Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ Premieres at the Sports Arena

 Feb. 9, 1980, Pink Floyd
Feb. 9, 1980, Pink Floyd 

Feb. 9, 1980: Robert Hilburn writes, “This production, which continues through Wednesday before moving to New York for its only other American staging, is more than just another night of rock 'n' roll. It's something the band's fans will long remember.'”

Posted in Music, Rock 'n' Roll | Comments Off on Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ Premieres at the Sports Arena

Finch Describes Other Affairs

July 21, 1959, Bernard Finch
Photograph by John Malmin / Los Angeles Times

July 21, 1959: Dr. R. Bernard Finch at the West Covina police station after being arrested.

image
Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial
Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial
Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial
Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial
Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial
Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial
Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial
Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial
Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial
Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 9, 1960, Black History Week

Negro History Week is Feb. 7-13.

Feb. 9, 1960: In addition to exhaustive coverage of the Finch trial, The Times publishes a descriptive sidebar on the regulars in the audience.

Posted in #courts, Homicide | 1 Comment

A Bungalow Above Broadway

Feb. 9, 1920, Briggs

“Wonder What a Candidate for the Third Degree Thinks About?” by Clare Briggs. [Briggs is referring to the Masons, in case you’re wondering].

Feb. 9, 1920, Bungalow
 Feb. 9, 1920, Walter P. Story 

 

Feb. 9, 1920: Walter P. Story has built a bungalow on top of his building at 6th Street and Broadway. “Mr. Story's friends who were yesterday treated to a preview of his new 'aerial' home pronounce it a gem of architecture and a worthy setting for Arabian Nights entertainment, such as might be born in the fancy of the Grand Caliph himself,” The Times says … And lawyers in the Mazdaznan case get into a courtroom fistfight!

Posted in #courts, Architecture, art and artists, Comics | Comments Off on A Bungalow Above Broadway

Through the Lens – Aviation Meet

Jan. 12, 1910, Aviation Meet  
Los Angeles Times file photo

Jan. 12, 1910, Louis Paulhan sets an altitude record.

Jan. 12, 1910, Aviation Meet
Los Angeles Times file photo

Jan. 12, 1910: Many photos from the Aviation Meet show a balloon advertising the Los Angeles Examiner. Someone at The Times retouched this image to remove the competitor’s name.

Posted in Photography, Transportation | 1 Comment

Matt Weinstock, Feb. 8, 1960

Feb. 8, 1960, Peanuts Feb. 8, 1960, Peanuts

Economics and Justice

Matt Weinstock     Eunice Carlisle happened to be in the courthouse on another matter a few days ago when Dr. R. Bernard Finch told all and she was unavoidably caught in the crush and excitement.  She also was appalled by the violent eagerness of people waiting in line to see the show.

    Later she read of the tremendous cost of the long trial and a nagging idea gripped her.  Why not hold such spectacles in the Sports Arena and charge administration and use the proceeds to ease the burden on beleaguered taxpayers?

    After all, she reasoned  people pay high prices to see events not half as exciting or suspenseful.  Furthermore, this is the real thing, not the rehearsed, contrived courtroom drama one sees on television. In fact, TV could be another source of revenue.  A sponsor would pay a fortune for such a spectacle as the Finch trial.

    It may seem unorthodox for the city and the county to go into the entertainment business but, things being what they are, she sees it as a move toward economic sanity.

Feb. 8, 1960, Dragna     You think Eunice is kidding?  She is, but on the square.

::


    THAT FAVORITE
subject of old-time residents, missed real estate opportunities, came up again the other day and George Watkins, who used to sell papers at Pico Blvd. and Georgia St.  in 1920 and is now a retired Motor Vehicle Department employee, recalled his father's near miss.

    When they came here in 1918 his father bought the southwest corner of Slauson and Western for $2,200 as an investment.  Three months later his father's brother advised him to get rid of it.   It was too far out, he said, and besides L.A. would always be a tourist town.  So George's father unloaded it, taking a $100 loss.

    George, by the way, is buying a desert lot.

::

    PAYING HOBBIES
One is making mosaic,
Another molds a base for
    lamps.
Most of us find these
    prosaic-
Feb. 8, 1960, Chessman We're collecting grocery
    stamps.
    JOSEPH P. KRENGEL

::


    THE BIG
up-the-sleeve laugh in the television business continues to be the ridiculous insistence by the moguls on purity and honesty, to the point that even those who have committed no sin are getting guilt complexes.

    "Any day now," a TV performer remarked, "we expect to be told that announcers who are not wearing their own hair and models who have artificial support must say so."

