Note: This is an encore post from 2010.
July 29, 1945: “For two minutes the pinnacle of the chromium-girt Empire State stood out sharp and clear in the drizzle while orange-red flames licked around. Then the soft fog closed in again to hide the scene from the horrified sight of thousands of midtown office workers who had rushed to the windows at the sound of the explosion, which echoed over central Manhattan like a blockbuster.”
Boxie and I will be doing a live “Ask Me Anything” on the Black Dahlia case Tuesday, August 5, 2025, at 10 a.m. Pacific time, on YouTube. I won’t be doing more streaming videos on Instagram because I don’t have enough subscribers.
This is Elizabeth Short’s birthday. If you choose to observe it, please do so respectfully. That means do not go to her grave and leave cigarettes (she didn’t smoke) or pour out cans of beer (she didn’t drink). Again. Be respectful.
Note: This is an encore post from 2016.
Somebody bought a ticket for the July 29, 1939, midnight show at the Follies Theatre and got to see Betty Rowland, “the ball of fire.”
The ticket stub is listed on EBay for 99 cents. Continue reading
Everyone is in favor of motherhood, peace and traffic safety but strident voices are being raised over one phase of the crackdown on delinquent drivers.
Almost everyone goes along with DMV director Robert McCarthy’s campaign to protect the innocent from careless drivers by revoking the licenses of those who pile up too many
moving violations.
But now the insurance companies have gotten into the act. They are sending policyholders forms to fill out listing their accidents and moving violations for the last 24 months. It is
indicated that those who have sinned are going to have their rates raised. As a result, the squawks are reverberating.
The Almighty Dollar, that great object of universal devotion
— Washington Irving.
Sandra Gianoulis, 8, of Glendale, went to a drive-in theater last week with her mother.
They got there at 7:30. Sandra played for a while with her sister, Lynn, 7, in a recreation area on the premises. They returned to their mother’s car just before dusk.
However, a few minutes before the show was to start, the girls decided to go to the snack bar.
Lynn got out of the car first. Sandra followed, slamming the door behind her. Then, she screamed.
The middle finger of her left hand was caught in the closed door.
Quickly, her mother opened it, freeing the finger. It was bleeding badly. The tip was hanging loosely, not quite completely severed. Continue reading
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and appeared on the 1947project.
July 29 is Elizabeth Short’s birthday—she would have been 81. Although horoscopes were a regular feature in the Examiner in the 1940s, The Times didn’t begun running them until Jan. 8, 1951, when Carroll Richter’s Astrological Forecast appeared next to the weather report. The Times, however, was certainly in the vanguard in offering star charts for pets.
This week’s mystery movie was the 1939 Warner Bros. film The Old Maid, with Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, George Brent, Donald Crisp, Jane Bryan, Louise Fazenda, James Stephenson, Jerome Cowan, William Lundigan and Cecilia Loftus. Continue reading
Norvell and Hedy Lamarr in Screenland.
Note: This is an encore post from 2015.
Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines astrology as “the divination of the supposed influences of the stars and planets on human affairs and terrestrial events by their positions and aspects.” For thousands of years, practitioners of this pseudo-science have attracted legions of followers hoping to divine their futures. Those that more accurately predicted events rose to positions of great power and influence, like the renowned Nostradamus.
Astrologers have always been popular in the film and entertainment industries, fields where luck and timing often influences who will become big stars or successes. Many are superstitious, because their careers depend so much upon chance and their futures can be problematical. Many insecure or questioning performers often turned to these fortune tellers hoping to make the right decisions in shaping their careers or finding love and romance.
Mary Mallory’s “Hollywood land: Tales Lost and Found” is available for the Kindle.
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
July 28, 1907
Los Angeles
City officials, hampered by a bramble bush of old and unenforced laws, have appointed deputy prosecutor Eddie to prune back outdated and unnecessary regulations from the early days of Los Angeles.
Among the old regulations are bans on “rabbit coursing,” in which the animals were released to be chased down by dogs; bear baiting (an event dating to the days of Shakespeare involving a fight to the death between a chained bear and dogs); fighting between a bull and bear that were chained together; and cockfighting on public streets.
July 27, 1960: Eisenhower motorcade / Los Angeles Times file photo
President Eisenhower covers his head under a storm of confetti as he arrives in Chicago to address the Republican National Convention.
| July 27, 1960: Vice President Richard Nixon wins some – but not all – of what he wants on a civil rights plank for his 1960 presidential campaign.Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater says: “If a liberal civil rights plank is adopted, the South will leave the party this year. I don’t know what Nixon is thinking of. I don’t think he can get elected if he keeps on doing what he is doing.”
On the jump, the entire text of the Republicans’ revised civil rights statement, photos, and analysis by Times Political Editor Kyle Palmer and James Reston of the New York Times. |
| July 26, 1960: Is the standing ovation really necessary? Most of the time, it’s not, Matt Weinstock says.
CONFIDENTIAL TO SORRY SARI: Next time a fellow asks you up to see his etchings, skip the art and look for the handwriting on the wall, Abby says. |
This is a very unlikely story about a minister whom everybody feared.
He was a kind, friendly man — a dedicated worker for his church. In fact, his dedication was so great that he spent 31 years as a missionary in Burma.
But that’s not where his story begins. The people in Burma trusted and loved him.
It wasn’t until after he came back to the United States, to the community of Glendale, in 1946, that he became a victim of man’s ignorance and superstition and fear.
In one terrifying day, about a year after his return here, he was forced to get out of his home, resign his job as director of missions for his church, and head for the state line as fast as he could.
His alternative was to wait for the authorities to come knocking on his front door to lead him off and lock him up.
The reason for his flight was a small red spot which appeared days earlier on his ankle. Continue reading
If the situation in Cuba seems chaotic, let writer Malvin Wald fill you in on some details. He has just returned from five weeks in Havana getting material for a film about Fidel Castro.
One time he and director Dick Wilson had a dinner date with the director of prisons. He didn’t show and next day he phoned to apologize. There had been a riot in the prison requiring his prior attention.
Another time they had an appointment with Castro. After waiting several hours they were told he couldn’t make it because of a sudden crisis. His air force chief had resigned and was believed to have fled the country.
Then there was the case of the traffic officer who gave the prime minister a ticket. Instead of being angry, Fidel praised him for his dedication to duty and the conscientious cop became a front-page hero for a day.
As a result all Havana policemen are on the alert for Castro’s blue Mercedes, hoping his driver will run a red light or park in a prohibited zone so they can give him a ticket and become heroes, too. Continue reading
Note: This is an encore post from 2014.
“Here’s a good spot to shoot, baby” are the probably the last words spoken by William B. Smith, 39, a dental technician (or a shipyard worker, depending on the story) who was confronted by his angry girlfriend, waitress Mildred Cook, 30, after he told her that he was reconciling with his wife, according to a Times story.
Press Release) “Jack Paar says in the current issue of Look magazine that his wife, Miriam, is sexy –‘in a Republican sort of way’.” (signed)
Publicity Dept., Look magazine, New York City.
—Well, you know how it is, Jack. Politics makes strange bedfellows.
::
“Dear Mr. Coates:” I know a teen-age girl who has trained a beautiful blue parakeet to talk
very plainly. This bird could make a wonderful show bird.
“The girl plays the accordion herself and has been on Mr. and Mrs. Bob Yeakel’s Rocket to Stardom. ” One day this parakeet flew out of the door, so her grandmother advertised
in the Pasadena paper, and it was returned by a couple who said the bird also spoke to them.
The Plaza in a 1940s postcard.
From El Pueblo’s beginnings, ethnic and cultural diversity has enriched the population of what became Los Angeles. Multiple immigrant communities searching for a better way of life put down roots, providing a rich tapestry of foods, arts, music, and ideas, the lifeblood of our community. This blending of languages and cultures gave Los Angeles heart, character, and roots. The Plaza at its heart became a city gathering place. It hosted speakers and musicians chronicling the city and its politics as the early community’s free speech area, and then later saw officials round up people to repatriate to Mexico. More than 90 years later, protests over the seizure of immigrants and resident citizens took place in and around El Pueblo, reechoing the past.
Forty four hardy pioneers – Spanish, Natives, Africans, and mixed race colonists – walked six miles from the San Gabriel Mission to establish El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula September 4, 1781 on land actually belonging to Tongva and Gabrielino tribes but under the control of Spain. These new settlers brought courage and determination into developing and growing a thriving settlement. Their successful cultivation of grapes and other crops demonstrated the richness of the land, eventually luring other adventurers westward. Little did this small band of pilgrims realize they were planting the seed out of which a mighty and culturally diverse city would grow. Continue reading
Two years ago, against the same backdrop of beauty and ballyhoo as emanates presently from Long Beach, Leona Gage, Miss Maryland, was acclaimed Miss U.S.A. At her moment of triumph, as she prepared to compete for the Miss Universe title, it was revealed she was married and the mother of two children. Her husband had talked in a bar in Baltimore.
Leona first denied, then admitted, it was true. There followed an unprecedented uproar in which horrified pageant officials gave off wild double talk. It was as though she had committed a capital crime. All she had done was reach for the big break a pretty girl knows she needs to get anywhere in the tough entertainment business. In the end she was
disqualified and sent packing.
But life was not too grim for tearful Leona. She virtually had to run from Ed Sullivan’s program to Steve Allen’s show one Sunday. Then there was the showgirl job in Las Vegas. After that, nothing. Continue reading
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
Her name was Vesta Belle and she was 17, an honor student at Jefferson High, a mile and a half from her home at 5320 Holmes Ave. You might think she got her name in the paper for earning a scholarship or receiving an academic award.
Instead, her 14-year-old brother, Carlisle, came home from a playground and found Vesta Belle Sapenter’s body in her bedroom. She was partially undressed and had been strangled with a thin hemp cord. With so many murders of women in Los Angeles, you might expect The Times to give it decent play, but Vesta Belle got two paragraphs on Page 8. Just enough to give a few details and that fact that she was black.
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
July 24, 1907
Los Angeles
On a speaking tour of America, former Columbia professor James H. Hyslop is trying to raise interest in a scientific approach to psychic research while deflating the fabulous claims of mediums and other fakers.
“There is so much fraud in connection with the physical demonstrations, said Dr. Hyslop, that much time would be wasted in making the investigation,” The Times said. “To see a table get up and prance across the floor doesn’t prove anything in connection with a future life.”
Continue reading
On the final day of May, 1954, I had an appointment to meet a wiry little Italian immigrant by the name of Simon Rodia.
Rodia, then 76 years old, was to appear on my television program, to explain why he had devoted 33 years of his life to the construction of some fantastic towers on a small piece of property he owned in the Watts section of Los Angeles.
The reason he gave, on the rare occasions when he chose to speak, was: “All my life, I had in my mind to do something big. That’s why I did it.” He never, to my knowledge, elaborated very much on that statement. And I guess that — except to a nosy reporter or a probing psychiatrist — it was an adequate answer. Continue reading
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