Jury Duty

Gordon Northcott, Dec. 5, 1928
Notice: I’m on jury duty, so posting will be light until it’s over.

Posted in #courts, Changeling | 2 Comments

L.A. Moment

Dec. 25, 1944, Glenn Miller

Dec. 25, 1944: Glenn Miller’s plane disappears.

I was coming back from lunch at Koo-Koo-Roo on Grand Avenue this afternoon and while waiting for the light, I heard Glenn Miller’s “American Patrol” floating out a window of one of the apartments on Bunker Hill. An L.A. moment.

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Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, March 23, 1960

 March 23, 1960, Mirror Cover

Police Problems in Hunting Arsonist

 
Paul Coates    You're a cop and, maybe, he's a pyromaniac.
 
    A special kind of criminal.
 
    His weapon isn't a gun or a knife.  Shake him down and you learn nothing.
 
    He's got a book of matches in his shirt pocket, next to a pack of cigarettes.
 
    You don't book a man for that.
 
    It's almost midnight, and he's alone, walking.
 
    Talk to him.  Interrogate him.
 
    "I take walks," he says.  "It helps me relax, I can think."
 
    You ask him if he'd mind being detained a few minutes.
 
    He says no, not at all.
 
    You radio the station.  Run a "make."

  

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Hedda Hopper, March 23, 1947


March 23, 1947, Hedda Hopper

March 23, 1947: Robert Mitchum has all the coyness of a barrel of TNT, Hedda Hopper says.

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Hedda Hopper, March 23, 1946


March 22, 1946, Hedda Hopper

March 23, 1946: John Ford is at work on “My Darling Clementine,” Hedda Hopper says.

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Posted in Columnists, Film, Hollywood | 1 Comment

Support for Capital Punishment Drops to 51%, Poll Finds


March 23, 1960, Gallup Poll
March 23, 1960: The Caryl Chessman case has underscored the worldwide debate over capital punishment, the Gallup Poll says. Americans support state executions 51% to 36%, with 13% undecided, the poll found, a decline from 68% support in 1953. 

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Fatal Jealousy Over Sister’s Wardrobe


March 23, 1910, Poisoning

March 23, 1910: Catherine Manx, 16, is charged with poisoning her older sister Elizabeth, 19, out of jealousy over her wardrobe, The Times says. Catherine says she bought the strychnine on behalf of a stranger. The chloroform was for cleaning, she explained.

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Posted in #courts, Fashion, Homicide | 2 Comments

Sophomore With 41-Inch Bust Too Distracting to Male Students, College Says

March 21, 1960: I passed this item to my friend Gwen Sharp, a writer for Sociological Images. Her post on our friend Sandy Cherniss has made it to Jezebel.
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Matt Weinstock, March 22, 1960

 image

“Hello? Anybody There?”

A Courageous Move

Matt Weinstock     Along with spring, a sign has appeared in the Brentwood Country Mart, out in bosky del country, stating firmly, "Men Must Wear Shirts."  It is the first voice of protest in a growing informality that has threatened to wipe out the last vestiges of modesty.  Good taste has long since gone out the front door.

    What the people who posted it obviously mean is that a shirtless man in public is not the most appetizing or inspiring sight in the world, no matter what he may think.

    Doubtless it was the result of complaints from the hamburger munchers and malt and coffee gulpers.  Nevertheless, it took courage to put it up.

    It would take even more courage to post a sign stating, "Ladies, are you sure you're the type to wear capris?"  Naw, that's too much to expect.

 
   

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Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, March 22, 1960


 
March 22, 1960, Mirror Cover

Cynical Columnist Gets More Cynical

 
Paul Coates    You think I seem a little sallow lately?  A kind of drawn, hunted look about me?  Deepening circles under the eyes?
 
    You're right.  I'm sick.
 
    But it's nothing physical.  Just emotional.  Or, I don't know, maybe even psychotic.
 
    You see, I've got this peculiar feeling that everything around me is really unreal.  That nothing is quite what it seems to be.
 
    It isn't something that happened suddenly.  Actually, it's been coming over me for a period of many months now.
 
    I guess the first symptoms were evident shortly after the quiz show scandals when a handful of my idols were shattered right before my eyes.
 
    My reaction wasn't like yours.  You were indignant, abashed, aghast.  Not me.  I just quietly, neurotically refused to believe it.
    

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Hedda Hopper, March 22, 1946

 
March 22, 1946, Hedda Hopper

March 22, 1946: Metro shelves “Frankie From Frisco” because the subject matter is too tough to lick, Hedda Hopper says. Based on a James M. Cain story with a screenplay by Robert D. Andrews, "Frankie From Frisco" was set in 1865 and dealt with building railroads. It was to star Lana Turner, The Times said. The story does not appear to be in Cain’s papers at the Library of Congress.

Note: Shirley Molohon has exactly one credit on imdb.

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Posted in Columnists, Film, Hollywood | 1 Comment

KFI Expects Big Ratings From Scully and the Dodgers

 
March 22, 1970, Radio

March 22, 1970: The Dodgers destroyed the Angels in radio ratings.