::


    A LADY WHO
doesn't approve of undue tampering with the language was distressed to find an ad for a  Hyperion Ave. market offering "4-legged fryers 49c lb."  She knew, of course, that no such freakishness was intended, that each fryer had its own two legs and two extra legs were included for customers who liked dark meat.  Nevertheless, she felt the word "legged" implied that all four were attached and this bothered her.  She phoned the public library and her opinion was supported.  So she called the butcher at the store and informed him that the ad was maligning his fryers.

    He said he had nothing to do with it but she noticed that the following week the ad still offered 4-legged fryers but in small print were the words "cut up."

::


    ASKED TO NAME
the continents on a geography test, Pamela Spain, 9, of Sepulveda, wrote North America, South America, Asia and the rest — but also "Los Angeles."  And you know what?  The teacher marked it wrong.

::


    AT RANDOM —
Fascinating fragment of conversation, one man to another, overheard by a  lady named Rosemary in the state museum in Exposition Park:  "That skirt fits like  a sweater!" . . . The way J.V. Ryan hears it, the monsoon in Rangoon is much worse in the afternoon.  My information is that this is true only when observed from the noon balloon to Rangoon . . . Inquiry by Fred Fox:  What do Hawaiians say now that this country is no longer "stateside?"  Let's call ourselves mainlanders.

Posted in Caryl Chessman, Columnists, Comics, Matt Weinstock | Comments Off on Matt Weinstock, Feb. 8, 1960

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Feb. 8, 1960

 
Feb. 8, 1960, Mirror Cover

Who Does He Think He Is — Grandpa?  

Paul Coates    Traditionally — or, at least, since the advent of the comic strip — the most maligned member of the American family unit is the mother-in-law.

    It is ritual in our native humor to caricature her as a huge-busted troublemaker with a built-in sneer who is meddlesome, argumentative and overprotective of her own offspring.

    To make her and her bustle the butt of such angry comedy is not only unfair, it isn't even accurate.

    Take my own mother-in-law, for instance.  (As a matter of fact, you wouldn't, would you?)

    Anyway, she has never said a word against me, to my face.  I've heard that she knocks me pretty good behind my back, but I attribute that to neighborhood gossip.  How, for example, could a man in my position believe the rumors that his own mother-in-law is telling people on the block that he'd still be a bum, if it wasn't that her daughter had nagged him on to greater things?

Feb. 8, 1960, Finch Trial     And then I offer you another woman who legally qualifies as a mother-in-law.  My own, dear, sweet, white-haired, Clairol-tinted mother.

    Of course, I don't actually "offer" her to you.  This is no Spring Clearance Sale, buddy.  It's just a figure of speech.

    Years ago, my mother told me: "No sensible woman would ever come between her son and his wife."

    Then, cradling my head in her arms, she assured me:  "No matter what she does to you, I'll stay out of it."

    This made me immediately leery of what my wife was planning to do to me.  But I'll say one thing for mother, she never interfered.

    All she ever did was write letters that she caught me on TV, that I looked wan, and that she wondered if I was being systematically starved to death.  And, you know?  It makes you think.  I carry quite a bit of insurance.

    But that isn't why I asked you all to be here.  Today, I want to take up the little discussion problem of father-in-laws.  Or, fathers-in-law.  Or, to simplify things, my father-in-law.

    He, without running the risk of ever becoming a cartoon character, manages to be just as insidious as a mother-in-law.

Feb. 8, 1960, Finch Trial    If the kids hit me for a half dollar to go to the movies, he clucks sadly, and murmurs: "When I was a youngster, I was glad to get a nickel for a picture show."

    If I let them stay up past bedtime to watch such educational television as Jack Paar, he shakes his head and warns that I am spoiling them rotten.  If they don't hang up their clothes or make their beds (and they don't), he mutters about the dangers of today's inadequate parental supervision.

Ingratiates Himself

     Oddly enough, the kids have the delusion that they like him.  He has a reputation for being "handy."  He can attach a remote control box to  a set of electric trains, put together a kite, blow up a football and mend a broken spoke in the wheel of a bike.  As you know,  I have more important things on my mind.

    Consequently, he has sneakily replaced me as a father image to my own, fickle children.  And it's gone right to his head.

    He is clearly convinced that my interference in their upbringing is bound to turn them into latter-day Dalton Boys.

    And while I wouldn't mention it to him, I'll tell you.  I'd like to know what he's got to be proud about.

    I mean, a man who raised a daughter so emotionally mixed-up that she would try to systematically starve her husband to death.

