This robe from Oviatt’s, perhaps the leading menswear store in Los Angeles in its day, has been listed on EBay. It’s priced as Buy It Now for $795. As with anything on EBay, the item and vendor should be evaluated thoroughly before submitting a bid. For comparison, here’s another robe that was listed on EBay in March 2009. |
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Aug. 12, 1960: Matt Weinstock writes about homeowners trying to protest the assessor’s valuation of their houses. “Meanwhile, the supervisors seem unable to comprehend that they are confronted with a passive tax revolt — passive only because homeowners realize how futile it is to protest,” Weinstock says. CONFIDENTIAL TO COUNSELOR IN CABIN FOUR: Quit chasing him. The bigger the summer the harder the fall, Abby says. |
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Aug. 12, 1960: Paul Coates examines the implications of a Columbia University professor’s demand to be paid for translating a letter written in Uzbeki. Also on the jump, a column by Carter Barber on a Navy inquiry into the collision of two destroyers off Newport Beach, which killed 11 men and injured seven. |
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Tom Treanor files a report from Rome about daily life in the midst of wartime regulations. |
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Aug. 12, 1940: Mrs. John Garfield has had a nose bob and is thinking of a movie career, Jimmie Fidler says. |
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Young persons: If you have never heard of Stan Freberg, you are in for a delight. His comedy sketches from the 1950s and ’60s were sharp, clever and polished and many of them make “Saturday Night Live” look like a high school talent show. Speaking of talent, Freberg had the best: June Foray (the voice of Rocky the Squirrel and Natasha Fatale) and Daws Butler (the voice of Quick Draw McGraw and Yogi Bear). [Note: a previous version of this post said Yogi Berra. We should know better. We remember Yogi Berra and Yogi Bear and we remember the difference unless we are having a senior moment]. By 1960, Freberg, Butler and animator Bob Clampett had worked on “Time for Beany” a popular children’s show in the early days of television (be warned: The shows are primitive). Freberg had also pioneered a series of comedy records like “St. George and the Dragonet” (with Foray and Butler) and hosted a radio show that was canceled after 15 episodes. In the first of a three-part series from August 1960, Freberg tells the Mirror’s Ursula Baumann “I’d like to become a great humorist.” In fact, he already was one. Fortunately, much of Freberg’s material is available at archive.org, like his 1957 show on CBS. Freberg also created a series of comedy ads for Chun King Chow Mein, like this one from 1966. |
| Who stole the Caltechium?! |
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Aug. 11, 1960: Matt Weinstock revisits the story of the jealous husband, the lover’s convertible and a load of cement. Only this time it really happened. Sort of. CONFIDENTIAL TO OLLIE: Put your cards on the table and quit trying to drink yourself under it, Abby says. |
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Aug. 11, 1960: Paul Coates muses on whether plastic surgery would change criminals’ behavior. As part of its redesign, the Mirror asked some of its staff to take turns as columnists. Jack Searles had one the other day and today we have the late Jack Goulding, who went to The Times after the demise of the Mirror. I never worked with Goulding, who retired from The Times in 1983 and died in 1991, but he had a good reputation among people like Eric Malnic. His daughter Joan was also an editor at The Times. A line that was cut from his obit went something like this: “In a survey of Times reporters, Goulding was the only one who was not considered a bastard.” |
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Aug. 11, 1941: Robert Cummings, puzzler: Mr. Cummings, currently working in two pictures — "King's Row," in which he wears his hair parted on the right, and "It Started With Adam," for which he parts it on the left — wants Congress to pass a law enforcing straight-back pompadours, Jimmie Fidler says. |
| A woman runs off with a man who has no legs? Somebody at The Times had a grim sense of humor.
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Aug. 11, 1910: A judge sentences E.P. Kreamer to a $50 [$1,136.94 USD 2009] fine or 50 days in jail for violating the anti-picketing ordinance. The next man facing trial was Carl Schultzer, a striking brewery worker, but jury selection went slowly, according to The Times and the Herald. |
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Aug. 10, 1960: People who like music are honest and rarely write bad checks, Matt Weinstock finds. CONFIDENTIAL TO CHRIS: Get off the farm once in a while. You won't find a bride in the Sears and Roebuck catalogue, Abby says. |
Photograph by Boris Yaro / Los Angeles Times |
| My friends on the photo desk have started a terrific blog featuring images from the archives. Here’s Boris Yaro’s famous photograph of the 1968 shooting of Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel.
