Paul Coates, Dec. 13, 1960

Posted on December 13, 2010 by lmharnisch

 
 

  Dec. 13, 1960, Mirror Cover  

Dec. 13, 1960: Paul Coates has an update on the story of John Howard Griffin, whose book “Black Like Me,” about his experiences pretending to be African American, shocked many white readers.

Notice Paul Weeks' byline out of Washington. He will remain there after the demise of the Mirror in January 1961.

The high-strung Marilyn Monroe has some problems while filming “Bus Stop” in Maurice Zolotow’s biography “The Real Marilyn Monroe.”

ALSO

“Black Like Me” on the Daily Mirror

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Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, Dec. 13, 1941

Posted on December 13, 2010 by lmharnisch

 
 

  Dec. 13, 1941, Headline  

  Dec. 13, 1941, War Map  

Dec. 13, 1941: The better local niteries are frowning on femmes who step out in slacks, Jimmie Fidler says.

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Movieland Mystery Photo

Posted on December 13, 2010 by lmharnisch

 

  Dec. 13, 2010, Mystery Photo  
  Los Angeles Times file photo  

Jan. 17-19 1936: The foreman of the Los Angeles County Grand Jury says the case of Thelma Todd is still open despite the autopsy surgeon's finding that death was caused by carbon monoxide.

And Gerald K. Burnett writes in the Sunday magazine: Hollywood laughs and the world laughs with it. Hollywood cries and the world is deluged with tears. Hollywood dies and the world rips ink-damped sheets from the arms of newsboys and revels through all the machinations of "the case."

Servants, wealth, armed guards, high fences, isolation — all avail nothing when tragedy walks abroad.

There is the "case" of Thelma Todd, the concentric ripples of which welled out on the surface of the golden pool where tragedy threw its pebble. "Death by monoxide" the banner lines screamed — then "death by mystery."

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo, Thelma Todd | 9 Comments

From the Vaults: ‘MASH’ (1970)

Posted on December 13, 2010 by lmharnisch

Mashposter I loathe war movies. I also loathe hospital movies, and movies with predominantly male stars (really, who wants to sit and watch a bunch of men running around?) And I really loathe movies with long football scenes. Yet then we have Robert Altman's "MASH," and it is one of my favorite movies. I watch it every fall, mostly for the football scene.

The story, such as it is, opens with surgeons Hawkeye (Donald Sutherland) and Duke (Tom Skerritt) arriving at their Mobile Army Surgical Hospital near the Korean War front lines; they amble into the mess hall, where they're greeted by a cacophony of overlapping dialogue as they ogle the beautiful Lt. Dish (Jo Ann Pflug). Then they get to work. And that's pretty much the movie: They work, and they goof around trying to stay sane. Their antics are silly but the movie's never cute — there's always an edge.

Duke and Hawkeye are soon joined by heart surgeon Trapper John (Elliott Gould), and the three set about taking down their twin nemeses: Bible-thumping Maj. Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) and bureaucracy-loving Maj. Margaret Houlihan (Sally Kellerman). I love the moment when Frank is praying out loud while the others drink martinis, and he earnestly asks God to protect the soldiers and the commander in chief; Duke and Hawkeye both start and lower their glasses in genuine shock. It's a massive faux pas to them, I think, to suggest that God has anything to do with the hideous things that are happening at the front.

The movie's not quite antireligious — Rene Auberjonois plays the affable chaplain Dago, who's kind of in his own serene little world but who's much more practical than Frank. There's a wonderful bit where Duke interrupts him as he performs last rites in a hopelessly understaffed operating room: "Dago! I want you over here to hold this retraction. Now! … I'm sorry, Dago, but this man is still alive and that other man is dead, and that's a fact." In a field hospital, God just has to wait.

 

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

Matt Weinstock, Dec. 12, 1960

Posted on December 12, 2010 by lmharnisch

  Dec. 12, 1960, Comics  

Dec. 12, 1960: Matt Weinstock has the story of identity theft as it was done 50 years ago.

DEAR ABBY: I am a barber with 30 years' experience and that barber who wrote to you should be kicked out of the union if he belongs to one. A good barber welcomes children any time and gives them bubble gum and lollipops for good behavior. And we WANT mothers to tell us how to cut their hair. That's the only way we are sure they are satisfied and will come back.

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Paul Coates, Dec. 12, 1960

Posted on December 12, 2010 by lmharnisch

  Dec. 12, 1960, Cover  

Dec. 12, 1960: Paul Coates updates the story of a Beverly Hills physician who had hit bottom and was in a mental hospital when he saved the life of an inmate.  Coates interviews the doctor, who has been released and is struggling to find a job now that his medical license has been revoked.

