrived when a film made it to that theater," she remembered.
Connie Valenzuela said she plans to return soon to the Million Dollar Theater with her now grown daughters. But this time they'll be seeing the Spanish-language version of "La Bamba," the new movie about her son's all-too-brief singing career and her family. Los Angeles Times file photo
Buddy Holly, left, Jerry Lee Lewis and Joe Mauldin in 1958
The Valens family now lives in the Central California farming community of Watsonville (south of San Jose). Over the July 4 weekend, "La Bamba" had a "hometown" preview for Valens' family and neighbors at the Fox Theater here, a typical Art Deco-styled movie house from the '30s that usually plays Spanish-language films today. The preview was given by Columbia Pictures to herald the nationwide opening of the film in English and Spanish this week.
The Valens family's on-screen counterparts were also at the screening: Lou Diamond Phillips, who plays Ritchie; Rosana De Soto, who is seen as Connie Valenzuela, and Esai Morales, who portrays the jealous half-brother, Bob Morales–the role that is pivotal in the film. But away from the excitement of the screening, Connie Valenzuela, 72, sat in one of her daughters' homes, surrounded by her several children and grandchildren. The two-story tract home has a wall devoted to photographs of Ritchie. One hand-tinted studio portrait shows a grinning teen-age Valens in a sport coat and bow tie, another of him standing next to a black-and-chromed '57 Thunderbird.
She was reflective, if a little dim, about memories of her son, who died Feb. 3, 1959 in a plane crash during a snowstorm in Iowa. That crash also killed two Texas rockers, Buddy Holly and J. P. (The Big Bopper) Richardson.
Connie Valenzuela said many of Ritchie's early songs came from things around his barrio when the family lived in the San Fernando Valley community of Pacoima. " 'That's My Little Suzie' was about a crippled neighbor girl. 'She rocks to the left, and rocks to the right' described her." Another, "Hurry Up," came from an expression that Valenzuela said she used to get her kids to do chores. (Her memory falters here, since the song wasn't actually written by Valens but appeared on his first album.) However, "Come On, Let's Go" did indeed come from an expression used by both Ritchie and his mom whenever they went somewhere.
Los Angeles Times file photo
Valens with Bob Keane. Notice Valens' Gibson f-hole guitar.
"Later, when he started going out to play at different places, I would worry. After all, this 16-year-old kid was often out until midnight. So I'd call up one of the deejays, because at that time they would sponsor dances. Once, I called Art Laboe and told him it was time to get the guys home. Laboe never listened to me. But whenever I'd call up and ask to speak to Jerry Wallace (of "Primrose Lane" fame), he'd see that Ritchie would be back before I knew it." As she remembered, Connie Valenzuela, seated by the kitchen table, smiled.
Her children listened to her recollections, some for the first time. One of Valens' favorite songs, Mrs. Valenzuela said, was a child's lullaby he called "The Paddi Wack Song," which he sang accompanied by his guitar to his young sisters in the family's backyard.
In the summer of 1986, New Visions (Taylor Hackford's film production company) began filming the story of Ritchie's life, as written by Luis Valdez. Ritchie's grown up and married sisters Connie Jr. and Irma had small parts as farm workers in the opening sequence. Their own daughters, Gloria and Kristin, played their mothers (Ritchie's sisters) as young girls. (Mrs. Valenzuela and Ritchie's brother Bob also have small roles in the film.) Having seen the film several times now, both sisters have mixed emotions about the movie.
"I was too young to really know my brother," Connie Jr., 36, admitted. "He died when I was barely 7. I never knew all the problems poor Bob went through or all my mother had to put up with him at the time. After the film was over I just wanted to hold on to both of them. It's brought us all so much closer."
Irma, 35, nodded in approval of her sister's evaluation. "I wanted to see more about my brother Ritchie's career. I guess we didn't realize that it was going to be about both Bob and Ritchie. I remember calling New Visions one day and asking if the film was still about Ritchie. And they said, 'Well, more or less, but it's a story about two brothers now.'
Los Angeles Times file photo
The graves of Concepcion and Richard "Ritchie Valens" Valenzuela, San Fernando Mission, 1992.
"I guess I was disappointed in some ways by that focus, but if it brings my brother's music to the world, then I'm for it." Irma pointed to her young son Eddie, whose light skin and hazel eyes reflect what his uncle Ritchie must have looked like at 12. "He's my own little Ritchie," Connie Jr., his aunt chortled, as she hugged the embarrassed youngster.
Waylon Jennings' first professional gig was playing bass with Buddy Holly (Jennings gave up his seat on the ill-fated flight that took the lives of Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in 1959). He still has a tremendous amount of admiration for Holly and enjoys reminiscing about the old days with one of rock 'n' roll's founding fathers.
