Council Studies Parking Bans

Posted on January 22, 2010 by lmharnisch

 Jan. 22, 1920, Thorkildsen

Mr. Thorkildsen answers the telephone in the nude.

Jan. 22, 1920, Traffic
Jan. 22, 1920, Traffic  

Jan. 22, 1920: Ninety years ago, the City Council was studying a proposal for no parking zones to ease bad traffic that was impeding streetcar service in downtown Los Angeles.  I can’t say it often enough: Traffic congestion in Los Angeles is not new. It is more than 100 years old.

Posted in Freeways, Transportation | 1 Comment

Officials Honor Louis Paulhan

Posted on January 22, 2010 by lmharnisch
Jan. 22, 1910, Paulhan 
 

After a boat trip to Santa Catalina Island, Louis Paulhan says he hopes to fly there the next time.

Jan. 22, 1910, Molester

 
Jan. 22, 1910: Child molester Edward Powelson thanks the judge for sentencing him to 180 days for vagrancy. "Judge, there is something wrong with my head," he says. "I ask no mercy. I think a term in jail will do me good. I do these things whenever I take a drink. I have known when sober that I would be caught some time. Time and again I have resolved to quit drinking but couldn't stay away from liquor. I think a jail sentence will help me reform."

Posted in #courts, Transportation, travel | Comments Off on Officials Honor Louis Paulhan

Matt Weinstock, Jan. 21, 1960

Posted on January 21, 2010 by lmharnisch
 
Jan. 21, 1960, Peanuts
Jan. 21, 1960, Peanuts

Dead: One Subscription

         

Matt Weinstock     About a year ago Don Hoster, the quixotic photographer, joined a record club.  He was a good kid about it.  He bought the required number of albums and paid for them.

    But about six months ago he lost interest.  When a card came announcing the selection for the month he marked an “X” in the designated place to indicate he didn’t want it and send it off.  He also wrote on the cards, “Cancel subscription.”

    But the cards kept coming and a few days ago, to his chagrin, he received a record he hadn’t ordered.  He took it to the post office and said he wanted it returned.

    “Is this you?” the clerk asked, pointing to his name.

    “No, the guy died,” Don said.  “Put a Deceased stamp on it and send it back.”

    The inspiration came to him while he was down for a week with the flu.  For a time he felt as if he weren’t kidding.  So far no reaction.

::

image     SPEAKING OF the flu, as who isn’t, a man named Mike tells of his lowest moment while home in bed with it.

    He burned with fever, he chattered with chills, he coughed like Camille in her death agony.  Fascinated by these histrionics, his dog, a semi-dachshund called FN (for Fat Nose), jumped on the bed and peered intently at him with wrinkled brow.

    At this point, Mike’s wife, Ruby, came in.  Did she ask how he felt, if he were still weak, what his temperature was?  Nope.  She yelled at FN, “Get off that bed! Do you want to get distemper?”

::

        FILL IN NAME

The delegate was charming,

World peace was his intent.

His manner was disarming,

But not his government.

                –WALTER SPATZ

::

    ONLY IN L.A.  — Four odd looking metal boxes with file cabinet-type drawers, unidentified on the invoice, were received with a shipment of other stuff at a chain drugstore and a lady clerk, presumably with a  shrug, put them out for sale, pricing them at $1.95 each.  They were quickly snapped up by customers.  She has just learned they were to be used to dispense blue chip trading stamps.

::

    FOR HIS ROLE in “Walk Like a Dragon,” a tale of early California, James Shigeta, born in Hawaii of Japanese ancestry, has had to learn Chinese and he is being coached by actor Benson Fong.

    The other day Shigeta said he was having difficulty with the language and Fong retorted, “Now you know how I felt, playing villainous Japanese fliers or soldiers in 25 or 30 pictures and always getting shot down or killed.”

    Incidentally, the boys at Paramount are calling the movie a “Chinese western” and Shigeta tells friends he hopes to become the fastest gun in the east.

::

    PUBLIC AT LARGE — As if it isn’t tough enough to pick a winner at the race track, a jockey told writer Martin Mooney in a barbershop that 11 horses in Santa Anita wear contact lenses because of eye defects or to prevent them from veering out . . . Anyone else besides Hatton-Hulett catch up with the fact that the Hilton hotel clan is in back of both the credit card outfit Carte Blanche and the pro football L.A. Chargers?