Posted in #courts, Caryl Chessman, Columnists, Front Pages, Homicide | Comments Off on Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Feb. 8, 1960

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

 Feb. 8, 1946, Hedda hopper 

 

Feb. 8, 1946: Hedda Hopper writes, "Twentieth is readying 'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir' for Rex Harrison's next."

Posted in Film, Hollywood | 1 Comment

UCLA’s Larry Brown

 Feb. 8, 1980, Bruins 
Feb. 8, 1980, Bruins

Feb. 8, 1980, Bruins 
Feb. 8, 1980, Bruins

 

Feb. 8, 1980:  Mike Littwin writes,  “On a scale of 1 to 10 for unpredictability, Larry Brown's brief tenure as UCLA basketball coach already rates a Bo Derek.

"For two reasons. First, although UCLA assumed its usual high profile in the preseason polls, Brown's Bruins have lost with unusual, almost unprecedented, regularity. Second, and more surprising, Brown is not only surviving but thriving.”

The next year, Brown left UCLA for the Nets and was replaced by Larry Farmer, "a product of the John Wooden championship years and a survivor of three head coaching changes," The Times said.

Posted in Sports | Comments Off on UCLA’s Larry Brown

Dared to Shoot Herself, Wife Kills Husband

Feb. 8, 1960, Killing
Feb. 8, 1960, Killing

Feb. 8, 1960, Finch Trial 
 

Feb. 8, 1960: Frank D. Brill's last words, "Use your gun. I haven't any use for you. You haven't guts enough to shoot."

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Los Angeles Speedway to Open

Feb. 8, 1920, Los Angeles Speedway
Feb. 8, 1920, Los Angeles Speedway
 
Feb. 8, 1920, Los Angeles Speedway

 

A gas station occupies the spot where the track's gateway used to be.

Feb. 8, 1920: The Los Angeles Speedway is about to open at Pico Boulevard and Beverly Drive. The property was sold in 1923 to be subdivided after the February 1924 races. Another Los Angeles Speedway was active in the 1930s next to the municipal airport, and a still another opened at 182nd Street and Vernon Avenue in 1957.

Posted in Architecture, Sports, Transportation | Comments Off on Los Angeles Speedway to Open

Skeletal Remains Partially Identified

Feb. 8, 1910, Incest 

David Dougherty and Frances Young are arrested in Bloomington, Ill, on charges of defying the orders of a Nebraska court by living as man and wife, even though they are uncle and niece.

Feb. 8, 1910, Skeleton 
 

Feb. 8, 1910: A skeleton found on Mt. Tamalpais may be a young woman known as “Dutch” who had been a student in a hair salon. 

Posted in #courts, Homicide | Comments Off on Skeletal Remains Partially Identified

Jim Murray on the Olympics

Feb. 7, 1980, Jim Murray 

Feb. 7, 1980, Jim Murray
 

Feb. 7, 1980: Jim Murray writes, “The International Olympic Committee is a body of men made up largely of dukes and earls and lords and millionaires who look at the world through monocles, probably because they do not want to see more than they can justify. Their greatest talent is keeping a straight face.”

Posted in #Jim Murray, Columnists, Sports | Comments Off on Jim Murray on the Olympics

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Feb. 7, 1945, Hedda Hopper

 

Feb. 7, 1945: Hedda Hopper says John Wayne is replacing Robert Taylor in “They Were Expendable,” based on a book by W.L. White.

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

Through the Lens – Finch Trial

March 5, 1960, Finch Trial 
Photograph by John Malmin / Los Angeles Times

March 5, 1960: Court Clerk Mel La Valley shows items from the so-called murder kit in the Finch trial. I wonder if John Malmin put a light in the briefcase to get what news photographers of the 1940s and ’50s sometimes called “criminal light.”

Barbara Jean Finch

I haven’t been able to find any photos of murder victim Barbara Jean Finch. The Times evidently didn’t publish any images of her. I enlarged this detail from Malmin’s photo. She certainly lived in terror before she was killed.

Feb. 7, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 7, 1960: Gene Blake summarizes Dr. R. Bernard Finch’s testimony and sets the stage for next week’s proceedings.

Posted in #courts, Homicide, Photography | 2 Comments

The Complicated Geometry of the Eternal Triangle

 
Feb. 7, 1920, Briggs
“That Guiltiest Feeling,” by Clare Briggs.

Feb. 7, 1920, Married Teacher
 

Feb. 7, 1920: Talk about complicated. Schoolteacher Frieda C. Boehncke was in love with Phillip Eicholz but discovered he was married. Eicholz's wife sued Boehncke for $2,500 that her husband evidently gave her. The judge ruled the money was a gift. Boehncke did repay a $200, however.