"I learned the rockabilly thing from him. He was one of the first people who ever had any confidence in me. If he had lived, he probably would have owned studios because he loved creating. He really did, and he was really good at it.
"He always understood what he was doing and what he wanted to do. He was almost like a teacher. I'd hear him talking with Dion & the Belmonts and everything; he had some great ideas. He was going to do an album of blues-type stuff that he was writing. He loved Ray Charles, and he was gonna do the kind of riffs that Ray Charles did at the piano on his guitar.
"He was very, very smart–that's the only way to describe him. He was always thinking, and he didn't compromise in any way when it came to his music."
–Waylon Jennings, May 18, 1996
Bob Morales, Ritchie's older stepbrother, interrupted. "Even though Luis Valdez (the film's screenwriter and director) used his own interpretation of what happened, it couldn't have been any closer for me. . . . It was almost too close."
Morales, 50, who has lived in Watsonville since the early '70s, once wanted to be a fireman and, later on, an illustrator. He saved many animated gels from Walt Disney's Buena Vista's studios when he worked briefly as a garbage collector, he said. (The film, however, shows him finding Woody Woodpecker and Buzz Buzzard gels at Columbia Pictures–"La Bamba's" distributor.)
After many family difficulties and some trouble with the law, he finally matured and settled down. He worked as a counselor in a drug/alcohol abuse program in the '70s and today is married with eight children and is self-employed as an upholsterer-mechanic.
"I rejoined the family in 1952 because Ritchie was real upset over my (step) Dad's death." It was Bob's turn to recall his half-brother's memory. Dressed in black leather pants with a colorful jacket and Indian jewelry, he was undeniably an older version of the rebel and womanizer portrayed in the film.
Morales reluctantly admitted, as his younger sisters teased him, that his mom beat him up one night when he arrived home in a drunken state. However, in the film this incident is colored by Valdez who allows Morales to escape his mother's wrath with his machismo intact.
Another real-life incident handled differently in the film is when Morales takes Valens to a Tijuana brothel where Ritchie pays little attention to the ladies, but is fascinated by the musicians performing the traditional Mexican folk song, "La Bamba." Valens was later to electrify and immortalize "La Bamba" in 1959 as the first Spanish-language song to make it onto the top 10 pop charts. The song peaked on the charts a few weeks after his death.
"I never took Ritchie to that brothel. We had gone to Tijuana several times on a family trip with all the kids. We still have pictures in an album of the kids posed with a typical donkey. I, of course, was the one that had wound up in the red-light district on several occasions," he smiled mischievously.
(Actually, Valens' inspiration for the creation of "La Bamba" as a Latin rock song took place during his childhood when he would listen to it at family gatherings where Mexican music was played, according to his sister Connie. She said his mentor and "uncle" Dickie Cota taught the boy how to strum a guitar and how to sing it in Spanish. Connie Valenzuela said: "Ritchie never spoke in Spanish because his dad never did. I of course still speak it, but when I was around his father I never would.")
Ritchie Valens' mother shook her head. The conversation seemed to have put her in a jovial mood.
Asked why her personalized license plates on her late model Cadillac bear the words "Hi-Tone," Mrs. Valenzuela confessed it came from one of Ritchie's songs by the same name. "You know in the movie, some of the kids call him 'Hi Tone,' but that wasn't actually his nickname. It was sort of a slang expression for something or someone that was fancy or stuck-up. Latin people would say, ' Eso es hi-tone' (that's real fancy). And since Ritchie would dress up real sharp, they'd refer to him as 'hi tone' when he did."
Not all of the Valenzuela family's memories are quite as pleasant. One incident involved the house that Ritchie bought his mother months before his death. The house was heavily damaged by fire in 1967 and Ritchie's gold record for "Donna" and one of his guitars were destroyed, along with other mementos.
Dealing with Ritchie's former manager and promoter Bob Keane (who spelled his last name "Keene" until 1970) hasn't been so simpatico, either.
"You know Bob Keane has controlled Ritchie's music for all these years. Oh, I get a bit of money now and then. BMI sends me a statement. But do you know that Keane presented me with a bill of $4,000 for Ritchie's funeral? And that '57 black and silver-chromed Thunderbird (it's blue in the movie) that Keane gave Ritchie? Well, he kept it in his garage after I lost Ritchie. We went over to his house one day to get it away from him"–Connie Valenzuela's voice was stern as she continued–"but he kept insisting it was his."
Keane, an L.A. big band leader and record producer, has just released a 12-inch Latin dance cut–"La Bamba '87"–using an alternate take of Valens' vocal track recorded during the original 1958 session). He said Valenzuela's charges are "ridiculous."
