Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Aug. 25, 1907
Los Angeles
A 20-year-old Pueblo Indian from New Mexico was shot to death at the home of City Librarian Charles F. Lummis in a fight with a houseguest that began over a garden hose.
The gunman, Francisco Amante, 51, described as a Spanish minstrel who has been Lummis’ houseguest for two years, surrendered to police, but no charges were filed.
This week’s mystery movie was the 1962 film Hands of a Stranger, with Paul Lukather, Joan Harvey, James Stapleton (Noah), Ted Otis, Michael Rye, Larry Haddon, Elaine Martone, George Sawaya, Michael duPont, Sally Kellerman, David Kramer and Irish McCalla. Introducing Barry Gordon. Continue reading
Great Impostor Fools Our City Too
Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr., age 37, is, by profession, an impostor.
Without benefit of a high school diploma, he has masqueraded as a college dean of philosophy, a surgeon in the Royal Canadian Navy (where he performed major operations), a Trappist monk, a cancer researcher, assistant warden of a large Texas prison and half a dozen other professions of equal status.
With each new job he assumed a new identity and a new personality. And, from his superiors as well as subordinates, new respect.
With rare exceptions, he conned them all. Continue reading
Aug. 24, 1957
There are two basic rules for pretty girls who wish to set Hollywood on its pink, shell-like ear.
The first is to meet the right people.
This one has nothing to do with me, so I’ll dismiss it.
The second is to get their names in the columns.
And here, I’m directly concerned. Because I — like certain other people in town — am a columnist. I, in a manner of speaking, write. Continue reading
By Keith Thursby
Times staff writer
The Rams blamed baseball for an injury to one of their players.
Ron Waller separated his shoulder when he was tackled on the baseball infield during the second half kickoff of the Rams’ 38-10 exhibition victory over the New York Giants.
The Times’ Cal Whorton wrote: “Coach Sid Gillman of the Rams was outspoken yesterday about the dangers of having his expensive cargo of moleskinners out there exposing themselves to the perils of the concrete hard infield.” Continue reading
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
Fire which mushroomed early yesterday from the basement of the clubhouse at the Inglewood Country Club, 3424 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood, left the building and its furnishings a heap of charred or water-soaked debris but failed to deter golfers from enjoying their Sunday on the greens. For a score of golfers putted even while the clubhouse burned.
The cause undetermined, the fire swept through two locker rooms and the grill and then spread to the roof of the L-shaped building. Officially, damage was estimated at $50,000 ($473209.30 USD 2005).
I may have retired, but I haven’t lost any of my annoyance over b.s. when it comes to historical figures. The case in point is today’s review in the New York Times by Jennifer Senior of “Philip Sparrow Tells All,” edited by Jeremy Mulderig.
The moment I read the review I thought “Oh, Scotty Bowers rides again!”
Fact-Checking “Full Service”: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26
Silent film lover and superstar Rudolph Valentino commanded the screen with his intense magnetism and sensuality. His untimely, tragic death in 1926 at the age of 31 gave him instant immortality, with thousands descending on the funeral home, church, procession, and funeral of their beloved star.
Upon his death, many clamored for ways to memorialize this worldwide icon. Chicago residents announced the first proposed memorial for Valentino within days of his death on Aug. 23, 1926. Judge Francis Borrelli, Assistant State Attorney Michael Romano and lawyers Ellidoe Libonati, Stephen Malato and Michael Rominia filed articles of incorporation for a Rudolph Valentino Memorial Association with the intent of constructing a memorial for the star in the Windy City.
Mary Mallory’s “Living With Grace” is now on sale.
August 23, 1958
We’re parked outside the home at 322 Arbolada Drive, Arcadia. It’s early morning and everything is quiet. Nice place, isn’t it? Built in 1951. You’d never guess, but one spring day a few years ago, a college girl up the street killed herself over her boyfriend while her parents were on vacation. Very sad.
Ready? Let’s go. Keep your hands in your pockets. Don’t touch anything and don’t move anything.