Posted in #courts, Comics | Comments Off on The Complicated Geometry of the Eternal Triangle

Rancher Killed Outside Old Mission Winery

Feb. 7, 1910, Auto Show
The 1910 auto show is coming Feb. 19!

 Feb. 7, 1910, Killing 
 

Feb. 7, 1910: The story about the shooting of William Moss outside the Old Mission Winery  could have come out of the Old West, for it refers to a horse and wagon, ranching and a blacksmith shop. It’s a striking contrast with the recent coverage of airplanes at the Aviation Meet and even the upcoming auto show. The early 20th century is an acquired taste, but I find it a fascinating period.

William Manriguez was eventually charged with killing Moss, but The Times never reported the outcome of the trial. He was described as an even-tempered laborer who blamed the slaying on being drunk. “Booze did it. I wish there was not a drop on earth,” he said.

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Matt Weinstock, Feb. 6, 1960

  Feb. 6, 1960, Abby

Call of Wilds Fades

Matt Weinstock     A year ago, at infrequent intervals, seven quail used to fly into my yard and stride about in their chesty manner, scratch around like chickens and after awhile take off.  One would come first to scout the area to insure their safety, then the others would follow.  They were a delight to watch.   

    Six months ago there were five, a month ago three.

    Yesterday there was the shrill, mournful cry of the quail again.  Soon one bird flew down.  Ah, I thought, the scout.  But he sat alone on the ground for half an hour, then took off.  He'd been calling to his mates, but apparently they're no longer around.  He looked very sad and lonely.

    Meanwhile, the bulldozers continue to rip away the brush in the nearby hills.

::

Feb. 6, 1960, Guantanamo     THE UPROAR is still reverberating among basketball fans over the mammoth traffic freeze in the rain on Figueroa St. before the pro game Monday night in the Sports Arena.  It took 45 minutes to get from Exposition to Santa Barbara Blvd., about three blocks.

    Explanation for the tie-up is that the Central traffic division takes over policing of sports events with full staff only when attendance reaches 25,000.  Otherwise University division, with an inadequate force, handles it.  Attendance Monday was 10,202.

::


    WHEN
Atty. Gen. Stanley Mosk got up to say a few words at a big gathering a few days ago he observed, "I've been noticing how short the introductions are.  I think we owe our thanks for this to Eva Marie Saint!"  Brought down the house.

::

    TV SPECTER
That actors view upcoming
    youth
With jaundiced eyes, is
    known;
But never before have they
    been haunted
By a youth that is their
    own.
        William Baffa

::

    AT REGULAR intervals a suburban country club holds family night, a feature of which is a $100 cash prize drawing.  Members' names are placed in a hat, someone pulls one out, and the winner is announced.  At a recent drawing the emcee looked at the first name pulled and said, "We'll have to draw another."  This was done.  Afterward, to those who were curious, he explained that the first name drawn had been that of an absent member, Dr. R. Bernard Finch.

::

    IT WAS TOLD to Stu Galbraith as having happened in a Hollywood saloon during the mid-afternoon lull.

    A stranger came in and asked the bartender what was good for hiccups.  The bartender said nothing, then whirled and slapped the fellow in the face with the bar rag.  The fellow bellowed, mayhem in his attitude.  But the bartender, soothed, "See, your hiccups are gone."

    "Not me!"  the stranger screamed, "my wife, out in the car!"

::


    FRIEDA'S PLACE
on Hawthorne Blvd., which features strippers, advertises, "Have fun every night except Monday."  Walt Hackett, the perverse print shop poet, was so inspired by this line that he came up with this couplet.

    Monday's child is glum and blue,

    Why not?  He has no burlyque.

::


        THE CONDITION
which prevails in movie theaters was pointed up the other night when Henry Lewis, the literary agent, attended a sobby double feature, "Imitation of Life" and "Written on the Wind."

    During the intermission between pictures, while a Bugs Bunny cartoon was shown, the manager appeared in the lobby where Lewis and others were having a smoke, and said, "Better get back inside, folks, it's the only laugh you'll get all night."

::


    SOMEONE
at Hughes Aircraft thinks the world should know that an upcoming talk by Dr. Richard Bellman of the Rand Corp. is titled, "Are Non-Linear Differential Equations Here to Stay or Has Success Spoiled Mathematical Physics?"

    To put it another way, have you etoain shrdlued lately?