::

    AT RANDOM — A telephone caller asked for the extension number of Among Ourselves, this paper’s employee publication, and the busy switchboard operator, to verify, asked, “Are you calling Among Ourselves?”  “No,” was the reply, “I’m calling from outside.”  Happens all the time . .
. Expediency note:  A long black old Cadillac hearse on Manchester Ave. near Playa del Rey, Jack Tobin reports, had six paddleboards and three youths inside, three other youths in the driver’s seat . . .  A new book by Cyril Pearl is titled “The Girl With the Swansdown Seat.”  All about Catherine Walter, a naughty lady known as “Skittles” who consorted with royalty in Victorian England.  Swansdown Seat? . . . Teenagers’ definition of a spinster — a female disc jockey.

 Jan. 21, 1960, Abby

Posted in Columnists, Matt Weinstock | Comments Off on Matt Weinstock, Jan. 21, 1960

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Jan. 21, 1960

Posted on January 21, 2010 by lmharnisch
Jan. 21, 1960, Mirror Cover

A Little Story with a Big Schnozzola

Paul Coates    Some newspaper reporters are frantic.  They run around chasing the big story all the time.

    But I’m too old for that.  What I do, I run around chasing little stories.  They’re easier to catch.  And when you boil them all down, they’ve got just as much heart as some of those front page scoops that Steve Wilson holds up the presses to rush into print.

    A few weeks ago, for example, I got a tip from Memphis Harry Lee Ward, the Hollywood literary critic whose hobby is selling newspapers, that there’s a man loose in town who thinks he’s De Gaulle.
    Steve Wilson, who’s let all his big exclusives go to his head anyway, would probably have passed up a tip like that.  But not me.  I started digging.
    Yesterday, my dogged efforts paid off. 
    I was patrolling Vine St. when I spotted a man answering the description which Memphis Harry had supplied me.
Jan. 21, 1960, Davis      He was about 6 ft. 3 in. tall, and straight as an arrow.  He was wearing a straw, long-billed Foreign Legion cap and a three-quarter length French coat.  And he had a nose.  I mean, like, it was a nose!
    I studied the man for a moment, then stepped casually to his side. 

    “De Gaulle?” I hissed quietly, trying not to attract a crowd.

    The man jumped back, like he’d been shot.  He glared down at me around both sides of his nose.  Then he cried out, “You, too?"
    Gesturing wildly with his long arms, he shouted, “What’s the matter with you?” All of you!  Why does everybody think I’m De Gaulle?"
    “I’m sorry,” I apologized quickly.  “But I thought you thought . . . "
    “That I look like De Gaulle,” he finished.  “I know.  Everybody thinks that I think that I look like De Gaulle.  But they’re wrong.  They’re the ones who think so.  ‘Eddie Davis,’ they say, ‘you look like Charles de Gaulle.’
image    “Why,” he demanded, “doesn’t somebody say. ‘Charles de Gaulle, you look like Eddie Davis’?”
     A crowd was gathering so I grabbed Davis by the arm of his three-quarter length French coat and led him down the street.
    “I’m really very sorry-“I started.   
    “That’s all right,” he cut me off.  “The thing that bothers me is that I’m only 31 years old and he’s over 70.  I’ve got nothing against the man personally, understand.  He’s probably a very pleasant individual.  He’s a big man in France, they say.
    “After all,” he added, nudging me in the rib cage, “50,000 Frenchmen can’t be wrong.”
    “Ummm,” I agreed.
    “It’s just that I’m an electrician.  I do a lot of work at the studios.  And there, nobody even knows my name is Davis.  They all say, ‘De Gaulle, do this, De Gaulle, do that, De Gaulle, strike your arcs.’
    “Deborah Kerr calls me De Gaulle.  So does Joseph Cotton.  Only Darryl Zanuck shows any compassion.  He calls me De Gaulle Jr.”
    “He must be a nice man,” I agreed.”  “But, actually, being mistaken for Gen. de Gaulle-“
    “President De Gaulle,” he corrected crisply.  “But you see, I came to Hollywood hoping to make it as an actor.  In the East, I’d done summer stock and some television commercials.  But out here, I’m type-cast.  Unless there’s a part for De Gaulle in the picture, nobody wants me.
    “I’ve been singing Jolson for years,” he continued.  “I’m great.  The best Jolson man in the country.
    “But how would it look,” he asked plaintively, “De Gaulle singing ‘Mammy’?”
Cherchez La Schnoz