Marilyn Monroe tries to hide her romance with Arthur Miller in Maurice Zolotow’s biography “The Real Marilyn Monroe.”

ALSO

A Mixed-Up Man

A Doctor Explains His Downfall

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Posted in Columnists, Film, Front Pages, Hollywood, Paul Coates | Comments Off on Paul Coates, Dec. 12, 1960

Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, Dec. 12, 1940

Posted on December 12, 2010 by lmharnisch

 
 

  Dec. 12, 1940, British Rout  

  Dec. 12, 1940, Tom Treanor  

Dec. 12, 1940: Nominated for the odd job championship: Brian Kilgore, former Chicago mortician, who bills himself as a technical director for gangster funerals, Jimmie Fidler says. 

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Movieland Mystery Photo — Updated

Posted on December 12, 2010 by lmharnisch

  2010_1213_mystery_photo02  
  Los Angeles Times file photo  

Update: This is Thelma Todd and Inez Courtney in a photo stamped Nov. 7, 1932.

  Jan. 4, 1936, Thelma Todd  

Jan. 4-11, 1936: If you’re sick of the Thelma Todd case by now, you have good company: The Los Angeles County Grand Jury.  Some jurors rebelled at hearing any further testimony, saying that they had enough and were certain that Todd’s death was suicide or an accident. Without them, The Times noted, the jury would lack a quorum. 

On Jan. 11, 1936, The Times said: “It also was indicated yesterday that the jury probably will let the Todd matter drop into oblivion without so much as making a formal statement of their conclusions."

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Posted in #courts, Film, Hollywood, LAPD, Thelma Todd | 1 Comment

Movieland Mystery Photo — Updated

Posted on December 11, 2010 by lmharnisch

 
 

  2010_1213_mystery_photo  
  Los Angeles Times file photo  

Update: Mrs. Wallace Ford and her brother George Baker arrive to testify about the Thelma Todd case. "Mrs. Ford said Miss Todd telephoned she was coming to a party at her home 'right away' but never arrived," according to the caption information.

  Dec. 28, 1935, Thelma Todd  

Dec. 28, 1935-Jan. 3, 1936: “The further we go, the deeper this thing gets,” says George Rochester, foreman of the Los Angeles County Grand Jury investigating Thelma Todd's death. “We are not satisfied with all of the evidence we have heard. We are convinced that some of the witnesses are not telling all they know, nor all the truth about what they have discussed.”

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Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, Dec. 11, 1940

Posted on December 11, 2010 by lmharnisch

 
 

  Dec. 11, 1940, Hitler  

  Dec. 11, 1940, Plane Crash  

Test pilot Rudolph B. Lechner, 37, is killed when his  SBC-2 Navy bomber fails to come out of a test dive.

Dec. 11, 1940: Eleanor Powell has invented a tap-dancing shoe that quadruples the number of taps per minute, Jimmie Fidler says.

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Posted in Columnists, Film, Hollywood, Transportation | 1 Comment

Movieland Mystery Photo — Update

Posted on December 11, 2010 by lmharnisch

 

  Dec. 12, 2010, Mystery Photo  
  Los Angeles Times file photo  

Update: This is Thelma Todd giving a surprise birthday party for Patsy Kelly on the set of "Sing, Sister, Sing." "Because of Patsy's particular fondness for condiments and sauces, Thelma used a 'catsup' motif for the party," according to the caption information. Please congratulate Dewey Webb, Mike Hawks, Gerald McCann, Barry O'Brien, Mary Mallory and Cold in Phoenix for identifying her!

  Dec. 24, 1935, Thelma Todd  

Dec. 24-27, 1935: Rumors, rumors and more rumors in the Thelma Todd case. Did she have lacerations on her throat? Did she appear to be drunk (recall that the autopsy found her blood-alcohol level to be 0.13%)? Who is the mysterious blonde seen in Hollywood?

And what did Todd mean when she said: "A great many changes are going to take place in my life by the first of the year?"

 

 

 

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo, Photography, Thelma Todd | 8 Comments

Found on EBay — ‘What Actors Eat’

Posted on December 10, 2010 by lmharnisch
What Actors Eat A copy of the Lymanhouse book “What Actors Eat – When They Eat!” has been listed on EBay. This cookbook turns up once or twice a year on EBay, usually at a ridiculous price. Bidding on this one, however, starts at a more realistic $3.99. Lymanhouse was a small publishing firm that flourished in Los Angeles but went out of business around the beginning of World War II. It was also the publisher of “They Call Them Camisoles,” Wilma Wilson’s terrific autobiography of being at Camarillo.

ALSO

“What Actors Eat” on the Daily Mirror

“They Call Them Camisoles” on the Daily Mirror

Posted in books, Film, Hollywood | Comments Off on Found on EBay — ‘What Actors Eat’

Paul Coates and Matt Weinstock, Dec. 10, 1960

Posted on December 10, 2010 by lmharnisch

 
 

  Dec. 10, 1960, Comics  

Dec. 10, 1960: Matt Weinstock has the story of English instructor James Durbin, who  read poems to USC’s English Club without disclosing the poets' names. The works were written by Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Ezra Pound, e.e. cummings and a patient in a mental hospital where Durbin lectured. He challenged the class to identify the poets. Several English professors decided that the Kerouac poem was the "insane" creation.

The mental patient's poem "Lost Garden," began: "No more will I sing how I was employed a fullness to bring where souls hung in void."

DEAR ABBY: What can I do about my best friend's husband? He talks about me in his sleep. I swear I never even thought about this man as anything but a friend. And he never once got out of line with me since I have known him. My friend has told me that …

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Police Battle Muslim Mob in Algiers , Dec. 10, 1960

Posted on December 10, 2010 by lmharnisch

 

 
 

  Dec. 10, 1960, Mirror Cover  

Dec. 10, 1960: “It costs a lot of money to look like Marilyn Monroe … I’ve got the bills to prove it.”

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Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, Dec. 10, 1940

Posted on December 10, 2010 by lmharnisch

  image  
  Dec. 10, 1940, Tom Treanor  

Dec. 10, 1940: That old rumor about Jackie Cooper being a midget should be thoroughly exploded by now, Jimmie Fidler says.

 

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

Movieland Mystery Photo — Update

Posted on December 10, 2010 by lmharnisch

  2010_1210_mystery_photo  
  Photograph by the Los Angeles Times  

Update: Chauffeur Ernest Peters, left, talks to Sid Grauman. Please congratulate Mary Mallory and Mike Hawks for identifying Grauman!

   2010_1210_mystery_photo03  
  Photograph by the Los Angeles Times  

  2010_1210_mystery_photo02  
  Photograph by the Los Angeles Times  
  Dce. 21, 1935, Thelma Todd  

Dec. 21-23, 1935: The Thelma Todd story dwindles and falls off of Page 1. Notice that the case prompted crank mail, like the 1947 Black Dahlia case. 

On Dec. 23, The Times reported on tests by LAPD chemist Ray Pinker to see how quickly someone would be overcome by monoxide fumes from Todd's 12-cylinder Lincoln. Detective Joe Whitehead volunteered to sit at the wheel with a stopwatch while the engine was started and the garage door closed. Whitehead lasted about 90 seconds before pounding on the door to be released.

ALSO

Ray Pinker on the Daily Mirror

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

Found on EBay – Oviatt’s

Posted on December 9, 2010 by lmharnisch
oviatts_box_ebay oviatts_box_hat_ebay

A box from Oviatt’s has been listed on EBay. As most Daily Mirror readers know, Oviatt’s was a men’s store but there was a woman’s hat in the box and the vendor has inferred that the hat is from Oviatt’s. I suspect not. The box is fairly battered, but if you are an Oviatt’s completist ….

Bidding starts at 99 cents.

ALSO

Oviatt’s on the Daily Mirror
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Matt Weinstock, Dec. 9, 1960

Posted on December 9, 2010 by lmharnisch

 
 

  Dec. 9, 1960, Comics  

Dec. 9, 1960: "No truth to the ugly rumor that the reporters in the courthouse pressroom watch those synthetic courtroom cases on their TV set. When I dropped in to check, they were watching an old war movie," Matt Weinstock says.

Marilyn Monroe explores the idea of being a producer in Maurice Zolotow’s biography “The Real Marilyn Monroe.

DEAR ABBY: I went to a card reader who told me my lucky number is three. I know she is right because on the third of September I met Louis and I fell for him right away. This card reader said I would find happiness with the third man I fell in love with and she was right again because Louie is my third big love affair. He has been married twice before. (See, I am lucky three?) I want to know if you think I am putting too much trust in the card reader.

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Paul Coates, Dec. 9, 1960

Posted on December 9, 2010 by lmharnisch

 

 
 

  Dec. 9, 1960, Mirror  

Dec. 9, 1960: Paul Coates has a curious tale about an aspiring actor making a sort of debut – in the Hollywood Christmas Parade.

On the jump, more about the killing of LAPD Detective Richard Kent.

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Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, Dec. 9, 1940

Posted on December 9, 2010 by lmharnisch

  Jan. 9, 1940, Nazi Ship Sunk

  
  Dec. 9, 1940, Diego Rivera   

  Dec. 9, 1940, Diego Rivera  

Dec. 9, 1940:  Jimmie Fidler asks,  “How can actors who are such nice people on the way up and on the way down, be such insufferable asses while they're on top?”

Note to Times copy desk: That’s Frida Kahlo, not Freida. 

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