    Feb. 6, 1960, Nixon   

 

Posted in Columnists, Politics, Richard Nixon | Comments Off on Matt Weinstock, Feb. 6, 1960

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Feb. 6, 1960

Feb. 6, 1960, Mirror Cover  
[Wow! Now there’s an ugly layout. I guess Mr. Modular had the day off – lrh]

Mash Notes and Comment

Paul Coates    (PRESS RELEASE) "TV HELP FOR DENTISTS . . . Dentists soon may be using a television camera for inspecting their patients' mouths, declares Electronics,McGraw-Hill publication.

    "The camera in a prototype closed-circuit TV system has a lens located at the end of a probing cable and permits a distortion-free, magnified image of any part of a patient's mouth."  (signed) McGraw-Hill Pub. Co., N.Y.

    -Look, Doc!  There behind the left lower bicuspid.  Isn't that John Gunther?

::

    "Paul–

    "I had to appear on Don Sherwood's TV show. Lana Turner's double from a new picture was on the same show with me.

    "I got 20 bucks and my gas.

    Paul, my wife kicked me out again last night.  I've had it with her.

Feb. 6, 1960, Finch Trial     "So I went over to my old girl friend's house to sleep on her couch.  She wasn't home and I got hungry while I was trying to fall asleep.

    "So I went to her ice box and got a can of tuna out of it and I made myself a sandwich.  Paul, it tasted kind of funny.

    "I took another look at the label on the tuna can:  I thought it was tuna.  But it was cat food I had ate.

    "I did not feel too good thinking about it, but I did not get sick.  I just laid back down on the couch and went to sleep.

    "Pretty soon my old girl friend and her new boy friend came in and woke me up.  I told them I had ate a cat food sandwich from the ice box.  That's what I get for going into other people's ice boxes.

    "Paul, that cat food has a funny taste.   But it isn't so bad.  You could get used to it, if you had to."  (Signed) Arnold "Parkey" Sharkey, 2077 Bay Road East, Palo Alto.

    –I don't know, Arnold.  I'm a pretty finicky eater.  Even dog biscuits give me heartburn.

::

    "Dear Paul–

Feb. 6, 1960, Black History Month     "I have been out here eight years now and have followed you off-on throughout the entire period.

    "Frankly I thought that on the program of the early fifties you roughed up Zsa Zsa a little unnecessarily.  As I saw it the woman had a beautiful head — and attachments — but it was in the natural law and order of thing that her head would be filled with fluff.  Kapok, if you will.  Why rouse Sleeping Beauties other than with a kiss?  I am sorry, but as I saw it Hungarian goulash was not you dish."  (Signed) Drew Smith, 23869 Long Valley Rd.,Calabasas, Calif.

    –That gives me heartburn, too.

::

    "Dear Paul–

    "I've put off writing this letter for a long time, but the time has come to act.

    "Why must you forever be messing up your Saturday column with Parkey Sharkey letters?  I wonder just how many other faithful readers find his letters such a bore.

    "I read such interesting columns all week and find it a dreadful let down on Saturday to find that you've devoted all or most all of your space to this character.

    "It's come to a point where I glance over the Saturday column to see which letters are signed 'Parkey Sharkey.'  These I won't waste my time on.  The others, signed by semi-sensible, semi-sane individuals I read.  And your answers are very good.

    "If you don't feel like writing a  column on Saturday, or you don't get any interesting letters to print, just put a notice in the paper saying you're sick."  (Signed) Mrs. Linda Salgren, 219 Common, La Puente.

    –I am a little sick.  I just read Parkey's latest letter.   

Feb. 6, 1960, Anti-Catholic

[Christianity Today editorializes against a Catholic president. Although the editorial did not mention any candidates, the implication of Sen. John F. Kennedy (D-Mass.) was clear. –lrh]
   

Posted in #courts, Columnists, Front Pages, Homicide, JFK, Politics, Religion | Comments Off on Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Feb. 6, 1960

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Movie Columnist

Feb. 6, 1944, Hedda Hopper
Feb. 6, 1944, Hedda Hopper 

Feb. 6, 1944: Hedda Hopper profiles Louis Mayer, who was marking 20 years at MGM. Notice that she mentions Selig’s studio on Mission. And she says she was in Mayer's first picture, “Virtuous Wives.”

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

Mrs. Finch’s Dying Words: ‘I’m Sorry’

Feb. 3, 1960, Bernard Finch 
Photograph by John Malmin / Los Angeles Times

Feb. 3, 1960: Dr. R. Bernard Finch and defense lawyer Grant B. Cooper

Feb. 6, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 6, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 6, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 6, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 6, 1960, Finch Trial

Feb. 6, 1960: The Times keeps the Finch case off the front page. Barbara Jean Finch supposedly said: "I'm sorry, I should have listened … Don't leave me … Take care of the kids."

Posted in #courts, Homicide | 1 Comment