    He stopped for a moment and looked at me intensely.  “I’ve got a real dilemma.  I’ve been thinking about getting a nose job.  If I do,then people will stop bothering me. 
    “But with my luck, as soon as I do, Sam Katzman will decide to make De Gaulle’s life story.”
    “Well, Eddie,” I said philosophically, “c’est la vie.”
    He shrugged agreeably.  Murmuring “Au voir” and kissing me on both cheeks, he disappeared down the Rue de la Vine.
Posted in Columnists, Paul Coates | Comments Off on Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Jan. 21, 1960

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Posted on January 21, 2010 by lmharnisch
Jan. 21, 1959, Hedda Hopper 

Jan. 21, 1959 – I think this is the most vitriolic Hedda Hopper column I’ve found so far: “It took some scratching and digging on my part, but I finally learned why Charlie Chaplin settled tax problem — so he could show the anti-American film he made in England to some Chaplin loving citizens of America. While he was still in debt to Uncle Sam he couldn't release it here. Cute, isn't it?

“Our Commie writers are now coming out of their hiding places to accept Oscars, yet most of them kept on writing during the war years and afterward under assumed names. When I charged a prominent producer of hiring a Commie, he replied: 'Why not, I'd hire the devil himself if he could turn in a good script.' With the message, I suppose, that hell is more exciting than heaven.”

Remember that in 1940, Hopper was still writing positively about Chaplin.

Posted in Columnists, Film, Hollywood | 1 Comment

Trial Takes Its Toll

Posted on January 21, 2010 by lmharnisch
 
Jan. 21, 1960, Carole Tregoff 
 
lee_belserJan. 21, 1960: The Mirror's Lee Belser, at right with Otto the clown in a 1958 photo, takes a savage look at how Carole Tregoff’s appearance has changed since she was arrested in the Finch murder case. She said: “In days gone by Carole's figure would have stopped the Super Chief. Today it wouldn't halt a vegetable truck.”

Belser wrote: "Each day Carole plods into the courtroom like a plump matron on her way to the grocery store. Her face is devoid of artifice and usually is totally expressionless, like a perpetual bus passenger traveling wearily from work to her Canoga Park home."

Posted in #courts, Homicide | 1 Comment

Finch Defense Attacks Murder for Hire Plot

Posted on January 21, 2010 by lmharnisch
Jan. 21, 1960, Finch Trial

Jan. 21, 1960, Finch Trial 

Jan. 21, 1960, Finch Trial

Jan. 21, 1960, Finch Trial
Jan. 21, 1960, Finch Trial

Jan. 21, 1960, Eisenhower

Sen. Everett Dirksen (R-Ill.) praises President Eisenhower on the anniversary of his first inauguration, saying that Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon had brought to the country a "deeply inspired" administration "that had reversed the course of government intrusion into the private lives of Americans."  Dirksen also noted the end of the Korean war and added that during Eisenhower's term, "no American young men have left their life's blood on some foreign battlefield."
Jan. 21, 1960: The defense in the trial of Carole Tregoff and Dr. R. Bernard Finch says that they weren’t trying to arrange a murder for hire, but were attempting to set up a compromising situation with Finch’s wife that would aid divorce proceedings.

Posted in #courts, Homicide | Comments Off on Finch Defense Attacks Murder for Hire Plot

Wife Sues ‘Lounge Lizard’

Posted on January 21, 2010 by lmharnisch
 Jan. 21, 1920, Briggs
“Papa’s Return,” by Clare Briggs.

Jan. 21, 1920, Lounge Lizard 
 
Jan. 21, 1920: Stanley Carr was “just an ordinary lounge lizard,” Dora Monte testifies in a hearing to have his marriage annulled. “He had absolutely no ambition except to have a good time. He is an expert fox trotter. When he wants anything he is nice but having got it, he can be mean, nasty and selfish when aroused.”

Carr, who had a guardian appointed for him because he was a minor, also likes to  take out “wild women,” Monte says.

