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June 20, 1960: Those wags on the Mirror copy desk come up with an ad campaign to give vultures a positive image … And Abby has advice for a young woman who’s crazy about Ernie, but would like his constant companion, Eugene, to get lost. It seems they are always together! |
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Nearly everybody (even poor country boy Fibber McGee!) recognized this week’s mystery guest as Evelyn Nesbit. So here’s another mystery. This handout photo from Warner Bros., dated June 1939, was in Evelyn Nesbit’s photo file and is labeled as being Nesbit. But it’s clearly not her. I went through the movie ads from June 1939 trying to determine what Warners had in release then. I think we can safely rule out "Juarez." So who is it?
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June 20, 1960: Paul Coates writes about a failed Utopia in the Galapagos Islands…. And on the jump: This is so cool! Guess who was interviewed for the Mack Sennett feature – none other than my old friend and former boss Elizabeth “Betty” Franklin, who retired to Tucson and worked at the University of Arizona library. After she retired for the second time, from the UA, she volunteered in the library’s special collections and catalogued all the dissertations and other projects. I knew she worked at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences library, but I never realized she was head librarian! She used to tell me about seeing the uncut version of “Greed.” She said it was long. |
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June 20, 1940: “Robert Taylor looks positively nude. The mustache is off!” Jimmie Fidler says. |
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June 20, 1970: Alex Johnson would win the Angels' only batting title in 1970, finishing with a .329 batting average. But like everything else in Johnson's perplexing career, the season would not be without trouble. In the first inning of a game against Milwaukee, Johnson was ejected after driving in a run with a single. Johnson didn't like a called strike that was a pitch before his base hit. |
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June 20, 1910: The Times charges $50 [$1,136.94 USD 2009] for six weeks of Linotype school. Notice the reference to the auxiliary plant, where The Times was published after the Oct. 1, 1910, bombing destroyed the newspaper building at 1st and Broadway. On the jump, a burglar ransacks a store but can’t find a cent. |
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June 19, 1940: “What could be more ironic than the title ‘French Without Tears,’ currently billboarded?” Jimmie Fidler Says |
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June 19, 1910: The Times publishes an editorial cartoon by Albert Jean Taylor praising Gov. James Gillett’s ban on the Fourth of July fight between Jack Johnson and James J. Jeffries, which was to be held in San Francisco. Another cartoon of Johnson by Edmund Waller “Ted” Gale accompanied the June 16 story on the prizefight ban. On the jump, picketers “ran like frightened curs” as police enforced a new ban on picketing. “The police drew their sticks and started toward the gang of lawbreakers. They huddled together for an instant and then turned and ran. The majesty of law represented by a handful of policemen overawed the 50 men who knew they were disobeying the law,” The Times said. |
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June 18, 1940: Wot's this about 28 extras being sent home from the "Brigham Young" location for alleged misconduct? Jimmie Fidler says. |
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June 18, 1910: The stage is set for the famous anti-picketing ordinance approved by the City Council in July 1910. For further reading, I would recommend Grace Heilman Stimson’s “Rise of the Labor Movement in Los Angeles,” published in 1955 by the University of California Press. Stimson’s book is a bit dry, but offers a far more measured, scholarly account than Louis Adamic’s 1931 “Dynamite: The Story of Class Violence in America,” and the books that rely heavily on his work, Morrow Mayo’s 1933 “Los Angeles” and Carey McWilliams’ 1946 “Southern California: An Island on the Land.” |
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June 17, 1960: A reporter filed a story saying that hotel rates were being raised so much for the Democratic National Convention that he was going to bring a trailer. The convention director took him at his word and canceled the reservation for his hotel room, Matt Weinstock says. On the jump, debutantes in hats and gloves! |
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June 17, 1960: Paul Coates takes another look at the problem of glue-sniffing among teenagers in East L.A. |