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Meet Pat Nixon

 
image 
March 22, 1960, Pat Nixon

March 22, 1960: Pat Nixon supported herself after her parents died, including work as a movie extra. Look for her in “Becky Sharp.”

On the jump, “The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond” … and Roy Campanella is taken to New York for treatment after suffering a dizzy spell at the Dodgers’ training camp in Vero Beach, Fla.

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In the Days of Film Flacking

 
March 22, 1920, Annette Kellerman

March 22, 1920: The Times says Annette Kellerman takes too many risks to get accident insurance or life insurance,  but she can get “coverage” – so to speak — for her figure.

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Posted in Film, Hollywood, Music | 1 Comment

Oil!

 
March 22, 1910, Oil Wells

March 22, 1910, Oil Wells

March 22, 1910: Oil executive A.B. Cohn says "… the Lakeview gusher can be seen sprouting oil like a miniature volcano for 20 miles across the desert country and it is impossible to approach within a reasonable distance of the well unless one is prepared to take a shower bath in crude oil. The oil, he says, is being thrown from the well in a stream as thick as a man's waist to a height of 300 feet.”

It’s interesting to speculate on the environmental effects of letting these wells gush onto the ground, where the oil was collected in open reservoirs.

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From the Vaults: ‘The Wasp Woman’ (1960*)

Note: Larry is posting items from 1920 and 1960 this year, and I will be watching movies from those years and writing about them, alternating weeks. This week is 1960's turn.

wasp_woman_poster And I owe you people something of an apology, because I have another Roger Corman movie this week. It was my stupid mistake –  I got all excited to watch "The Wasp Woman" because I've had a postcard of the movie poster for years and have long cherished it. (That's a good reason to watch a movie, right? Seriously, look at that thing. It is so great.)

I had no idea it was a Corman joint, although if I had thought about it or Googled it, or looked at the small print which is very small on a postcard, I could probably have figured it out. Still, I'm out of time to find something else, and besides, he won an honorary Oscar the other week, so here we are. Next time I'll have something more respectable, or at least directed by someone else, I promise.

”The Wasp Woman” is an interesting time capsule of a tale. Cosmetics executive Jan Starlin (Susan Cabot) is told by her advertising department that her cosmetics are not selling well because she's just getting too old. So Jan poses the logical question: “Supposing a more powerful form of royal jelly could be obtained – from the queen wasp, for example — would you suppose that might have some rejuvenating effect on a human being?” Turns out Jan has already hired an eccentric scientist (Michael Mark) to develop just such a royal jelly. The effects are not what she expects!

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Matt Weinstock, March 21, 1960

 
March 21, Comics

Pulling a Chessman?

Matt Weinstock     The letter, neatly written in pencil, is from a man named Arthur.

    "I am in the City Jail on a phony beef," it begins.  "About 2:30 a.m. March 1 I was forced into a car by four men.  One had a knife in my back.  I was taken for a ride, beaten, robbed and thrown out of the car.  After which they worked me over by trampling me on the sidewalk."

    The letter continues, "Soon afterward, while staggering around in a daze, a patrol car came upon the scene.  I tried to tell them my story but they would not let me explain.  I told them that the men on the car had my billfold but they refused to investigate by search.  Apparently the men in the car convinced them that they had never seen me before, that I was possibly out of my mind.  Of course, the majority overruled."

::

    IT GOES ON, "The outcome was my appearance in court at which I was sentenced to 90 days.  Because the judge refused to listen to my story I feel you should know the facts about my case.  It was not only a frame but I was denied the right to at least explain my plight."

   

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Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, March 21 1960

Journalism Lesson From a Dixie Editor

    My mother didn’t exactly cancel her subscription to The Mirror News.

What she did, she called me up — collect — from her flat in the Bronx just before Christmas last year with the hint that it would be “nice” if I got her something different as a present.

My custom, every Christmas since my first by-line, had been to send her a year’s subscription so she could keep tabs on my progress in this dog-eat-dog world of journalism.

And I never, until the moment she broke the news to me on the phone, suspected that she was bored to death with it all — completely disinterested in how I was doing or what I was writing.

“It’s not that I don’t enjoy your column,” she explained gently, the way mothers explain those things to their sons.  “It’s just that I get the news here anyway.”

At the time, the answer seemed logical enough, but lately, I’ve been thinking.  If a struggling columnist’s own mother won’t read him, who will?  And why won’t they?

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Westbrook Pegler, Fair Enough, March 21, 1941

 
March 21, 1941, Westbrook Pegler

March 21, 1941: Westbrook Pegler breaks down the organization of the Army and compares it to the way the service was arranged in what was then known as the World War.

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Voices — ‘Howlin Mad’ Smith

March 21, 1960, Gen. Holland Smith

March 21, 1960, Gen. Holland Smith

March 21, 1960: Jack Smith profiles retired Gen. Holland Smith, who died in 1967 at the age of 84. 

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