Posted in #courts, Comics | Comments Off on Wife Sues ‘Lounge Lizard’

Final Cheers for Aviators

Posted on January 21, 2010 by lmharnisch

 image

On the final day of the Aviation Meet, promoters staged a tableau of transportation that included an airplane and Ezra Meeker’s wagon, drawn by oxen.

Jan. 21. 1910, Aviation Meet

 Jan. 21, 1910, Aviation Meet

In the twilight of the last day, balloonists set an altitude record of 11,000 feet, and come crashing down in Hollywood, knocking off the chimney of the Luther M. Ober home near what is now Virginia Avenue and St. Andrews Place. With the basket of the balloon hanging on the side of the house, the two passengers climbed into the home through a second-story window.

Jan. 21, 1910 — The Times says: "America's first aviation meet closed with a grand flourish yesterday. The wrecking crews will probably start tearing down the tribunes today and the great open-air theater will resume operations as a placid barley field.

"The success of the meeting has amazed even the businessmen by whom it was instigated. Showmen consider it astonishing that a city no larger than Los Angeles could supply a continuous succession of audiences running into tens of thousands daily."

The Times added: "One of the most significant events of the meet was an accident that occurred high in the air yesterday. The whole world has been asking the question, 'What would happen if an engine broke down?' Aviator Hamilton showed that nothing would happen except that the flying machine would glide gently to the ground."

Posted in Hollywood, Transportation | Comments Off on Final Cheers for Aviators

Matt Weinstock, Jan. 20, 1960

Posted on January 20, 2010 by lmharnisch

 Jan. 20, 1960, Bible Park

Nobody's Home

Matt Weinstock

    A lady I know received two warning calls in quick succession the other day from neighbors.  Their breathlessness message: "Don't answer the door — the tax assessor's on the way to your house!"  The second neighbor confided, "I haven't let her in for four years, ever since we had only two rooms furnished."

    When the doorbell rang, the lady I know welcomed the tax assessor and offered her coffee, which was gratefully accepted.  It was cold outside.

    She also showed the assessor through the house, explaining about the furnishings and appliances.  She felt she had nothing to hide.

    In the course of a  friendly conversation the tax lady admitted her task had certain problems.

Jan. 20, 1960, Bible Park    "You know, it's a strange thing," she said with a wicked smile, "but hardly anyone is ever home!"

    These are the conditions which prevail. 

::

     INFORMATION on the outside world comes hard to some youngsters, wrapped up in their own little realm. 

    Singer David Allen was in a record shop when a youth in a black leather jacket asked the clerk, "You ever hear of Rodgers and Hammerstein?"  The clerk said he certainly had, they were famous.

    "What are they," the youth pursued irritably, "old or something?"

::


    A CUSTOMER in Al and Bess DeMar's lunchroom in San Gabriel said the reason he hadn't been around a for a while was that his wife had died and he'd been overwhelmed with funeral arrangements and other details.

    "Don't ever die," he sighed wearily, "it's a headache!"

::

    HONESTY
I've never taken payola,
And quiz probers haven't
    unmasked me.
I have  a clean,
    incorruptible soul,
That is to say-
    no one has asked me.
        –PEARL ROWE
Jan. 20, 1960

::

    SEISMOLOGISTS say earthquakes cannot be forecast, but Mort Dank, CBS radio news editor in New York, pays no attention.  His avocation is predicting violent acts of nature and he has an amazing record.  He called the recent Yellowstone Park quake, the volcanic eruption in Hawaii and last week's quakes in Tokyo and Peru.  Monday he alerted station KNX here that he anticipates an earthquake, "A good jolt with minor damage," in Southern California within two weeks or "perhaps sooner."

    All we can do is wait and see.  But remember, sonic booms don't count.

::


    IT IS publicist Gene Schwam's theory that the flu virus is spread by the telephone, which is no more fantastic than any other.  Invariably, he points out, a person who comes down with a headache, stomach ache, or whatnot, promptly phones his friends to tell them about it and they get it.  Meanwhile, back in the February Esquire, there's a cartoon showing a  doctor saying jubilantly to a patient in bed, "It's a pleasure to see an old-fashioned case of the grippe again!"