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The death of Ernest Fleischmann, former executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, offers a nice point of departure for a few musings about how casually we treat the past. About a year ago, I noticed a trash cart full of files next to a freight elevator at The Times. I’m nosy about discarded material and in looking at the folders discovered that they were the old biographical files on classical musicians once used by the Calendar staff before the Internet made research easy. It was impossible to save everything, but I rescued about seven boxes worth of material that included newspaper and magazine clippings, press releases, programs, printouts, rough drafts and correspondence. My first thought was to donate this material to the Huntington, but after reviewing the files, the library declined my offer. So the boxes have been sitting in my garage. Today, I dug out the Fleischmann file. The first item I found was his controversial commencement address, reproduced above, delivered at the Cleveland Institute of Music on May 16, 1987. Evidently, the speech was reprinted in Musical America because it turns up in a Google search, so perhaps a typescript copy isn’t much of a loss. What follows on the jump are excerpts from a discussion of the speech by a panel that included Fleischmann; conductor Kurt Masur; Richard C. Clark, head of Affiliate Artists; and Tom Morris, executive director of the Cleveland Orchestra. Summarized online. Next is an anonymous comedy sketch about Fleischmann, Times Publisher Otis Chandler and sports columnist Jim Murray filing a review of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Not online. And finally, there’s a letter from Fleischmann to then-Times music critic Martin Bernheimer replying to a story on the orchestra's 1986-87 season. As you’ll notice, a comment penciled in the margin reads “bullshit.” Definitely not online. I think Daily Mirror readers would agree that this material deserves a better home than my garage. I would happily donate these files to an academic library in Southern California that realizes their merit. You can contact me here. As for the rest of these documents, copying and posting them in their entirety would be rather laborious but I’ll be willing to upload them if there’s enough interest. |
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June 16, 1960: The Mirror has more on the crisis in getting good domestic help! "American women hestitate to take jobs as cooks or maids," writer Arelo Sederberg says. “On New Year's Eve 1955, Armando Castro, 19, athlete and sociology student, was stabbed to death as he tried to stop a street fight. In the ensuing five years he has become a legend in East L.A.,” Matt Weinstock says. CONFIDENTIAL TO MR. AND MRS. “CHILDLESS”: Deal only with a legitimate adoption agency. A shady transaction such as the one you are considering is illegal and could net you one big headache, Abby says. |
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June 16, 1960: Paul Coates examines the situation of “Swedish maids,” teenage European girls who come to Hollywood with the expectation of doing a little dusting in exchange for pay, lodging and their nights free to rub shoulders with movie stars. |
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June 16, 1941: “WARNERS' 'DIVE BOMBER' SET AT A GLANCE: Two uniformed extras, faces streaked with engine oil, practicing a tap-dance routine between shots,” Jimmie Fidler says. |
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June 16, 1960: One of the final paperwork hurdles was filed before construction could start on the Dodgers' new ballpark in Chavez Ravine. An application for a conditional use permit was necessary, The Times reported, because the land was zoned for only a 3,000-seat ballpark, not a stadium seating between 52,000 and 56,000. Included in the plans were a Knothole Gang clubhouse, a gas station and a Hall of Fame "in effect honoring great Dodgers of the past," The Times said. The city zoning administrator had 40 days to rule on the application. The Times story noted that according to the application filed jointly by the city and the Dodgers, "the proposed road system will be ample to take care of traffic to and from the baseball park." –Keith Thursby Also on the jump: A backyard oil well is being drilled near Pico Boulevard and La Brea Avenue. |
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June 16, 1910: I was struck by the contrast between the photo of women graduating from Occidental and the pitiful story of a single mother with two little children who was down to her last $7 [$159.17 USD 2009] and spent most of it on a revolver and couple of bullets to kill herself. She shot herself in the head but survived because the bullet flattened itself against her skull. She tells The Times: "I will not try again to kill myself, but, oh, it's awful to have two little children and not to know how to provide for them." |
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June 15, 1960: Matt Weinstock has the story of the choir member who was a baseball fan.
DEAR ABBY: I took your advice and asked a girl to the prom. She turned me down. I asked another girl and got turned down again. All boys can't be best lookers and best dancers. Boys have hearts too. If you print this I'll feel better and so will other boys who have also been
–TURNED DOWN. |