They’re over here in the swimming pool. In a few hours, a man from the maintenance company is going to find them.
The man floating face-down is named is Reginald J. Koster. He’s 69 years old,* a retired businessman. Reginald was staying here by himself while his daughter and son-in-law were on a trip to Washington, D.C. According to an in-law, he was not a good swimmer.
The woman is Lucille Marceline Barry, 43, an auditor for Manor Market, 2526 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. She lived at 101 S. Fremont in Alhambra with her mother, who says Lucille wasn’t a good swimmer.
Apparently they met for drinks at Eaton’s restaurant, 1150 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia. That’s the one with the windmill on the roof.
Witnesses say Reginald and Lucille had a few cocktails and took a cab back here. Reginald changed into his trunks in
one room and Lucille changed into a swimsuit in another room. Here’s their cocktail glasses: empty.
Police will figure they drowned when one of them began having trouble in the deep end and the other tried to help. Continue reading
Los Angeles Times file photo
Here’s the earliest photograph I could find of a Lady in Black mourning Rudolph Valentino, Aug. 23, 1937, 11 years after the movie star’s death. In the first few years, memorial services were held on the anniversary, although the services eventually ceased and the large crowds dwindled to about 50 mourners.
In 1934, The Times referred to a “mysterious veiled woman” who visited the tomb every year at what was then Hollywood Cemetery. One story notes that a Lady in Black also appeared on Christmas and Easter. Someone wrote on the back of this photo: “Not Ditra Flame.” Are those white shoes?! Continue reading
Ladies in Black, you know what to do….
Note from 2009: Devon McReynolds, the Daily Mirror’s UCLA intern, is off to
Paris. Until our next intern starts in September, the Daily Mirror
won’t be able to transcribe Paul Coates or Matt Weinstock. Rather than
discontinue the columns, we’ll be posting them as image files. Because
of the way Typepad handles images, the thumbnails are murky, but the
full-size images are readable.
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
Girls aspiring to careers should follow women physicians’ example—many have both satisfactory home and professional lives, Dr. E. Mae McCarroll of Newark, N.J., told National Medical Association delegates and women’s auxiliary members last night.
The evening session at Second Baptist Church, Griffith Avenue at East 24th Street, concluded the 52nd annual convention’s third-day sessions devoted to a public health program, particularly as it applies to medical and hospital facilities for Negroes.
Aug. 22, 1944
Danton Walker writes: High on a hilltop in Beverly Hills at the end of the Tower Road, a tortuous lane overlooking Benedict Canyon, is a hobgoblin castle straight out of a Walt Disney film; an edifice of scrambled architecture, so rambling and complex that it would take a full day to explore it, if one had the heart to do so. It is the home of the late John Barrymore, on which the Great Profile spent close onto a million dollars; unoccupied since his death and unoccupiable except by someone who does not object to living with a frozen nightmare.
Louella Parsons says: “Citizen Tom Paine” was bought by Frank Tuttle a long time ago, but he left his option lapse and it goes to Walter Wanger. Walter has bought it from the author, Howard Fast, and plans to make a story of the Revolution with all the famous characters.
But he will not go into Paine’s religious beliefs nor his tendency toward atheism. Rather, will he make a real saga of the Revolutionary period with four principal characters, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Paine. Well-known actors will be chosen to play these four men. We haven’t had a good story of the American Revolution in a long time and Walter plans to spend a considerable amount in making an authentic story.
LEO: The sort of day on which your talents should shine. Clean up odd little tasks, pay bills, make plans for future events. Study standard problems. Aim at completion.
From the Philadelphia Inquirer via Fultonhistory.org.
August 22, 1944
The Times encourages readers to save copies of the paper for reuse in the war effort. Let’s hear it for recycling!
Keith Hallock gets a kiss from Warner Bros.’ Joyce Reynolds for being the first to volunteer for a job making tires at one of the plants in Los Angeles.
Discussions are underway to avoid a streetcar strike over higher wages.