    ::

     ONLY IN ANAHEIM — Mrs. Berta P. Chenoweth recently drove  a group of junior high school girls to Disneyland.  En route they broke into song and she heard these new words to an old favorite: "Row, row, row your boat underneath the stream! Hah, hah, we fooled you — we're in a submarine!"

::


    SPEAKING OF parodies, I keep remembering Art Carney's haunting portrayal of a lonely man in Saturday's TV play "Call Me Back," and the whimsical, alcohol-inspired tune he sang in between phone calls, "World War Two, eyes of blue, so are you."

::

    MISCELLANY — Big uproar in sedate Brentwood.  When an oil company was given a permit to drill on the Brentwood Country Club grounds, nearby residents were assured there would be no mess.  Now poles supplying power for the drilling have been placed in front of homes ACROSS the street from the club.   The Brentwood Spectator states, "Once the permit was granted, all promises were cast aside" . . . G.B. sees only logical final step to the trading stamp frenzy, a sign, "We give blue stamps for green and vice versa."

    Jan. 20, 1960, Abby
   

    

 

 

   

 

 

 

   
   

 
Posted in #courts, Columnists, Homicide, Matt Weinstock, Religion | Comments Off on Matt Weinstock, Jan. 20, 1960

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Jan. 20, 1960

Posted on January 20, 2010 by lmharnisch
Jan. 20, 1960, Mirror

[Note: You may remember reading about Glynn Wolfe in regard to the Black Dahlia case—lrh]

Dames Cheaper in Dozen Lots?

Paul Coates    He was a farm-boy, and she was a farm-girl, and they were 18.  And it was that time of year.

    So hand in hand, they skipped over the green Indiana hillsides to the country courthouse and got hitched.

    And they stayed that way for two years.  Then, she divorced him.

    The following week, undismayed, he found himself another little farm-girl and led her to the altar.  But that was one of those rebound affairs and it lasted only a month.

    A few months later, however, true love came knocking on the farm-boy's door.  She was another nice blossoming country girl — just his type.

    And the marriage might have worked if the blushing bride's mother hadn't come knocking, too, and dragged her daughter home.  By this time, the lovesick farm-boy had a  reputation.

    In fact, when he and No.3 went before the judge for a divorce, the stern old man on the bench accused him of giving the whole community a bad name.

Jan. 20, 1960, Finch Case     "Keep behaving this way and we folk here can get along fine without you," His Honor added.  "What you ought to do — you ought to go to Hollywood. Nobody'll notice you out there."

    The farm-boy had been brought up to respect the advice of his elders, so as soon as the harvest season was over, he took the judge's advice.  He headed for Hollywood.  (He did pause long enough, however, to marry another farm-girl who had caught his fancy.  He took her along.)

    And until this week, the judge's words proved pure wisdom.  Ex-farm-boy Glynn Wolfe kept marrying and divorcing and nobody paid any attention.

    Then, last Monday, he was wandering about Civic Center with ex-wives 8, 10, 11 and 12 in tow, when a reporter new to the Hollywood beat saw a glimmer of a story in Wolfe's busy career at the altar.

    It was duly recorded in yesterday's press that Wolfe, now a successful 46-year-old hotel man, has been through 12 wives and is still quite fond of all of them.

    And the fact that four of them, all young and pretty, still live in his hostelry and tag after him calling him "Daddy" left me gasping.

    I called him yesterday for  a detail or two.  He said he'd drop by.  He, plus a blond cluster made up of Nos. 8, 10, 11 and 12, did, about mid-afternoon.

    "What's new?" I asked casually, breaking the ice.

    Wolfe leaned back in his chair, surveyed his flock and lifted the eyebrow over one of his sleepy Indiana eyes.  He looked like  a comfortable combination of Herb Shriner, Tommy Manville and the Maharajah of Cooch-Behar.

    "I kinda feel," he began slowly, "That I've had this tough run of luck in my marrying because I just can't keep up with these young girls."

    The girls tittered in chorus.

    "They like to go out nightclubbing, see the shows," he continued.  "Me? I'm still a farm-boy.  Up at 6.  In bed by 8.  They don't like that.  They fight you — these teenagers."

    "Then why is it," I asked (somewhat naively, I thought later), "that you always seem to marry 18-19-20-year-olds?"

