| Far into the future, villains will smoke cigarettes!
|
|
May 6, 1960: “It can be stated unequivocally that in his new album Elvis is as good as he ever was, which is better than the swarm of sickening imitators who have waggled out of the ooze in his absence,” Matt Weinstock says. On the jump, a mother asks Abby what to do with her sons’ pinup pictures when the minister visits. |
|
|
May 6, 1960: Paul Coates profiles Neysa Washington, who was badly injured in 1945 trying to stop her runaway car. She hopped on the running board when it began rolling down Beachwood Drive and, unable to get into the car, steered it for half a mile by reaching through a window until it crashed between two trees at 6053 Yucca St. |
|
|
|
May 6, 1940: “Ann Sheridan takes along her own rumba records to be played while she dines,” Jimmie Fidler says. |
|
|
|
May 6, 1980: Times Pulitzer Prize winner William Tuohy writes that British commandos stormed the Iranian Embassy in London, freeing 19 hostages, killing three terrorists and capturing two others. The attack was ordered after the terrorists, opponents of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, executed two of their hostages because the Iranian government refused to release political prisoners held in Khuzistan, Tuohy says. On the jump, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan, on the campaign trail, says: — Jimmy Carter “tells us to turn the thermostats down so we'll be miserable when we're home; don't drive or drive too little or drive slowly. The truth of the matter is we're an energy-rich nation. — "It's time we told the rest of the world we don't care whether they like us or not, we want to be respected." — "Government creates inflation; therefore, government can make it go away." |
|
|
May 6, 1960: Although the Soviets shot down a U-2 on May 1, the story didn’t appear in The Times until five days later. It’s particularly interesting to note that the paper treated this as a second-day story, even though there was no previous coverage. I suspect this was in response to TV and radio reports, but that’s only a guess.  Photograph by the Los Angeles Times Francis Gary Powers, who formerly piloted the Pilot Francis Gary Powers was convicted and served nearly two years before being freed in February 1962 in exchange for spy Rudolf Abel. Powers eventually became a helicopter pilot for KNBC-TV Channel 4. He and his engineer, George Spears, died in an Aug. 1, 1977, crash near a Little League field at 17500 Oxnard St. The helicopter was evidently out of gas, The Times said. Newer, highly modified versions of the U-2 aircraft remain in service. |
| |
|
May 6, 1910: S. Forzly is forced to close his eastern cafe in the basement of the Central National Bank at 4th Street and Broadway after bank employees get a restraining order due to the lunch room’s pungent, exotic odors. Onions! Garlic! The horror! On the jump, The Times finds some comic relief in an elderly black man’s painful encounter with a feather duster…. |
|
|
|
May 5, 1960: Here’s another take on Cynthia Lindsay and “Procals.” Her term describes the people of the Southland, who are “pro California.” I’ll be taking a look at Lindsay’s 1960 book “The Natives Are Restless” in an upcoming post. |
|
|
May 5, 1960: Ruth and Betty Lawrence are looking for a good man to marry one of them and take on their 13 cats. |
| |
|
May 5, 1941: “Pieces of Deanna Durbin's wedding cake, begged from guests by autograph hunters, are bringing fancy prices,” Jimmie Fidler says. On the jump, “Citizen Kane” will premiere at the El Capitan. |
|
|
|
May 5, 1960: The Republican administration of President Eisenhower announces plans for federal and state funding of medical insurance for people over 65 in the Medicare Program for the Aged. The Democrats opposed the plan in favor of healthcare benefits under Social Security, and “encouraged predictions that the proposal would be rejected as impractical and financially unsound,” The Times says. On the jump, the Dodgers bench Gil Hodges. |
|
|
|
May 5, 1910: The post office halts an “endless prayer chain” letter started by “a religious crank,” The Times says. The postmaster says that the letter is illegal because it threatens a “dire calamity” for whoever breaks the chain. According to the nearly completed census, Los Angeles’ population is about 300,000. |
|
|
|
May 4, 1960: Why are people bringing transistor radios to Dodger games? Matt Weinstock has the answer! |
Forest Lawn doesn’t want Caryl Chessman’s ashes!
|
|
May 4, 1960: John Milton Addison is a spellbinder without peer. He’s a millionaire who claims he isn’t selling anything but himself, Paul Coates says. |
| |
|
May 4, 1940: “Blue pencil those rift rumors about the Fred MacMurrays. We've checked, and there's nothing to 'em,” Jimmie Fidler’s staff says. |
|
|
|
May 4, 1980: “Hitchcock was an entertaining companion and a superlative raconteur with a gift of droll timing and a dry understatement. He lifted an eyebrow as eloquently as any actor. But beneath the assurance in public situations, like interviews and platform appearances, he was actually quite shy and, for perhaps the most flamboyant director of them all, guarded and private, with few close friends among either actors or fellow directors,” Charles Champlin says. |
| |
|
May 4, 1910: Police conduct gambling raids in Chinatown in the 300 block of Marchessault Street, at 424 N. Los Angeles St., 335 1/2 Apablasa and on North Alameda. On the jump, in the final days of the U.S. census, enumerators say the most uncooperative group is the socialists! |
|
|
|
May 3, 1960: A stripper named Vagablonde promises to do her Lady Godiva act by riding a white horse down Broadway to protest 15-cent coffee… if someone will furnish a white horse, Matt Weinstock says. |
|
|
May 3, 1960: Ray Burke and George S. Doombadze share a phone number and some frustration, Paul Coates says. |
|
|
|
May 3, 1940: “Marlene Dietrich, Erich Maria Remarque and Josef von Sternberg a nightly threesome at the Sphinx, where television's being served with dinner,” Jimmie Fidler says. |
|
|
|
Sept. 20, 1981: Universal Studios says Lynn Redgrave left “House Calls” over her salary “demands,” The Times says. A transcript of a phone call between her husband/manager John Clark and Universal’s Pete Terranova tells a different story. |