Boris writes: I had gone to the Ambassador Hotel on my own with the idea of making a photo of Bobby Kennedy for my wall. The idea went further than I had expected. When the shooting started I thought someone was tossing firecrackers because I was being hit in the face with debris. I grew up playing with fireworks, and this was not an unusual thing to happen. Then the crowd parted, and I watched in horror as Sirhan emptied his revolver at Robert Kennedy. I had my camera at chest level, but I didn’t make a photo during the shooting. It was dark, and I think I was afraid. |
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Aug. 10, 1960: Writing about his recent vacation, Paul Coates says that things are much better in Tijuana. |
| Tom Treanor files a column from wartime Rome that’s just about perfect. |
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Aug. 10, 1940: Jimmie Fidler’s staff says, Did you hear about golfer Chico Marx making a hole in one at Hillcrest the other day? Unfortunately, it was the W R O N G hole! |
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The Dodgers had 26 singles, seven doubles and two triples. Willie Davis, Maury Wills and Wes Parker each had five hits, Bill Russell had four and Billy Grabarkewitz and Tom Haller each had three hits. Parker, the first baseman better known for his stylish glove work, drove in two runs to give him 82 RBIs for the season. That made him the top first baseman in Los Angeles Dodger history, overtaking Gil Hodges in 1959. It must have been a wild day, particularly in the 13-3 second game. Dodger starting pitcher Alan Foster drove in three runs. And the Reds, who were still 12 games in front of the Dodgers, used future Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench in left field and at first base as well as behind the plate. He also was thrown out of the first game. Reds Manager Sparky Anderson told The Times' John Wiebusch, "I could use him at shortstop and not be embarrassed." –Keith Thursby |
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Two remarkably detailed pieces of Batchelder tile, both in frames, have been listed on EBay. Bidding on the first piece, at left, starts at $1,800. Bidding on the second piece, above, starts at $1,350. As with all listings on EBay, items and vendors should be evaluated thoroughly before submitting a bid. |
August 9, 1960: Buck Rogers: Caltechium is the ultimate weapon!
Aug. 9, 1960: Matt Weinstock writes about a story that was told at the farewell party for Paul Weeks (d. 2007), who was leaving to become the Mirror’s Washington correspondent. In fact, Weeks remained in Washington (spoiler) after the Mirror ceased publication in early 1962.
CONFIDENTIAL TO BETTY: The only woman who looks good carrying a torch is the Statue of Liberty. Date others and forget him, Abby says. Continue reading
Oooh! “Fatty” is a headline word!
Aug. 9, 1960: The family that boats together, floats together, Paul Coates says.
And the Mirror introduces a column by Jack Searles. Continue reading
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Tom Treanor, who was killed covering World War II for The Times, decides that four weeks in Lisbon is enough and manages to get on a plane for Rome.
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Aug. 9, 1940: "Orson Welles is far ahead of shooting schedule on his first pic; if he keeps it up a lot of us wisecrackers will eat crow," Jimmie Fidler says. |
Returning to earlier themes of Cary Grant and wife-swapping, this week we have "My Favorite Wife," a screwball comedy. As usual with this genre, your mood will determine whether you find the antics hilarious or simply trying. So if you are at all tired or cranky, maybe watch a nice slasher film instead and save this one for a night you're feeling more mellow. But if you're in the mood, it's just peachy.
Grant plays Nick, a widower who lost his first wife, Ellen (Irene Dunne), to a shipwreck, and is about to marry Bianca (Gail Patrick) when suddenly Ellen reappears — not dead after all! (Sorry, this is not one of those romantic zombie comedies.) This plot will be dear to anyone who has ever watched a soap opera, and I know there are more of you out there than you will ever let on. I myself fondly remember the "Sunset Beach" episode when Ben was about to marry Meg but then Maria washed ashore from the desert island where she'd been shipwrecked…
Anyway, it's certainly a situation that puts the husband in a bind, and Grant does his usual share of bugging his eyes and then debonairly trying to smooth things over. He's very charming, of course, and he makes it immediately clear what Nick wants to do: he loves Ellen, and he wants to call things off with Bianca. But he just — can't — bring — himself — to do it! If he could, the movie would be 10 minutes long. I got pretty tired though of watching him dither and fuss and placate Bianca and then turn around and placate Ellen. When he finally gets punched in the face, it's almost too late to be satisfying.
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Aug. 9, 1910: Los Angeles Police Capt. Lenhausen leads fellow officers in dispersing a crowd of more than 500 rowdy brewery strikers and sympathizers as demonstrators picketed the Belmont Bar at 5th and Main streets. Although The Times' account is far more colorful and venomous (the mob included " 'hop-head' boys, drunken loafers, degenerate seekers of excitement and empty-headed trouble-seekers") the Herald also portrays a volatile situation in which a large, raucous crowd vastly outnumbered police. One interesting item involves newspaper photographer Arthur McDowell, who was beaten while taking a picture of a picketer being arrested because (at least according to The Times) strikers mistook him for a Times photographer when he actually worked for an unidentified paper that was friendly to labor. |