    "Older women are too set in their ways," he answered, stifling a yawn.  "I like them young and off the farm.  That's a good combination if you don't get them riled up.

    "That," he said, "was pretty embarrassing for me.  But now, we get along just fine."

    All of his ex-wives, Wolfe pointed out proudly, have free lifetime boarding privileges at his 200-room hotel.

Jan. 20, 1960, Kookie     "Some of them got their mothers there, their kids.  Why, they practically take up half the hotel," he said.

    "Are your parents still living?" I asked.  "What do they think about all your wives?"

Seragliomeister Emeritus

    "They're still farming back in Indiana," he answered.  "When I call Dad up now and then and tell him I've done it again, he just says, 'Son, don't do anything that money won't buy you out of.'

    "I don't.  Not one of the dozen gets alimony.  We always part happy, don't we, girls?"

    Nos. 8, 10, 11 and 12 nodded, smiling.  Then Wolfe stood up, stretched, and yawned again.  "Well, been nice chatting with you.  Come on, girls, time we got ourselves something to eat."

    "All right, Daddy," a couple of them replied.  One by one, they filed out of the room, at a respectable distance behind the slow-walking, slow-talking Indiana pasha.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Jan. 20, 1960

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Posted on January 20, 2010 by lmharnisch
Jan. 20, 1958, Hedda Hopper 
Jan. 20, 1958: Hedda Hopper says John Wayne’s next movie will be a western called “Warlock.” Well, not quite. It actually stars Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda and Anthony Quinn.

Posted in Columnists, Film, Hollywood | Comments Off on A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Man Says Woman Paid Him to Kill Lover’s Wife

Posted on January 20, 2010 by lmharnisch

1960_0120_times_cover

Jan. 20, 1960, Finch Trial

The killer was supposed to say: “Tell her this is from Bernie!”

Jan. 20, 1960, Finch Trial
The witness said he was “drinking heavily that day.”

Jan. 20, 1960: “A suave and smooth-talking convict testified yesterday that Carole Tregoff hired him to kill Mrs. Barbara Jean Finch for $1,400, that she was 'happy' when he pretended he had done so and that he futilely tried to talk her and Dr. R. Bernard Finch out of going through with the scheme.“

Posted in #courts, Homicide | Comments Off on Man Says Woman Paid Him to Kill Lover’s Wife

Nuestro Pueblo

Posted on January 20, 2010 by lmharnisch
 Sept. 19, 1938, Nuestro Pueblo

 
Sept. 19, 1938: Joe Seewerker and Charles Owens visit 211 W. 2nd St., close to home!

Note: The original run of Nuestro Pueblo concluded in 1939. I’m picking up entries that I missed the first time around.

Posted in Architecture, art and artists, Downtown, Food and Drink, LAPD, Nuestro Pueblo | Comments Off on Nuestro Pueblo

35,000 Gallons of Wine Dumped in Sewer

Posted on January 20, 2010 by lmharnisch

Jan. 20, 1920, Briggs

“Somebody Is Always Taking the Joy Out of Life,” by Clare Briggs.

Jan. 20, 1920, Prohibition

Jan. 20, 1920:  U.S. revenue officers pour 35,000 gallons of wine – the entire stock of the North Cucamonga Winery — into the sewer to enforce new Prohibition laws. The Times notes that certain “thirsty” African Americans, Mexicans and newsboys dipped into the street to get some.

Posted in #courts, Comics, Food and Drink | Comments Off on 35,000 Gallons of Wine Dumped in Sewer

The God of War Takes to the Air

Posted on January 20, 2010 by lmharnisch

image

Men on horseback watch Glenn Curtiss take off.

Jan. 20, 1910, Aviation Meet

A deputy on horseback acts as a judge on the race course, making sure that fliers go around one of the pylons.

Jan. 20, 1910, Aviation Meet

image

Aviation Week inspired several topical ads, including one for pianos, above, and for film developing, below. 

image

Jan. 20, 1910, Aviation Meet

Jan. 20, 1910, Aviation Meet

Jan. 20, 1910: Riding as a passenger in Louis Paulhan's plane, Army Lt. Paul Beck drops bags of sand in an attempt to hit a paper target on the ground. "It was the raising of the curtain on the war drama of tomorrow," The Times says.