"She was in worse financial condition than I was," he said in a Sunset Boulevard Mexican food eatery. "I put up over $7,000 so they'd ship the kid's body back and put him in a decent coffin. I still have the check somewhere."
As far as the Thunderbird, Keane said: "I may have told Ritchie at one time that if he kept doing as well as he was, I might get him a car. But I never really promised him one."
Somehow, Connie Valenzuela seems more resigned than angry about these incidents. At the end of 1987, all music publishing rights to Valens' compositions will revert to her. The recordings, however, are another matter. The masters of Valens' recordings are owned by Keane "in perpetuity," according to Keane, and he has licensed the rights to Rhino Records.
Unprepared for the sudden fame that Ritchie's music generated, Connie Valenzuela was also completely unaware of the world of contracts and music rights. When Keane's partner, the late Herb Montie, contacted her about a managing contract for her son, Ritchie was already playing clubs and being recorded by Keane. "One day Herb called me and said to sign a contract just in case anything might happen to Ritchie; otherwise, I wouldn't get anything. So I did. I got an insurance policy on his life." (Later, she collected double indemnity on that policy.)
When Valens died, his first album hadn't even been released yet (though the film shows Keane giving them out at record hops). "It took them eight days to send Ritchie's body back from Iowa. They didn't send him to me by plane. Instead, they sent him on a train to San Fernando. When they (Keane and associates) came in to the mortuary, they brought copies of the album. It had been released in those eight days since his death. I originally wasn't going to play the album because it was too painful. But I finally put on a brave front and said to myself, 'I'm going to play them before I bury him,' and I did."
The years after Valens' death were lean ones. "We didn't want the memories brought back. Everyone wanted a contract for Ritchie's music. 'Mrs. Valenzuela, would you sign this contract on your living room table and send it back to us.' That's what one promoter wrote me."
She then tried to manage an Asian-Mexican singer, Chan Romera, who gained some regional recognition in California with his version of "Hippy Hippy Shake." After attending a Ritchie Valens memorial dance here, she decided to move from Pacoima, which harbored many unhappy memories.
In the '70s, the Valenzuela families were approached by Walter Ulloa, who was preparing a screenplay of Ritchie's life. The family gave him two years to come up with something. "He never was able to sell it. In fact, when Donna Ludwig (Ritchie's teen-age girlfriend whom he immortalized in the song "Donna") read the script, Ulloa had to change it because he had portrayed Donna's parents as bigots." Actually, Connie Valenzuela explained, Donna's mom liked Ritchie, it was her father who didn't. "I ultimately told him to forget about it," she said.
When Danny Valdez (Luis' brother and associate producer of the film "La Bamba") finally connected with the Valenzuelas, they weren't interested in another film project. Valdez lives 15 miles away in San Juan Bautista (home for El Teatro Campesino, of which he and Luis are founding members). Ultimately, the Valenzuelas gave him five years to get the project together. It was completed two years ahead of the deadline.
"He (Danny) plays my brother in the film," says Mrs. Valenzuela. "But they got it wrong. My brother was blond. Danny is dark. Oh well, that's Hollywood, I guess," she added, shifting her attention from the film "Jaws," which her grandchildren were watching in the living room. "I was a little nervous the first time I saw the film. I've gotten used to it now. I tire easily from a recent operation I had. But everything seems to be coming up real nice now."
Guitarist Tommy Allsup describes flipping coin with Ritchie Valens for a seat on the plane.
Ritchie's sister Irma, who is a preschool teacher in Watsonville and the mother of three kids herself, beamed as she talked about a brother she barely knew. She feels the film will be an inspiration for today's Latino youth. "They don't have to be macho or mean or cuss or take drugs to be a man. They will also see that it's OK to be sensitive, tender and care for their families, too."
Connie Jr., a customer service rep for a local insurance company and the mother of two, summed up how she will always remember her brother Ritchie. "He was never too busy for us. Bob was out there with women and booze; Mom worked a lot, and my dad had left us. But we had Ritchie. He was like my mom, dad or best friend. He was always there for Irma and I. That's all we had. It was him."
In one of my previous posts about Morrow Mayo’s “Los Angeles,” I said that The Times did not review it. In fact, The Times did review the book, but the item somehow manages to evade ProQuest’s search engine and it was only with difficulty that I located the March 26, 1933, piece by Paul Jordan-Smith.
A sample: In former years dull old men and half-witted ecstatics slobbered forth chronicles of American towns that were calculated to uplift but were, in sooth, trifling, soporific and deadly. Now, by way of revenge and reaction, scores of smart young men are muckraking and we have a deluge of cloth-bound exposes, as like as peas in a pod.
Feb. 3, 1961: What does a Burbank family do about their 4-year-old son, who refuses to go outside because he’s afraid of the street sweeper?
CONFIDENTIAL TO "TROUBLE AT HOME": Someone once said "Divorce is hash made of domestic scraps." Your "scraps" are too large to digest. Better talk it over with the clergyman who joined you two together.
Feb. 3, 1961: Paul Coates digs into his mail bag and comes up with an invitation to watch amateur boxing at the Olympic Auditorium … because he needs to learn how to defend himself.
TV character actor Patrick "Paint Your Wagon" Hawley stakes a claim to three blocks of beachfront between Laguna Avenue and Broadway in Laguna Beach.
"It's up to them to prove that somebody else owns it — and I don't think they can," Hawley says.
Harry Medved, a Daily Mirror reader, sends along this picture. And stay tuned for more information!
[Update: As many people realized, this is the filming of the 1958 movie “Voice in the Mirror” on Main Street in downtown Los Angeles. This Saturday (Feb. 5), Metropolis Books (440 S. Main) will host a Downtown Movie History Night in conjunction with an appearance by Karie Bible, Marc Wanamaker and Harry Medved, who will sign copies of their new book, “Location Filming in Los Angeles.”
The event will began at 6 p.m. with a showing of clips from films shot downtown, ranging from "D.O.A." to "L.A. Confidential." From 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., the authors will lead a free walking tour of downtown movie locations, concentrated on Main Street and Spring Street between 4th and 5th streets.
Feb. 3, 1941: Tom Treanor has the story of how one woman escaped from Nazi-occupied France.
Also notice the story about defense industries lifting their ban on hiring older workers. The story notes "a California aircraft company 'put on several hundred men in the age group 50 to 65.' "
Marlene Dietrich, who's been weight-gaining, looks swell now, but someone should warn her not to carry a good thing too far, Jimmie Fidler says.
Maria Schneider, the co-star of “Last Tango in Paris,” has died at the age of 58. Here’s a March 11, 1973, Times feature on the movie for people who are too young to remember what a sensation it was at the time.
Sept. 9, 1982: Perhaps you recall recent stories about the discovery of footprints in slabs of concrete that were removed from outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre during construction of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Here’s more on the slabs in question. At the time the story was published, the blocks were on display in a storefront museum on Hollywood Boulevard a block from the Chinese Theatre.
“The prints are so faint that Richard Brian — who bought the blocks, transported them from Phoenix in a truck and placed them in his museum — had to darken them with pencil lead to make them visible,” The Times said.
Feb. 2, 1961: Los Angeles County Supervisor Ernest Debs (d. 2002) calls for lower fares on buses and streetcars (yes, Los Angeles still had them in 1961) for senior citizens between 9:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays and all day on Sundays. Paul Coates thinks it’s such a good idea that he says it should be extended to movie theaters and sporting events.
Feb. 2, 1941: Tom Treanor interviews an observer for the U.S. government: "The Germans will risk practically nothing," he says. “Their whole military strategy is based on not taking risks. They never sacrifice their men recklessly. Everything is done to keep from suffering heavy losses. Why do you think they put the men in tanks and send the tanks ahead of the infantry? So the enemy can't kill many Germany soldiers.”
Philip K. Scheuer profiles Hartzell Spence, whose book about his father, “One Foot in Heaven: The Life of a Practical Parson,” is being made into a film at Warner Bros.
Nunis started working with the society in 1962 while building his academic career. A professor emeritus at USC, he was a longtime and honored member of the university's history department and wrote or edited more than 40 books. Nunis retired as editor of the historical society's journal in 2005.
[Update: Please congratulate Steve Stoliar for identifying this mystery group as the T-Bones! Nice research, Steve!]
[Update: Here’s a frame grab from YouTube.]
Here’s a series of mystery photos from reader Matthew Harris. He says they “are photos taken on the set of the TV show, "Hullabaloo." I have a pal that was a musician on the show & he snapped these, but has no idea who they are.”
And yes, the first thing I thought of was the Beatles “butcher” cover on "The Beatles Yesterday and Today." Although I’m the right vintage, I never watched “Hullabaloo” or “Shindig,” so I’m not much help.
Imagine how pleased I was to discover that by complete coincidence (and I do mean complete coincidence) Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne is planning a yearlong project called Reading L.A. that will begin with the same book I have been planning to examine, Morrow Mayo’s “Los Angeles.” Hawthorne is also planning to look at Louis Adamic’s “The Truth About Los Angeles,” a rare item that I’ll have to track down because I don’t have it in the Daily Mirror HQ.
I don’t plan to examine most of the books on Hawthorne’s list, but I’ll be looking forward to what he has to say about Mayo’s influential and jaunty but problematic book (recall that Mayo is one of the early sources of the myth about Gen. Harrison Gray Otis’ armored car).
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