And no. It would be unconstitutional to keep Japanese Americans from returning to the West Coast after the war is over, says Atty. Gen. Francis Biddle.
A photo of the City of Chester, courtesy of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
 |
 Headlines in the Sacramento Daily Record-Union, left, and the Daily Alta California, above. |
The rediscovery of the City of Chester, which sank in 1888 after a collision with the Oceanic, prompted me to go into the California Digital Newspaper Collection to dig up the original stories. The Daily Alta California devoted an enormous amount of coverage to this incident, as you will see on the jump.
Note from 2009: Devon McReynolds, the Daily Mirror’s UCLA intern, is off to
Paris. Until our next intern starts in September, the Daily Mirror
won’t be able to transcribe Paul Coates or Matt Weinstock. Rather than
discontinue the columns, we’ll be posting them as image files. Because
of the way Typepad handles images, the thumbnails are murky, but the
full-size images are readable.
August 21, 1947: In the newspapers, he was “The Black Shadow of Leiperville,” “The Black Baron of Leiperville,” “The Black Giant of Leiperville,” “The Black Shadow of Los Angeles,” or just “Giant Negro.”
Born in Mobile, Ala., Jan. 25, 1897, as Feab S. Williams, he fought under the name George Godfrey after a black heavyweight fighter of the 19th century.
Note: This is a post from 2005 that originally appeared on the 1947project.
Timothy G. Turner was a prolific, long-established writer for The Times, beginning with a feature on Anna May Wong in 1921. While he retired from the paper in 1954 (having taken a few years off to work in public relations), he continued contributing articles until his death—in fact he wrote a cover letter on a submission to The Times a few hours before he died in 1961 at the age of 75.
He was a bald, lanky man with glasses, and the unsmiling mug shot with his obituary makes him look serious, cold and, in his signature bowtie, a bit eccentric. However, the story says he took delight in poking fun at all pretensions, lived downtown and refused to learn how to drive a car.
August 21, 1944
Today, we stumbled across a columnist named Danton Walker (d. 1960). We don’t know his name, but his prose is so familiar that we can recite by heart the stale, snide New Yorker’s boilerplate on Los Angeles. It’s the sort of thing still being circulated, scarcely unchanged, by some of today’s smartest East Coast writers whose sum of experience consists of a stay in West Hollywood or Beverly Hills and a jaunt to Farmers Market.
Walker writes:
Hollywood, like Broadway, is largely a state of mind. Originally an exclusive residential section of that vast, sprawling, unwieldy community called Los Angeles (“six suburbs in search of a city”), it has become the capital of filmdom and a symbol for all that goes with it. But Hollywood has now moved from Hollywood, and though four major producers — Sam Goldwyn, RKO, Paramount and Columbia — still maintain their centers in Hollywood proper, the rest of the industry has spread and is still spreading, mushroom fashion, over the hills and canyons of Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, West Wood, Belair, San Fernando Valley and Ensino Valley [sic], and the homes of movie stars cling precariously, like the nests of birds, to the slopes of the Sierra foothills, miles and miles away from the famed corner of Hollywood and Vine. Miami Beach is positively cozy by comparison; Hollywood lives on wheels, and deprived of motor transportation, it would vanish from this earth as surely as Tyre and Sidon, the biblical cities of the plain.
Etc.
Louella Parsons says: A deal is hot on the griddle for 20th Century-Fox to borrow Kathryn Grayson from MGM to star in “State Fair,” one of their important musicals. If “State Fair” slips your mind, let me remind you it was made years ago with Janet Gaynor and Will Rogers in the top roles. Now it’s being converted into a musical by Dick Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. There’s a great chance here for 20th to capitalize on the same hay-foot, straw-foot appeal that has made “Oklahoma!” such a smash.
LEO: Make an effort to “Hi Neighbor” associates. It’ll put your mind in cheery attitude, your daily good deed donation and you’ll function better. Cheery news.
From the Philadelphia Inquirer via Fultonhistory.com.
ladailymirror.com 