Beck and Paulhan made three passes, but it's a bit difficult to interpret the results. "Beck threw bomb [illegible, possibly 68] feet over the square; second lap, Paulhan threw bomb 115 feet over square; third lap, Beck threw bomb on a line with square. "

Posted in Transportation | Comments Off on The God of War Takes to the Air

Found on EBay – Santa Fe Station

Posted on January 19, 2010 by lmharnisch

Santa Fe Station This postcard showing the Santa Fe railroad station, which was superseded by the opening of Union Station in 1939, has been listed on EBay. Bidding starts at $4.95.
Posted in Architecture, Transportation, travel | Comments Off on Found on EBay – Santa Fe Station

Matt Weinstock, Jan. 19, 1960

Posted on January 19, 2010 by lmharnisch
  Jan. 19, 1960, Thud

Mass Hysteria

Matt Weinstock     No one knows how it started but one day last week the rumor swept through an L.A. junior high school that the Russians were going to drop an atom bomb on the city at noon.
   
    Probably some youngster remarked mischievously, "Wouldn't it be funny if the Russians dropped a bomb on us?" and another overheard it and repeated it as fact.

    In any event, the rumor,  embellished by impressionable and imaginative youngsters, spread like a bushfire in a wind.  Soon the story was that the report had been heard on the radio.  As the morning progressed, mounting terror gripped the pupils.

   TEACHERS, confronted with mass hysteria, said it was nonsense and tried to reason with the children.  They pointed out it was necessary to evaluate what they heard, not to accept things blindly.  Besides, they said, it wasn't likely the Russians would announce it in advance if they were about to bomb us.

Jan. 19, 1960, Rounder     But some youngsters were not to be consoled.  Half kidding, they said to each other, "Well if I never see you again, it's been wonderful!"

    As the clocks reached 11:59 a.m. many were prepared to die.  When 12:01 p.m. came they realized they'd been victims of their ridiculous fears.  But hours later, when they arrived home, many pupils were still shaken.

    A parent, learning of the hysteria from his daughter, recalled an exercise in transmission from his Army basic training.  Twenty or 30 soldiers were lined up and an officer whispered a message to the man next in line.  By the time the message reached the soldier at the other end it had little resemblance to the original. 

    This parent finds it frightening that normal youngsters can so easily be reduced to near panic.

::


    TWO OLDSTERS in the County Museum's Hancock Hall of La Brea Fossils (known familiarly as "the bone room") stood gazing incredulously at the enormous skeleton of the imperial mammoth as Bob Wade of the museum staff strolled by . . .

    "Isn't that something!" one exclaimed.

    "It sure is," the other says, "especially when you think it was all carved out of wood!"

    Wade, thinking of the years of effort and skill required to dig up the skeleton from La Brea pits and to assemble the fossil bones, was tempted to comment, "And out of one piece, too!"  But he didn't.

::

    THERE'S A first time for everything and yesterday I  had my first taste of haggis, Scotland's national dish.  It isn't as awful as you might have heard.  Tastes something like hot chopped liver.  The ingredients include sheep's "heart, liver, lungs, etc." called the "pluck," which, minced, seasoned and mixed with oatmeal comes encased in sheep's stomach, called the "paunch."  I'll confess that "etc." bothered me a little.

    The haggis was served by Laurie Priesack, head of the British Travel Association on S Hill St., to commemorate the 201st anniversary Jan. 25 of the birthday of Robert Burns, who once wrote an "Ode to a Haggis."  Mr.Priesack , a distinguished looking gentleman, wore kilts and poured Scotch whiskey without which, he assured the press, no haggis is complete.  A hardy bunch, those Scots.

::

    STALEMATE
With cheering letters in the
    mail
Proposing that I buy on
    sale
Are sterner notes advising
    not
Until I pay for what I've
    got.
        –SHELDON WHITE

::


    AT RANDOM — The Congressional Record for Jan. 13 has a long report on price support loans to big cotton farmers, listing scores of recipients mostly in Ariz. and Cal.  Among them is Rancho Poco Dinero , Blythe, Cal., $13,068.36 . . . During the last rain a youth wearing a black rubber skin-diving suit was standing at Pacific Coast Highway and Sunset Blvd., thumbing a ride . . . Biggest problem facing newcomers to L.A., G.B. says, is whether to separate the metal top from the cottage cheese cardboard container for the can and rubbish collectors.

