Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, Feb. 14, 1941

  Feb. 14, 1941, Britain Nears War With Japan  

  Feb. 11, 1921, Gasoline Alley

image
 
Feb. 11, 1921, Gasoline Alley

Feb. 11, 1921, Gasoline Alley

Feb. 11, 1921, Gasoline Alley

Feb. 11, 1921, Gasoline Alley

 

Feb. 14, 1941: “Gasoline Alley” celebrates the 20th anniversary of the arrival of Skeezix Wallet. And here’s a mystery for cartoon historians: Although the anniversary is usually listed as Feb. 14, 1921, the actual publication date in The Times was Feb. 11, 1921. Walt Wallet was, of course, a bachelor so how else to introduce a child into the storyline?

Tom Treanor says of the wealthy refugees he met in Lisbon, Portugal: It's strange how intelligent, educated people who have been brought up to have perspective can have so missed the whole immensity of the war. As a group, they have missed completely the fact that their idly aristocratic way of life is gone. They don't realize at all how unfit their past has made them for the future.
 
Jimmie Fidler says: Ten thousand times I've been asked: "Why do hopeless hundreds hang on in Hollywood when they have no chance? Why do they mob studio gates, infest agents' offices, gather in morbid knots at Hollywood and Vine and beg and borrow to pay guild dues?

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Posted in 1921, 1941, art and artists, Comics, Film, Hollywood, Tom Treanor | 2 Comments

Movieland Mystery Photo [Updated]

  Feb. 13, 2011, Mystery Photo  
  Los Angeles Times file photo  

[Update: This is the filming of “Walker,” in a photo taken April 5, 1987. And no, we’re not on an Ed Harris theme even though we had “Swing Shift” yesterday. It just worked out that way.]

ALSO

Hollywood Invades Nicaragua by Patrick Goldstein, April 19, 1987

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo, Photography | 3 Comments

Alcala Appeals Conviction for Murder of Girl

6a00d8341c630a53ef0147e285c44e970bAlcala_02
Feb. 14, 1981: Rodney James Alcala appeals his death sentence in the killing of Robin Samsoe, 12, of Huntington Beach. Alcala, a former typist in The Times composing room, was convicted of kidnapping Robin after approaching her and a friend and offering to take their picture.ALSO

Rodney James Alcala on latimes.com

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Posted in #courts, 1981, Crime and Courts, Homicide | 1 Comment

Matt Weinstock, Feb. 13, 1961

 
 

  Feb. 13, 1961, Comics  

Feb. 13, 1961: An employee at a missile component company was studying Russian and while on a trip to New York decided to buy a Soviet newspaper to test his skill. Then he took the newspaper to work. Uh-oh.

CONFIDENTIAL TO "SICK AND DISILLUSIONED": Talk to your clergyman about an annulment. When a woman marries, she is entitled to a man for a husband. [I would love to know the story behind this item! lrh]

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Posted in #gays and lesbians, 1961, art and artists, Columnists, Comics, Matt Weinstock | Comments Off on Matt Weinstock, Feb. 13, 1961

Paul Coates, Feb. 13, 1961

 

 
 

  Feb. 13, 1961, Mirror Cover  

Feb. 13, 1961: It’s not easy being a columnist in Los Angeles. Paul Coates writes about some of the calls and letters he gets that never end up in print … until now.

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Posted in 1961, Columnists, Front Pages, Paul Coates | 1 Comment

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, Feb. 13, 1941

 
 

  image  

  Feb. 13, 1941, Comics  

Feb. 13, 1941: Tom Treanor says that watching America from overseas is something like seeing yourself in a home movie. “You're quite surprised at how you look, a little displeased and completely fascinated,” he says.

FILMVILLE AFTER DARK: Mickey Rooney blushing a fiery red when a group of youngsters whistles admiringly as he enters the Cocoanut Grove with curvaceous Gene Tierney on his arm, Jimmie Fidler says.

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Posted in 1941, art and artists, Columnists, Comics, Film, Hollywood, Tom Treanor | Comments Off on Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, Feb. 13, 1941

Movieland Mystery Photo [Updated]

  Feb. 12, 2011, Mystery Photo  
  Los Angeles Times file photo  

  March 20, 1983  

[Update: This is the set of “Swing Shift” published March 20, 1983, for a feature on a day in the life of Hollywood.]

Here’s a street scene that has been built on a sound stage, which poses a challenge for location sleuths!

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo, Photography | 14 Comments

Communists Use Porn to Attack U.S. Morals, Sociologist Says

 
 

  Feb. 13, 1961, Comics  
  Feb. 13, 1961, Commie Smut  

Feb. 13, 1961: Who is this sociologist who warns that pornography “is part of a Communist-inspired effort to break down American character?” Alas, The Times doesn’t identify him — or her. And details are sketchy about the Los Angeles Know Your America Committee.

Digging through The Times clips for stories that link smut to communism is an interesting excursion into controversies over teaching sex education in schools, the Stanford students who abandoned the Young Americans for Freedom to become libertarians and other sagas. The only account I could find directly linking (or rather saying there was no link) between pornography and communism is a speech by then-Atty. Gen. Stanley Mosk (d. 2001), later chief justice of the California Supreme Court. 

ALSO

Communism on the Daily Mirror

Smut on the Daily Mirror

Stanley Mosk on the Daily Mirror

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Posted in #courts, 1961, art and artists, Comics, Crime and Courts | 1 Comment

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, Feb. 12, 1941

 

  Feb. 12, 1941, Comics  

 

  Feb. 12, 1941, War Summary  

Feb. 12, 1941: Tom Treanor, who was killed covering World War II for The Times, writes about his experiences in Romania. “Poor old beautiful, callous, hard-luck Rumania, a happy-go-lucky country trying not to be sad and finding it hard going," Treanor says.

In the Pirate's Den last night, a group of the industry's old-timers reached into the past for dramatic real-life incidents. Here's one concerning three people now dead — Paul Bern, Barbara La Marr and Jack Daugherty, Jimmie Fidler says.

And cast members apparently attended the opening of “Rebecca” at the Hawaii Theater (which is a little puzzling since the film had already opened at the Four Star Theater in March 1940).

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Posted in 1941, art and artists, Columnists, Comics, Film, Hollywood, Tom Treanor | Comments Off on Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, Feb. 12, 1941

Movieland Mystery Photo [Updated]

  Feb. 11, 2011, Mystery Photo  
  Los Angeles Times file photo  

  Feb. 11, 2011, Mystery photo  
  Los Angeles Times file photo  

[Update: This is “What’s Up Doc?” with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal, as most people realized. ]

For all those Daily Mirror readers who complain when a mystery photo is too easy, I have cropped out the talent, whom everyone would recognize immediately.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo, Photography | 19 Comments

Editor Falls to His Death From Hollywood Landmark

 

 

  6331 Hollywood Blvd.  

6331 Hollywood Blvd., now the Scientology HQ, via Google maps’ street view.

 

  image  

  Jan. 25, 1961, Norman Siegel  

Photoplay May 1961 Nothing about Norman Siegel’s death made any sense. The former publicist, now working as the West Coast editor of Photoplay magazine, went to the rooftop snack bar at the Hollywood Guaranty Building on Jan. 24, 1961,  sat at a table near the edge and ordered a cup of coffee.  The next moment, he was gone.

Investigators initially suspected that Siegel, 54,  committed suicide, but he left no notes and further inquiry failed to reveal anything that was amiss in his life. Matt Weinstock wrote: "I saw him at a preview of "The Misfits" the night before his death. He was, as always, gracious and good-humored."

According to Weinstock, “The roof has barriers of varying heights along the edge. At some points the parapets are about 4 1/2 feet tall. At the point from which Siegel fell, the barrier is only 24 inches high.”

Los Angeles County Coroner Theodore J. Curphey (d. 1986) reopened the case in March after attorney Louis Licht, representing the Siegel family, revealed that at the time of his death, Siegel was working on a story for Photoplay titled "An Editor Visits Hollywood" that would feature unusual camera angles, including a view overlooking the city. Siegel was familiar with the roof garden because he once had an office in the building, according to Licht, who said Siegel might have been scouting locations for photos.  

Less than nine months after Siegel’s death, his son  Robert,  a UCLA student, was killed in an airplane crash in the Chicago suburbs. He was 22.

In 1965, the state Industrial Accident Commission ruled that Siegel's death was an accident, a decision that allowed Siegel's family to collect his insurance.

ALSO

Photoplay Editor Plunges to Death

Editor's Death Stirs Mystery

May 1961 Photoplay listed on EBay

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Posted in #courts, 1961, Crime and Courts, Hollywood, Suicide | 1 Comment

Boy, 15, Hangs Self; Pound Killed His Dog

 

  Feb. 11, 1961, Mirror Cover  

Feb. 11, 1961: Of all the headlines I have seen while doing the Daily Mirror, this is one of the worst. What a sad story.

Coates, Weinstock and Abby are on the jump…

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Posted in 1961, Animals, Columnists, Comics, Matt Weinstock, Paul Coates | 2 Comments

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, Feb. 11, 1941

 
 

  Feb. 11, 1941, Russia Leaves Bulgaria to Nazis  

  Feb. 11, 1941, Comics  

Feb. 11, 1941: Tom Treanor, recently returned from Europe, says: There is no place so confusing and so dismal as a grimy old European railroad station, where you're getting your legs knocked by bags and you can't find any place to sit or anything to do. Some people are driven to drink, it's so depressing.

With Los Angeles' city fathers blitzkrieging salacious stage material, Al Gordon and Walter Shumann are asking Will Hays to censor the script of their musical, "It's High Time," slated for footlighting here next month.

The Times also has a brief feature on two women at Disney studios: animator Sylvia Holland ("Dance of the Flowers") and character artist Ethel Kulsar.

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Posted in 1941, art and artists, Columnists, Comics, Film, Hollywood, Tom Treanor | Comments Off on Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, Feb. 11, 1941

Movieland Mystery Photo [Updated]

  2011_0210_mystery_photo  
  Los Angeles Time file photo  

[Update: This is what my friends in Orange County used to call “the condo made of stone-a” (look it up, young people) next to the Santa Ana Freeway in City of Commerce. At the time this picture was taken, the old Uniroyal tire plant had been abandoned and was known as this bizarre building next to the freeway, but it has been redeveloped and today people know it as the Citadel mall.]

If you don’t live in Southern California, you may not appreciate the humor of this photograph.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo, Photography | 15 Comments

On the Frontiers of Ethnomusicology

 
 

  Feb. 11, 1911, Flute  

  Feb. 11, 1911, Flute  

Feb. 11, 1911: Among the items at the Southwest Museum is a flute, made of a human bone, that was discovered while excavating Native American graves on Santa Catalina Island.  The flute was something of a rarity, The Times said, because it had six finger holes rather than three.

The museum asked various musicians to try playing the flute, but none was successful. Museum curator Hector Alliot (d. 1919) decided that "as the flute had been played by a people whose minds were as children's compared with the minds of the modern man, he would find the person to make the flute speak among the children."

Clifford Elliott Martindale was able to make a sound on the flute. “Suddenly a long, weird sound like a wail arose throughout the museum. It hung and quavered and then died away as Martindale gasped for more breath," The Times said. 

[No matter how many years I have spent looking at old newspapers, I am still amazed at some of the complete rubbish that was presented as scientific inquiry, particularly in the field of anthropology and archeology—lrh].

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Posted in 1911, classical music, Music, Obituaries | 1 Comment

Matt Weinstock, Feb. 10, 1961

 
 

  Feb. 10, 1961, Comics  

Feb. 10, 1961: A young lady interviewing for a secretarial job typed: "Now is the time for all good Commies to get the hell out of the country,"  Matt Weinstock says.

CONFIDENTIAL TO "BUD": A very wise man once said: "Remember — on the day of your death, everything you possess in the world will belong to somebody else. But what you are will be yours forever."

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Posted in 1961, art and artists, Columnists, Comics, Matt Weinstock | Comments Off on Matt Weinstock, Feb. 10, 1961

Paul Coates, Feb. 10, 1961

 

 
 

  Feb. 10, 1961, Mirror Cover  

Feb. 10, 1961: Paul Coates dips into the mailbag and gets an angry note for his remarks on Elvis Presley!

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Posted in 1961, Columnists, Front Pages, Paul Coates | Comments Off on Paul Coates, Feb. 10, 1961

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, Feb. 10, 1941

 
 

  Feb. 10, 1941, British Fleet Bombards Genoa  

  Feb. 10, 1941, Comics  

Feb. 10, 1941: Tom Treanor writes about Europeans’ attitudes toward America. “The impending clash between America and Germany fills the Europeans with a sort of dreadful and delightful anticipation. It's so tremendous as to be inconceivable. The irresistible force against the immovable object,” Treanor says. 

Hear 20th Century execs have decided to replace Cesar Romero in the "Cisco Kid" series and use him for bigger and better roles, Jimmie Fidler says. 

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Posted in 1941, Columnists, Comics, Film, Hollywood, Tom Treanor | 1 Comment

Movieland Mystery Photo [Updated]

  Feb. 9, 2011, Mystery photo  
  Los Angeles Times file photo  

  6th and Rampart  

6th Street and Rampart Boulevard via Google maps’ street view.

[Update: This is the filming of “Car Wash” at 6th Street and Rampart Boulevard in a photo by Marilyn K. Yee dated March 31, 1976.]

[And a tip for location sleuths: “Baretta” frequently filmed at 5th and Wall Streets.]

I can’t write anything today without giving it away so my lips are sealed…..

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo, Photography | 10 Comments

Ronald Reagan and ‘A Time for Choosing’

In speaking at the tribute honoring the Ronald Reagan centennial on Friday night, former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin invoked his now-famous speech “A Time for Choosing.”

Times reporter Maeve Reston noted that Reagan gave the televised speech in October 1964 on behalf of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and I thought it would be interesting to explore some of the details. The Times was a stalwart Republican paper in this era and endorsed Goldwater for president, so it seemed likely that there might be some coverage of Reagan’s speech.

My research found that if the address has become one the landmarks of Reagan’s political career, it certainly didn’t start out that way.In fact, The Times’ clips and other news sources show that for nearly two years before his televised address, Reagan had been delivering a speech on the theme of “A Time for Choosing” to business and political groups.

Given the time references in the televised version (“Senator Humphrey last week…”) , it’s evident that Reagan revised the work and I will defer to Reagan scholars to compare drafts of the speech, although I imagine it would be a fascinating project.

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Posted in 1964, broadcasting, Politics, Ronald Reagan | 3 Comments