 
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Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Jan. 19, 1960

Posted on January 19, 2010 by lmharnisch

 Jan. 19, 1960, Mirror

Son's Not Quite Like Dad, but He's a Todd

Paul Coates    Hollywood, U.S.A. — The shadow of a showman slipped into town this week.

    His name was Mike Todd, with a Jr. tacked on the end, and he came in on tiptoes like he was afraid everybody was asleep and shouldn't be disturbed.

    He had the trademark cigar.  He studied it and fingered it and inhaled it with taught dexterity.  With it, he was a mimic unaware.

    His suit — navy blue — was once his father's, too.

    But behind the cigar and under the suit there was no more showman Mike Todd to be found.

    If there had been — you can be sure — his arrival would have been heralded.  It would have been recorded on Page 1.  With a picture.

    But Mike Todd Jr. has neither the drive nor the desire to be news.  And you get the feeling that he's annoyed by any attempts to draw a comparison.

Jan. 19, 1960, Finch     We talked across a desk.

    "The cigars," he said, "are as close as our personalities coincide.  When I was a kid, Dad used to tell me that smoking cigarettes looked silly.  I never smoked cigarettes.  I've been smoking cigars since I was 21."

    Mike Todd Jr. is 30 years old.  Six years ago, he married, literally, the girl next door — the daughter of a successful building contractor.  The Todd Jrs. have three children. 

    "We lead a completely asocial life," he said.  "We never go out at all.  Maybe, four or five times a year.  That's it."

    That wasn't the way it was with his father.

    "No," Mike agreed, "he liked being with people.  I'm just not so crazy about it.  I get nervous."

    But the son of Mike Todd made it clear that personality differences weren't synonymous with personality clashes.

    "I hope that I can be half the father to my kids that he was to me," he continued.  "He never preached to me.  There was nothing heavy-handed.  Getting guidance from him was fun.

    "He never tried to cut out any career for me.  He let me decide."

    Mike Jr.'s choice was to follow his father.  He worked with him until the plane crash in March of 1958 took Todd's life.  The he continued on alone.  His first production, "Scent of Mystery," premieres here next Monday.

    "With my father, his work was his life.  Everything he did was centered around his work.  He was in love with it.

    "It's not that way with me.  It's not my life.  I do as little work as possible.  At home, in New York, I get to my office at 10:30 and usually I'm through by six.

    "We've got five fireplaces in our house and I like to sit in front of them.  We burn two cords of wood a year."

    "My father and I," he continued, "were more like brothers.  I was the conservative one.  In that respect, sometimes he was almost the youngster brother."

    He remembered his father — a man with a reputation for his ups and downs — as a man without a problem in the world.  "I never went wanting," he said.  "I guess that he made and lost a million more than once, but I never knew if he had $2,000,000 in the bank or if he owed $2,000,000.

    He recalled that his father was president of  a bricklayers college at the age of 16.  "He used to tell me about that," Mike said, "and about how the college folded after one semester after none of his students could get jobs as bricklayers."

Tales of a Gamboleer

    Eventually, Mike Todd told his son about all the wild gambles he took in business. 

    "Money," he said, "was no objective in Dad's life.  He had a fantastic imagination.  When he got an idea that he liked, he'd sink everything into it."

    "But you?" I asked.  "You don't operate that way.

    The son of Mike Todd shrugged.  "Everything I've got is tied up in 'Scent of Mystery.' It's a fun picture.  The people will love it.  Smell-O-Vision, Smells piped right into their seats.  Thirty-three of them."

    His smile was one I'd seen before.

    "Thirty-three," he repeated.  "Count 'em." 

    There might be a sequel to the Mike Todd story, after all.
   
Jan. 19, 1960, Abby 

 
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A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Posted on January 19, 2010 by lmharnisch
Jan. 19, 1957, Hedda Hopper 
Jan. 19, 1957: Hedda Hopper writes that Elvis Presley has "taken the entire top floor of the Knickerbocker Hotel to house himself and his pals he brought with him from Tennessee. I asked if there were any girls along. 'No — it's an all-stag affair.' " Presley was evidently working on “Loving You.”

Posted in Columnists, Film, Hollywood | Comments Off on A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist